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Experiences with SA 8300 HD Cable box? (1 Viewer)

Sam Posten

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I have a few Q's if so!

Three quick issues:

1. Is there anyway to go faster than the 'hit fast forward 3x' to go through a recorded program? For something like a football game to get to the last 15 minutes, this really sucks.

2. Said football game lasted longer than the couple of our block I set it to record on, I dont suppose there is any way to compensate for this in the future is there?

3. My cable company has set up 'HBO on demand' which I can download all the HBO I want from their library for free, which I thought was pretty sweet. However, 20 minutes into fiddling with this feature it locked up on one of the selection screens, and wont respond to it. I can still change to other channels of course, but nothing on-demand will work. I pulled the plug and will replug in in the morning and see if it clears it up, but wondering if its just a buggy box or if I did something wrong.

Also, I have tagged a few channels as my favorites, how do I get to my favorite channels the fastest?

Sam
 

Tim Jin

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1. You can fast forward by 15 minutes. Once you push the fast forward button, just push the right arrow key and it will skip through at every 15 minutes.

2. You can extend the recording by 1 minute up to 3 hours. After you select a show or a game that you want to record, go to the DVR menu and to to that show that you have scheduled for recording, select that show and you should see another menu that will let you choose recording options.

3. OnDemand is buggy for me also. I don't use it.

4. There should be a favorite button on your remote.
 

Mike Frezon

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Hey gang!

I just picked one of these units up from my local cable company to replace an HD converter box that fried during a recent power outage. It's not even hooked-up yet!

Here's my main question. I've got a DVD Recorder that has component video inputs (Philips DVDR615). What should I expect by way of quality if I run the component outs of the DVR to the component ins of the DVD Recorder? What's the best I can hope for? Seems to me like it might kick butt.

I'm asking because currently I have my DVD-Recorder hooked up in a separate location from my home theater...because it's main use has been the dubbing of old home movie videos (from Beta & vhs). So, I've got it set up with some VCRs in an "undisclosed location" so I can just set it up and walk away and not have it interfere with the HT operation. I am also using the DVD Recorder, though, for some off-air taping (I DO have a cable line running to it). If the results of the component-to-component hook-up would be drastically improved over the current standard-def off-air recording I'm doing now...I would seriously reconsider my current set-up! :D

Boy! I had to watch 24 this week on an SP-recorded VHS tape that was made at my dad's house (off his rabbit ears antenna!) because of the aforementioned power outage. The horror! It looked awful! How'd we ever make it through the last few decades? :laugh:

Thanks!
 

Joseph DeMartino

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Yeah, you can hit the "stop" button and return to the menu for that recording. One of the options is "skip to the end" which does just that. Then you can rewind from the end rather than FF fron the start. Much faster.

Regards,

Joe
 

Mike Frezon

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Do any of you video guys know what I might expect in this scenario I painted a couple of posts ago?



I am quickly to the point where I much prefer recording now directly onto DVD rather than VHS. But even though my main DVD player is a rather antique Toshiba 1600, I much prefer its playback controls/remote to the Philips DVDR615. BUT, if I could get some kind of great recording from the HD/5.1 signal provided by the 8300, I would be very tempted to move the Philips into my main HT.

Can anyone walk me through the specifics of the transfer specs? Thanks.
 

Joseph DeMartino

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The best DVD is going to do is 480p, which you might get from the component outputs of your HD box. That is almost certainly better than SD broadcast signal you're getting off your cable box, so I would think it would be a definite improvement.

Copy protection schemes incorporated into HD boxes prevent direct digital-to-digital transfers of recordings so you have to output analog and have your recorder redigitize the image. (My old TiVo's TiVo2Go feature let me transfer recordings between players or to my PC for editing and DVD burning, but that was strictly SD stuff and I had to drop TiVo when I went HD.)

Depending on the quality of your equipment you should get anywhere from a good to a "very-good-bordering-on-commercial" 480p DVD.

Regards,

Joe
 

Mike Frezon

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Joe:

Thanks for responding! :emoji_thumbsup:

That does sound pretty good. I would also be getting a true 16:9 picture, too, wouldn't I? Even though it wouldn't be HD.



I noticed an option when playing back a recording called "To copy onto VCR" (or something close to that). Is that what you mean by "outputting analog and having the DVD-Recorder re-digitize the image"? I would have figured I could have just queued up the program I wanted to record, hit play, and send the signal to the DVD-Recorder.
 

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