Time-Warner Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8300 HD-DVR "480p" Software Update

I'm not 100% sure, but I think there has been a software upgrade over the last couple of days Time-Warner's Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8300 HD-DVR that has actually been an IMPROVEMENT.

You see, I have a REALLY old HDTV. It is a tube-based Zenith. It is 4 X 3. I bought it back when there was VERY little HD programming. It has no tuner. It's only HD input is a single set of component jacks that can digest 480p, 720p, and 1080i. That's right - no 480i. What the heck were they thinking when they made my TV?

Now, when I first got the infamous "OCAP" box, after I messed with the settings (Settings/Display/Output Resolution), I called up customer service and I asked them, "Say ... can you change the firmware on this box so that when the source of the channel is 480i that it will pump a 480p signal out the component lines?" Of course I don't think the front line customer service person I was talking to knew what the hell I was talking about, but maybe she did shoot off an email to a higher-up because that's EXACTLY the way the thing works now.

Now, this would only apply if you have an older HDTV that is actually 4 X 3, but what you do is go to Settings, then Display, the Output Resolution and then check JUST the "1080i" and "480i" settings. If you go to, say, Time-Warner Channel 948, WCET's HD channel, your TV (if it's similar to mine) will AUTOMATICALLY switch to 1080i. Then if you switch back to, say, Time-Warener Channel 49, MSNBC, your TV will switch to 480p. Now, of course MSNBC's native signal is 480i, but - wow - I'm thinking that the signal is pretty much digital all the way up to the component lines, so those reds are SPECTACULAR - ALMOST HDTV stable.

So pretty much now the only input I have for my composite (RCA) lines is my DVD player.

Of course what's a bit of a pain is the fact that good contrast / brightness settings for the component lines is not as good for the composite lines, so every time I watch a DVD I'm going to have to start messing with that.

Yes, my friends, I am in DIRE need of a new TV ...

And If Any Of You ARE Thinking Of Buying Me A TV: :)

New Theory on Time-Warner Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8300 HD-DVR Problems

Someone left a comment on my post about the problems we've been having with the Time-Warner Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8300 HD-DVR box.

Now this person claims to have been a "cable guy" for years and says that the symptoms we've been having - mostly the lag and the frequent reboots - are attributable to there being no "two-way" - in other words that the cable C.O. can't hear my box.

This person seems to be proposing that the cabling within the house needs replaced.

Interesting idea - and it may have some merit.

However - as problematic as they can be on other issues, Time-Warner's system has been interactive since it first came into town in the early 1980's. RoadRunner, for the most part, has worked absolutely perfectly. In fact, at this very moment, a SpeedTest.Net run over to PowerNet Global shows a download speed of 8643 kb/s and and upload speed of 721 kb/s.

Sounds like the cable C.O. can hear us alright.

Add to that the fact that the "old" HD-DVR worked FINE.

No ... there's just something flaky about these new "OCAP" boxes.

And/or maybe the fellow is onto something ... maybe it's not so much that the C.O. can't hear the box, but maybe the servers are somehow not responding in a timely fashion on their end ...

Time-Warner Granted Ohio Statewide Video-Service Authorization

Well, I'm not 100% sure what this MEANS, but apparently Time-Warner has been granted a 10-year Video-Service Authorization for the State of Ohio as of 12/14/2007.

AT&T was ALSO granted Ohio Video-Service Authorization on November 7, 2007.

HUH???

I guess this is somehow different from the local franchise agreements. Back in the day, individual municipalities would grant franchises to one (and only one) cable provider and then that community was stuck.

Some hubbub went around a few months back about Ohio going to this state-wide system - a change that was heavily lobbied for by AT&T, but now I am WAY confused as it looks like both AT&T and Time-Warner now have these Ohio Video-Service Authorizations.

Apparently there were some consumer protections built into the law - including a requirement that provicers restore service within 72 hours of a service interruption or other problem.

Well, I'd have to say some of this bizarre behavior from the Scientific Atlanta 8300 box constitutes a "problem", so I'm wondering if I can call the state on them now.

Eight additional companies have also applied for authorization - including Cincinnati Bell. Seeing the way they handle Fuse and Zoomtown I am REALLY afraid.

Of some concern also is that Hamilton County doesn't seem to be on the list for either AT&T OR Time-Warner.

Now, can anyone explain to me what the deal was with this thing? I thought the whole STATE was going to be franchised to a single company ...

Severe Problems With Time-Warner Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8300 HD-DVR?

As I alluded to in the E.R. 300 Patients post, there is a SERIOUS problem with Time-Warner's new Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8300 HD-DVR.

Now, I had an HD-DVR from Time-Warner back when they first came out. Now, mind you, an HD-DVR IS a pretty complicated device. Back then they wouldn't even let you install the thing yourself - a technician had to come out, and, for starters, chastise you thoroughly about making sure that you had it set up in a place where it could get enough air.

However, the vast majority of the time, the old one WORKED. It would usually pick up MORE than you wanted - for instance on a channel like National Geographic that doesn't have a separate West Coast feed, usually, say, if there were a show on that you wanted to record at 8pm, it would also pick up the West Coast feed at 11pm, but, aside from that, it was pretty reliable.

Well, over the spring and summer, Mrs. Axinar and I weren't really here all that much, so we took the cable box back and downgraded.

Then, as autumn rolled around, our schedules reduced quite a bit and we knew we were going to be home more so I called Time Warner and asked them what kind of specials they had going on.

I knew what they offered me was probably too good to be true.

Pretty much for what we were paying for "cable ready" plus 5 Mbit/sec RoadRunner, they gave us an HD-DVR, "HD Tier", Cinemax and 8.5 Mbit/sec RoadRunner.

Of course, in life, there is no free lunch.

This box is haunted.

I knew there was trouble when it first booted up.

I saw this caption come across the front of the box that said "OCAP". I had never seen that on the old box.

Then I saw some logos including "Java" - yikes - on a computer that would be fine - on a cable box I'm thinking that might be a little dicey.

Then I see "Mystro" and this countdown from L-13 to L-1 that took a LOOOOOOOONG time.

Now, they warned me when I first got the thing that it might take a whole day for all the patches to download.

Now, this would be no different than trying to download all the Windows XP patches all that once, but I think most of us as used to a little smoother "out of box" experience with a cable tuner than with a computer.

Now, if the f*ck*ng thing had worked after a whole day worth of downloading patches I wouldn't have minded, but it didn't go that smoothly.

Usually what happens is that it starts freaking out late at night. Like Thursday night it was having some sort of brain freeze and missed recording a very pivotal episode of E.R.

It also sometimes will go completely black when you try to tune to something innocuous like CNBC and it seems like the only thing that will get it working again is to unplug it for 30 seconds, then plug it back in and let it go through its 5+ MINUTE reboot routine.

Mrs. Axinar got so sick of it she started calling customer service herself.

One of the customer service people said she had one of the newer boxes herself and has had nothing but trouble with it.

I personally watched it reboot by itself THREE TIMES late on Thursday night going into Friday when I was up with my cold from hell.

Time-Warner even had a message up on their customer service line over the weekend that said, "If you are getting a message saying that you haven't subscribed to a basic channel, please unplug your box, etc., etc. ..."

Mrs. Axinar really gave them the business this morning but they are really not offering any solutions.

I'm somewhat at a loss as to what to try as they are pretty much only charging me what they would for the "cable ready" service and slower RoadRunner, but I wish to God they would get their act together and issue a box that actually WORKS.

After all, we are talking about quite probably the LAST episodes of E.R. EVER coming up here - to say nothing of the last season of Battlestar Galactica starting up here fairly soon ...

Time-Warner Cable HD-DVR Service Review

So, as some of you may know, the new season of ER is starting on this upcoming Thursday. Neela (Parminder Nagra) is brought into the E.R. with very severe injuries after having been trampled at an anti-war rally.

Needless to say I want to try to see this in HD.

Now, I suppose I could have taken a look around for a stand-alone HD tuner to go with my wicked ancient 27" Zenith tube HDTV that didn't even come with an internal ATSC tuner, but I thought I would call Time-Warner and see what they could set me up with.

I must have hit them on a good day because they hit me up with a Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8300 HD-DVR, Cinemax for a year, and "RoadRunner Turbo" (currently clocking at 7.6 Mbps through SpeedTest.Net) for a year for only $2/mo. more than what I was paying for "cable ready" and the "regular" RoadRunner.

Now, mind you, like I said, I have an ANCIENT Zenith 27" tube HDTV. No HDMI port. So, basically what I have to do is run a set of component cables from the Scientific Atlanta box to my HD component ports and then run a separate set of composite cables so I can watch SD without a case of "tunnel vision".

Now, you want to talk about something REALLY frustrating - at first I couldn't get the HD side to work at all. I switched over to the analog lines and got customer service on the phone and told them I couldn't get the HD lines to work. Now, Time-Warner's customer service has improved tremendously of late. I put in one of those "call back" requests and they called back in about six minutes. They walked me through the "Settings" menu and, sure enough, this Scientific Atlanta box was pumping 480i through my HD lines and my Zenith can't handle 480i through the HD lines. The Scientific Atlanta box DID however have a 480p setting and 480p is DA BOMB on a small 4 X 3 HDTV. UNFORTUNATELY the damn thing has NO autodetect mechanism. Unless you go into "Settings" and DISABLE the 1080i, what happens is that if you're watching an SD channel, all four sides of top, bottom, left, and right are cut off - and then God forbid what's on the SD channel is in wide screen.

But what was really bizarre about this particular installation is that it took a LONG time for all the software to download properly. When I first connected the box it rebooted TWICE right from the get-go. If you disconnect the box from the AC line and then reconnect it, it goes through this wicked bizarre 5+ minute reboot process where the front of the box says "OCAP" and the screen starts prattling on about the fact that it's running Java.

Well, of course if Java is involved you KNOW you probably have some powerful capabilities involved but at the price of the thing being SLOW.

Now, mind you, the fellow at the Time-Warner office who gave me the box warned me something to the effect it might take a full 24 hours for the program guide to load all the way, but he didn't really mention much about the software taking so long to download.

Next problem was that the thing didn't seem to realize it was a DVR at first. The program guide actually did come up pretty quickly, but when I went to set it to record Star Trek: Remastered last night, there were no commands to "record" - only "set reminder". The "record" command didn't come up until about an hour later.

Pausing live TV didn't work at first either. They actually set me up with an appointment for one of their tech's to come out and look at that one. But, again, within an hour or so, that function started working as well.

The Star Trek: Remastered episode DID record last night. It was Conscience of the King, which I think has been on already, but it demonstrated that the DVR worked. Of course I had to record an hour or so on either side of the scheduled times because, although the show was not (wait for it, Dean) JIP'ed as it was so many times last season, it rolled VERY late due to a ball game of some sort running late earlier in the evening.

When I started playing back Conscience of the King I didn't get the little scroll bar that said how much was left of the show - rather some erroneous program guide information. Very strange.

I called Time-Warner customer service again about 4pm this afternoon.

I suppose as evidence of how much everyone was wrapped up in the variuos football games, they answered my call IMMEDIATELY.

I nearly fainted.

I asked the young lady (no, I have no idea if she was "exotic" or anything at all about her sexual habits, Dean) on the other end of the phone if she could fix it so the "progress bar" would come up on something I was watching on the DVR.

She had me disconnect and re-connect the box again.

About five minutes later everything appeared to be working properly.

Let me tell you ... all these switches, lights, and knobs are getting downright exhausting.

Yes, I would have probably switched to DirecTV years ago but there's a nice thatch of HUGE trees between where I would have to put the dish and where the DirecTV satellites are in the sky. That and satellite-based broadband service is HELLA expensive.

Oh - also - on every single call I made to Time-Warner customer service from the first one asking how much it would be to add the HD-DVR until the last one where I had to reboot to get my progress bar working again, they put the bite on me to add their home phone service. I think on the last call they offered it to me for $35/mo. (I presume before taxes and whatnot.)

Unfortunately none of my phone jacks are close enough to any of my cable jacks to try to hook up my existing phone wires to my broadband router. Now I HAVE thought about putting a cordless base near my router and just doing it that way, but, unfortunately I DO like this idea of having a phone line that will usually work during a power outage.

I wonder if there are any competitive local phone service carriers that can actually tie in at the C.O.

But, in any case ... it was a pretty involved install, but everything does seem to be working. They just maybe need to work on some sort of way to "image" these convertors so that a person has a better "out of box" experience I tell you ...

9/26/07 Follow-Up:
The box DID reboot again this afternoon for some reason.

Looks like all the functions are working okay though - with the exception that I can't seem to find the control for "prioritizing" series recordings ...