I agree with you, Motorola makes excellent products. I was just anticipating much more than this from SHAW and am discouraged. Maybe we can get some 'big picture' changes made by making deliberate choices with the money we spend. AKA. Grey.

Here we are, poised to spike straight up with HD. We have a national cable company (CBC) with an unlimited publicly funded budget and no Olympic HD coverage.

We have a governing body for television broadcasting (CRTC) that seems to have been created by some communist elitist government that just won't go away or change regardless of how much 'we the people' complain.

We have one company that dictates pretty much all television broadcasting in one form or another in this country (BCE).

Then we have the cable companies whos hands are tied with regulations.

Right... I shouldn't complain. I should just suck it up like you. How many kicks are you willing to take while you lie there?

"" Force change by where you spend your money !!!""

is there a moderator in the house?

I followed the instructions here (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=403695) to hook up my PC to the IEEE 1394 port on the 6208. When I try to record with CapDVHS, I get the error message: "Error 80040217: Cannot connect SampleGrabber"

Any suggestions?

And for all the complaining you do and apparently all the analog watching too, just flip to your TV tuner...

Ditto that remark . Is there anyone that you don't complain about researchboy. Do some research and use your analog tuner.

is there a moderator in the house?

Please tone down the rehetoric. I have not been following this thread but if you have issues then please feel free to PM me or one of the moderators. Debate is fine and encouraged but lets keep to the topic of the thread.

Hugh

Sorry Gauss I don't have one to try helping you out - I'm just very interested and am following all the news closely.

All I was saying Research is to complain to those deserving of it; the gov't and the CRTC - absolutely. But in this case Shaw did well to get the I-Guide out so soon and their locked with Motorola for a long time so they get what they can. But I agree with Hugh - back to topic!

Hi All

I just had my 6208 hooked up yesterday, I am new to digital cable and new to Shaw having been a Starchoice customer before. So I have a few questions:

1. Is it possible to record a previously recorded program directly to a DVD recroder? I would like to archive some programs to DVD if possilble.

2. Yesterday I had set up to record a program that started a 1/2 hour later when the time came I was watching a different channel so a message popped up asking if I wanted to change channels and record or cancel the recording. My question is if I am not around when I have a program set to record and I have left the DVR on a different channel will it still record?

3. My harddrive makes the regular whirring noises which I don't find too bad, but sometimes it makes a repeating clicking sound which can be annoying. Have other people noticed this or is my drive unusally noisy?

4. How is the video/audio quality of the PPV movies? Are they DD5.1? Is it worth it or should I just rent from the local video store?

That's it for now, so far I am very pleased with my purchase especially since they gave me $400 to trade in my Starchoice receiver!

Thanks in advance

I picked up my 6208 on Tuesday and got her all hooked up. I'm very impressed with HDTV now. I would have responded earlier, but I wanted to catch up and read the posts I missed while on vacation.

I really think the flaws aren't that bad and I can live with them.

The 3 second channel change is ok with me. I use the guide instead of flipping through channels anyways. Furthest I've flipped through is from 301 to 306 before.

The quality of analog TV through the component is horrible, but I wasn't expecting a high quality 3D comb filter in the box, so I've kept the coax cable connected to the TV so I can switch the inputs when watching Analog. I find even SD digital channels better through the coax too. S-Video might be better, but I'm too lazy to hook up a 3rd connection from the cable box to the TV.

On the programming side of things, I was a bit dissapointed to see both ABC and CBS showing so much programming in 4:3 with the bars on the side, but yesterday I found the stretch modes still work in HD, so I could fill the screen. The bigger problem, but hopefully temporary, is the lack of the guide info on 302. There are a number of programs I was hoping to watch on there and the lack of a guide disturbs me. I found the program listings for the next week or so on canada.com and I'll have to hope shaw will fix it soon.

All in all, very happy with the box. Now, MORE CHANNELS PLEASE!

1. Is it possible to record a previously recorded program directly to a DVD recroder? I would like to archive some programs to DVD if possilble.

2. Yesterday I had set up to record a program that started a 1/2 hour later when the time came I was watching a different channel so a message popped up asking if I wanted to change channels and record or cancel the recording. My question is if I am not around when I have a program set to record and I have left the DVR on a different channel will it still record?

3. My harddrive makes the regular whirring noises which I don't find too bad, but sometimes it makes a repeating clicking sound which can be annoying. Have other people noticed this or is my drive unusally noisy?

4. How is the video/audio quality of the PPV movies? Are they DD5.1? Is it worth it or should I just rent from the local video store?


Sheesh, good deal on that trade-in you got there, I paid full price for mine...
Anyway, to record to a DVD recorder, you can simply play back a recorded program. I'm not sure what else you were expecting...
I am pretty certain that if you set a recording, and get that warning message while watching another channel, the box changes the channel and starts recording if you don't select to Cancel the recording.
My harddrive makes those noises too. It particularly likes to do that when I turn the box off, so I suspect it is doing a drive thermal recalibration or defragmenting/compacting data or somesuch...
I have always found PPV quality to be severely inferior to renting a DVD, particularly since the PPVs I have seen have all been fullscreen mode... but I can't specifically answer the audio question.

Greg, the S-Video output for SD channels doesn't look much better than the component. I do find that the DVI output looks a bit better but scary enough, the coax does look the best for SD.

Sheesh, good deal on that trade-in you got there, I paid full price for mine...
Anyway, to record to a DVD recorder, you can simply play back a recorded program. I'm not sure what else you were expecting...
I am pretty certain that if you set a recording, and get that warning message while watching another channel, the box changes the channel and starts recording if you don't select to Cancel the recording.
My harddrive makes those noises too. It particularly likes to do that when I turn the box off, so I suspect it is doing a drive thermal recalibration or defragmenting/compacting data or somesuch...
I have always found PPV quality to be severely inferior to renting a DVD, particularly since the PPVs I have seen have all been fullscreen mode... but I can't specifically answer the audio question.
Thanks for the reply.

What I'm wondering about recording specifically is if you can record via the component outputs to a DVD recorder or if you have to use the SVideo or what. This is really more a function of the DVD recorder but I thought someone here might know.

As for the drive noise mine only makes it while it's on recording a program (which is all the time) it's really a short grinding noise that occurs every second or so but it comes and goes. I'll leave it for a few days to see if it gets better or worse but I would hate to have to return it because my box seems to have decent analog output and the channel changes seem better than what some posters are complaining about.

Lego

What I'm wondering about recording specifically is if you can record via the component outputs to a DVD recorder or if you have to use the SVideo or what.
There are no component video inputs on any consumer recording device, therefore the answer is no to the CV, yes to the S-video.

See the FAQ on "Recording HD".

http://www.digitalhomecanada.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=57

I got home tonight and a weird thing happened on my 6208. I flipped from an SD channel to HD channels. I was on 306 and was trying to go down by hitting the down channel button. It didn't react. I had this happen before so I just waited expecting it to just go down when it came out of its locked up mode.

It didn't. It proceeded to reset itself completely. Lost all the programming guide information.

Talked to a service rep about it. He reset it from his end again and told me to keep an eye on it. IF it does it again he suggests either taking it back to A&B to exchange it or calling them and booking an appointment but that would take a couple of days.

I also mentioned the 25 to 30 second delay on the PB channel. It was the first time he had heard of this problem and I noted that many people had the same problem only really on that channel.

Here's hoping we don't have duds.

I definately miss having the 30 sec commercial skip that the bell pvr has.
Another thing I miss, is that if you're watching a show, you can rewind it up to an hour and start recording from that point. On the 6208 if you rewind it and hit record, it takes you back to the live part and records from there. That sucks IMHO, quite often I would be watching a program on my older bell pvr and decide half way through that I'd like to record it from the beginning. And could...not anymore.

I would be watching a program on my older bell pvr and decide half way through that I'd like to record it from the beginning. And could...not anymore.
That would be handy. Like if you were watching a ball game and decided to archive a couple of plays to show someone later. It would be nice to roll back and hit record. I wonder if Motorola accepts emails with suggested software enhancements

I definately miss having the 30 sec commercial skip that the bell pvr has.
I read somewhere on avsforum that the 6208 actually does have a 30 second skip, if you program your fancy learning remote with the appropriate code... but it sounds rather tricky to do.

Is there a link to this topic on the avsforum?

On the 6208 if you rewind it and hit record, it takes you back to the live part and records from there. That sucks
This sounds like a firmware problem (or perhaps you're doing something incorrectly). On the SA8000HD, the unit will record from the moment you tune to that station. If you decide you want to "keep" that programme, you simply hit "record" and everything you've watched is saved (up to an hour or so, and from then on, until the end of the programme).

You, of course, cannot change channels before hitting record, because it'll only record from the time of the last channel change.

Didn't Motorola make the Bell Express Vu PVR? This 6208 is so much slower is most regards.
It's extremely annoying when you rewind as it always stops and starts playing on its own before it reaches the beginning. Especially when you just want to rewind live tv. The closer it gets to the 45 minute mark, it just starts playing on its own early. You have to keep hitting rewind a few times to get to the actual beginning.
Everything about it seems slower, klunkier, and no where new as smooth when executing funtions as my 2 year old Bell PVR. It gets all pixelated. And has quite a few video drop outs when watching HD.
I don't know, I think it might be going back. I just returned a Toshiba DVD recorder with many of the same functions and it worked so much smoother.

Just picked up my 6208 today. A few odd noises, does your unit do the same?

1. The hard drive seems to spin even when the unit is off.
Does your unit do this? Why does it need to stay on?

2. There is another buzzing sound from the rear of the unit.
It could be a fan or some other buzzing item.
Do you get the same sound? (even when unit is off)

Thanks