Edit by 57. It appears from recent posts that a recent firmware change now allows for the PVR to boot without cable being connected, therefor you can watch recorded programming.

Hi,

I am travelling to a cottage that does not have cable. I would like to bring my PVR up to watch the programs that I have recorded.

Is there a chance that I will loose any records if I do this?
Can I hook my PVR up to a TV with no cable input? Will it play ok?

BTW it is a Rogers 8300 HD PVR.

Thanks for any help in advance. :)

Commonly asked question. The answer is no, Rogers does not allow it. Interestingly ExpressVu does.

There is one way, but it may not be practical. The PVR needs to be connected to boot, so if you could connect it to a (large) UPS so that it didn't loose power for the entire trip and then plugged the UPS into an outlet at the cottage, it would work if the power never went out, and as long as the PVR didn't need to be rebooted for any other reason.

As I mentioned, not really practical unless the cottage is pretty close to home and the UPS lasts the entire trip (and you don't mind the UPS' beeping).


When you have time, check out the following post, useful for those new to the forum:

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=57741

Interesting...

But what happens to the clock... can it remain functioning without the clock? When the HDD stops during the night, will the DVR accept coming back ON without at least a clock check from the cable?

Easiest way to test if the unit will continue to function is to unplug the cable, while leaving the unit plugged in. I don't know how long it continues to function, but it does function when the cable line is dropped for a while...

Of course you won't get the usual IPG updates after midnight, etc., but that won't matter since you're not connected and won't be recording. I assume that the unit would update everything once the cable is connected again.

You could plug the UPS into a power inverter in the vehicle. That would keep the unit powered up for any reasonable trip.

Still a bother, but more practical than just running on the UPS battery.

Sorry to bring up this old post but just want to share my recently experiance. It seems at least some of the Rogers PVR does work without cable.

I have been renting a 8300 (non-HD) PVR for few years now and recently decided to purchased one as it was on sale in Future Shop, I bought a 8300HD unit.

After I connected the new unit, I power up the old one and connect it to my TV (no cable) expecting it NOT to works. It was unplugged from both power and cable. Surprisingly, it did.

It shows a message about "Your DVR is now authorized to playback recordings without connect to cable" and I can play all my privious recorded shows.

Sorry if this has been covered elsewhere.

Ron

I assume this is the SD PVR you're talking about and that the HD one will not do this?

Yes, it was the 8300. I didn't try the 8300HD.

I tried just to see if I can finish watching those recorded shows before returning it to Rogers.

Need to unplug the 8300HD today so I gave it a try.

Unit was unplugged from both power and cable for about 30 min to an hour. After connected all equipments back together, I turned on the DVR without connecting to cable, after a while, got the same message that the DVR is now authorized to use without cable.

So both 8300 and 8300HD do work without cable.

Cheers..

Interesting. That was not the case a while back. I guess some more people will have to give this a try since some people were interested in "portability" taking to cottage, etc.

My cable is down this morning - and after I rebooted the PVR, I got the same message and all my saved shows were available to play..

Come to think of it, before we moved into our house, before cable was connected, I was playing recordings off of my 8300HD to make sure my RG6 runs were OK...(since static doesn't really imply a 'good' connection. :))

This is definitely new. I canceled Rogers about seven weeks ago and tried to playback shows (after the cable was disconnected) and could not.

I did this in April...so it wasn't recently or anything. The box was off for probably about 8 or 9 hours prior to taking it to the new place. Strange.

nathan had you rebooted. Typically you could play the recordings with the cable disconnected provided you hadn't rebooted the machine.

Oh yeah, it was the weekend we were moving, so the box was unplugged and moved to the new location where cable wasn't even hooked up at the demarc (or whatever Rogers calls it).

To be honest, I didn't think it would work either, I figured I could use the 'Not authorized' screen as a test to make sure my runs were OK...but I found I could list the shows I recorded and play them.

So right now, if I unplug the cable-cable, and power-off-then-on the box, it shouldn't work?

As painful as it is to be getting a firmware update at 6pm instead of being able to watch the news I will get to watch recorded programming without a cable connection according to one of the screens that displayed after one of my reboots.. I just wish this would hurry up or happen at 3am.. or better yet at a time of my choosing like my ps3... it's been going for about 50 min now...