Rogers SA8000HD Official Thread.

[wz286t]

A question from a newbie/lurker(I've been following this forum since last spring, and thanks to you guys I got my 8000HD in early
June. BTW - this is an excellent community of users, and the best source of local information that I know. Thank you Hugh, thanks
everybody!): has anybody else ever had a bad sector on their SA8000HD's HDD?
A few weeks back I recorded a Sopranos episode from CTV HD, and
when I started to play and then FF - it completely froze on me. Couldn't PLAY, FF or REW. Couldn't get into IPG or live programming. It just froze.
I unplugged the power cord, and replugged it; the box rebooted.
Got back into the recording - same thing no matter how I tried;
trying to FF from the beginnning, jumping right away to the End
of the recording, trying to Play first. Every time the picture would
completely freeze. Powering off from the remote didn't work. If I
didn't unplug/replug the power cord - it would reboot itself anyway
after about 2 minutes. Finally I decided to cut my losses, got back into the recording, pressed Stop as soon as I could, chose Erase, and wiped out the recording outright.
Everything was fine with no reoccurances for a few weeks until yesterday. I recorded ER from NBC HD on Thursday night(with high hopes for some decent acting from guest star Ray Liotta), and finally got around to watching it last night. And BAM! It happened again.
Within seconds of the beginning - the picture completely froze, and no matter what I tried(FF, STOP, Play, Power OFF/ON, unplug/replug, go to the end of the episode in hope that I could REW to the beginning) - it just wouldn't budge until I finally had to erase it.
Has this ever happened to anyone else?
Any suggestions short of replacing the box(I'm renting from Rogers) with another 8000HD or 8300HD?
Are there any diagnostics that we know of, or something similar to
Disk Scan that would fix the bad sector of the drive?
I have a few rare recordings on it that I would hate to lose, and I hoped that I could transfer them to a VCR or DVD recorder, but I guess that's unlikely anyway.
Thoughts?

[TomW]

I've had the same thing happen on my SA8000HD and I also had a similar problem on the SA8300HD.

My 8300 is going to be exchanged as soon as I manage to watch the stuff that's on it.
A tech came out and checked the signal levels pre-STB and on the STB and determined I have a bad box.

TomW.

[slam_to]

Hi All,

I've been battling with the problems of the SA8000HD, the most anoying is the studdering of video when fading to black. Law & Order is difficult to watch.

Almost THREE months ago I managed to get in contact with the head technician for Rogers Cable Peel region (if I recall correctly). He was COMPLETELY unware of any issues with the SA8000HD PVR. This was after "57" posted that he was going to e-mail a list of issues with the PVR. I had to direct him to this web page for him to see all the issues. He even admitted their front line customer support personell were very, poor quality. Believe it or not, they did not have a HD-PVR on hand to test with. No wonder Rogers has difficulty addressing issues like these.

Anyways, I managed to "show" him the various problems with the PVR and he said he would look into it. In any case, it's been almost three months, and I haven't heard that any of the problems are resolved.

Update: I managed to get through to him and he had mentioned that he had thought the problem was fixed (the video studdering issue). I've asked him to recheck since I still noticed a problem.

I'm honestly thinking of switching to a satelite service or something. It's just driving me crazy.

Sorry for the rant,
SLam

[andrew.r]

Hi SLAM et al.

I have given my SA8000HD back to Rogers Monday and took their SA83000HD. I was upset at loosing all the saved material including the one PPV I ordered so I asked for a credit and got one. If you got yours from Rogers then I suggest you get the SA8300HD and if you bought it then try to get an exchange. Some of the issues are resolved albeit ... new ones have arisen.

[slam_to]

Has anyone noticed some subtle changes to the SA8000HD?

*update: #1 was wrong, ignore this point, see next message*
1) I can no longer record two programs and watch another. If I'm recording two programs, I can't watch anything else but one of the recording programs.

2) If I schedule a manual recording now... say to record a show that runs 7pm-8pm, and I set the times to 6:59 to 8:01pm, it schedules a 2nd manual recording to tape the previous show but for the duration of my first manual recording. (errr... I could draw a picture if that was confusing).

3) The old bug of:
"When a recorded programme comes to a "black" scene, or credits at the end of a movie, there are audio/video breakups/stuttering."

I've been told "they" thought they had fixed it, but I had to show them again that it wasn't fixed. In fact it's been smoothed out (but audio still breaks up). Rogers knows about this. Not Rogers customer service. Rogers technical.

SARA V1.82.12.1

I think I'll go over to the SA8300HD.

Hmmph,
SLam

[nathan]

Originally Posted by slam_to

1) I can no longer record two programs and watch another. If I'm recording two programs, I can't watch anything else but one of the recording programs.

I'm assuming you mean record two programs, and watch another recorded program right? (since none of the SA boxes have the ability to record two programs, and freely watch another channel, as they only have two tuners)

However, that being said, my friend has an SA8000HD, and he's not noticed any real difference in operation.

[slam_to]

Originally Posted by evilnathan

I'm assuming you mean record two programs, and watch another recorded program right? (since none of the SA boxes have the ability to record two programs, and freely watch another channel, as they only have two tuners)

D'oh... you're right I remember now. I'll just crawl back to my sofa.

Thanks,
SLam

[penguin44]

I have had these problems as well. It's bugging me to no end. I would go over to the 8300HD but I don't want to lose the stuff I have archived.

[bfrimeth]

Did my search and couldn’t locate an answer.

? I am about to pick up an 8300.
I also want to purchase an MP3 player.

I called Rogers and they advised that the Fire Wire ports are disabled.

That leaves the Optical audio out to try and digitally record the Galaxy music stations.
Has anyone tried recording directly from the 8300 into an MP3 player? For example the iRiver has an optical audio in. I am just not sure if with all the copy protection features this will be feasible.
Rogers doesn’t know the answer.

[Harl]

Has anyone else run into this? I set my 8000HD to record Desperate Housewives as one show, and then Boston Legal as another show (rather than extend the record time on Housewives to include Boston Legal). I'd done this the previous week, but as Housewives runs just past 10.00pm, on playback the last minute or so is on the beginning of Boston Legal. Thinking of this, I extended the record time on Housewives 5 mins so that on playback I'd get the full ending without interruptions.
Even though I wasn't recording anything else, Boston Legal failed to record at all. I checked and it showed in the 'to record listing' but somehow, the box didn't get triggered. As there are two tuners, I'd have thought the second tuner would go ahead and tune to the channel and record, regardless of what was happening on the other one.
Fortunately I didn't go out last night so was able to watch the shows live, so the lack of a recording wasn't the end of the world. I would though like to see if this is common occurrence or just a hiccup, so next time I wont try extending Housewives by just 5 mins.

[57]

Harl, I don't know why it would have missed the second programme, unless there was a third programme also at that time.

Whenever I have two programmes on the same channel and I know one runs late or finishes early, I don't "add" to the time. I'll simply watch the end or beginning on the "other" recording. Granted, not quite as seamless, but it's less likely to cause conflicts and saves time when setting up the recording too.

For example, Sunday night CBC has Marketplace/Venture. MP usually ends at 7:25. I simply set the DVR to record MP and V. Then I watch both shows in about 40 minutes, with 5 minutes of V on the "first" recording. A little disruption, but not any more disruption than a commercial really.

[Harl]

No there wasn't a third program. I was tuned to ABCHD and I'd set the timer to record the two shows back to back, with a 5 minute add-on for the first show.
I was able to watch the programs live (I had been going out but things got changed) but left the recordings set. I noticed the red light was no longer on after about ten minutes of Boston Legal. On checking the 'to record' list, Boston Legal still showed, but of course it wasn't recording.

[Harl]

Another anomally I've started to notice (didn't use to happen) - watching a playback of 24 HD, when they are about to go to commercial, I get stuttering and very brief dead air.

Going back in the string here I noticed someone else had mentioned something similar:

"When a recorded programme comes to a "black" scene, or credits at the end of a movie, there are audio/video breakups/stuttering."

Is this common with the 8000HD? Does it happen at all with the 8300HD?

[57]

I thought that "black/white" screen issue was pretty well solved on the 8000HD before I "traded" mine - I can't be sure. The SA8300HD doesn't have that issue - at lease I haven't seen it in the months I've owned it.

See the following thread for "differences" between the two STBs.

http://digitalhomecanada.com/forum/s...1&postcount=10

[Harl]

Yet another hiccup with my 8000HD. It started to power off and then reboot on its own. Did this three times in the space of about ten minutes around 6pm. I called tech support who checked the signal strength etc. which was found to be OK. They suggested I 'keep an eye on it' and if it continues they can send a techie round. (I'd think the box was toast and no techie could fix it on a house call!). I did do a hard reboot by disconnecting the power too. So far it's been stable.

Now last night, while watching Letterman, I decided to record the last ten minutes to capture the final musical section with Doc Severinsen. I hit the manual record around 12.20am and the red light came on as normal.
However, on the dot of 12.30am, the damn thing stopped recording for no reason. I wanted to keep a copy of the last part of the show as I thought the music was such a great arrangement, and beautifully played. Oh well, so much for modern technology......