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800 Series Discussions

138K views 419 replies 74 participants last post by  P2B 
#1 ·
Yesterday I phoned a tech at SD to get the time changed back as we have NO daylight savings time in our area. I complained having to do this every 6 months and couldn't they set something up? He said the 800 series receivers are in the works and they will be able to set our time zone and if we have DST or not. I asked him "You said 800 series and not 700 series", he said they are bypassing the 700 and are working on the 800 series.
If I needed more info he could patch me through to customer relations or something like that but it was Sunday, I could phone back today(monday).
Does that mean we have to wait longer for a newer receiver, or just a stall tactic.
 
#115 ·
Will the USB power a 2.5" drive?
The USB2.0 standard provides up to 0.5A from the port. I tested an external 2.5" drive rated at 0.5A on the 630 once and it worked, even though it's not recommended. I didn't use it for long since it was just a test. My long term solution was to put a 1TB drive in the 630. The 830 already has that.

Will the USB power a 2.5" drive?
The official answer is no, you need a USB3.0 port for that. That, of course, begs the question of why the 830 lacks a USB3.0 port. The other solution is to use a Y cable that uses 2 USB ports to power the drive. Some 2.5" USB 2.0 external drives come with a suitable Y cable and they can be purchased on eBay. Then the issue of the 630 and 830 only having one USB 2.0 port arises. If the 2.5" USB drive has a power connector, a 5V power brick can be used to power it.
 
#120 ·
I am starting to understand why Shaw doesnt seem too excited about the product.
So far theres nothing thats telling me that its better than the 630 except for the bigger HDD but its not that difficult to replace the drive in the 630 either so even there theres no advantage...

I am super disappointed... I guess I will just buy the remote for my 630 and keep using it...
 
#121 ·
its not really any worse that the Bell Sat offerings
Exactly. Both companies' offerings are sadly out of date and very weak compared to what is available in other countries. There is no money to be made satellite TV in Canada and no real competition. Both companies are more interested in selling internet+phone+TV combos in urban areas. If Canada had a single, truly independent satellite TV company that was really interested in competing against landline based internet and TV, we would see some movement. That hasn't been the case since StarChoice was purchased by Shaw and Bell started rolling out fibre. I doubt anything with significantly better features than the 800 series will ever be available for satellite in Canada. The money and motivation just isn't there for the companies involved.
 
#125 ·
From every thing I've seen this receiver would have been awesome back in 2010.
I'm not even sure of that. Apart from fixing some technical shortcomings in the 530 and 630, the 830 is not significantly different. Even when the 530 series was introduced, it was basically a catch up product to compete with Bell's satellite PVRs. Dish Network introduced the Hopper in 2012. That was awesome. We're still waiting for a comparable product in Canada. Cable and telecom systems have mature whole home PVRs already. Where are the competing products for satellite?
 
#128 ·
Allan: fair points. i should have said not dramatically better.

Bigger hard drive isn't that great imo, considering that one could hook an external 2 TB drive with sata to the 630.

Wifi? I mean, i guess if you want to stream shows on your sat receiver, that's cool. It's redundant for me, since my tvs have wifi

how is it worse?

no clock or front display (maybe not a big deal to some)

no component output is disappointing. i have two of my receivers (630 and 605) connected to two tvs, one via component, the other via HDMI. the 800 series doesn't give that option

a lot of posters had hoped that the 800 series would have had more features. but like ExDilbert said, Bell and SD have very little financial incentive to innovate.
 
#136 ·
frenchophile wrote: Wifi? I mean, i guess if you want to stream shows on your sat receiver, that's cool. It's redundant for me, since my tvs have wifi

One of my TVs has wifi and the other has ethernet wired connectivity. Neither TV can access Shaw's On Demand library.
 
#137 ·
The 800 and 830 should be able to stream Shaw's full VOD library over wifi. It will be more extensive than what is available from Shaw with a TV app. There may exceptions but it's usually very limited with just specific TVs and devices working with specific services.
 
#140 ·
@noah12 so the interface is exactly the same as the 630? Theres no difference at all?

Have you noticed any problems at all?
How is the external drive working? Any hiccups?
You should fill the drive(s) to see how the unit behaves when the disks are full and it has to manage the space.
In my experience the 630 it causes alot of problems with rebootings and crashes and the guide becomes alot less responsive.
 
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