so all i have to do is buy something like this: http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=205541426

hook it up to the SA8300, reboot, and i'm good...tons more storage? how big of a drive comes in them standard?

9/7/2007 12:47:10 AM

make sure your eSATA port is active first

tune to channel 999, look thru the menus, i forgot exactly where it was

and i think it's like a 160gb drive, idk. you can see that in the diag menu too.

9/7/2007 1:05:31 AM

careful there, boss

twc is in the midst of "upgrading" their boxes with their own brand of software and that may not work. you may want to check with those guys who have the upgrade on avsforums before you commit to anything serious. i don't know for sure- just throwing it out there.

[Edited on September 7, 2007 at 7:01 AM. Reason : Ø]

9/7/2007 7:01:28 AM

well i know they have those new boxes...with the crappy interface etc. but are you saying theyre upgrading the interface on the existing SA8300 boxes? thanks tho, i'll look into it.

9/7/2007 9:26:04 AM

as far as i know, they will be upgrading the boxes remotely (that's how i got it). of course, this was suppposed to happen broadly earlier this year so who knows.

9/7/2007 9:37:06 AM

i found a menu that said "SATA" and the status was "authorized"

can anyone confirm that this means the port is active for me to plug an external into?

9/8/2007 11:23:20 PM

^yes

but nothing22 made a good point about the software upgrades, they could deactivate the port at any time.

9/9/2007 12:27:01 AM

let me check to see what my box says

i know with the upgrade, channel 999 no longer exists. you have to do some wacky button combinations to get to diagnostics and that method escapes me at the moment.

9/9/2007 9:11:10 AM

update:

ok, first i had to do this:

Quote :

"Hold the SEL button down on the remote until the little mail icon starts to blink on the cable box. Then hit info (on the remote). This should bring up some text with info on the screen. Use the page +/- button until you find the page labeled "Software Versions". The number under the one labeled Res: is the version of Navigator you have. To get out of it press Exit."

i have "2.3.45" which was not on this database: http://baseportal.com/cgi-bin/baseportal.pl?htx=/xnappo/navigator

but those working tests seem to be a newer version (2.4.4_2) than what i have. in that link, there's another link that takes you to some 180 pages of discussion on the topic that i skimmed over, but didn't study.

i could never find anything definite that my eSATA port was active (and i don't have an additional drive) on my 28 pages of diagnostics, but according to that database, it does seem possible. let me know if you want me to check anything out with it.

9/9/2007 10:00:05 AM

Be sure to check to AVSForums database to see if anyone has tried that external encloser/drive combination. Many do not work. I would suggest building your own using a confirmed setup. I purchased the Apricorn encloser. Now I'm waiting for a good deal on a seagate 500Gb drive.

9/9/2007 10:40:58 AM

i assume i can't just replace the drive inside the box (image it first or something...)

^^ why has your box received the update and mine hasn't. does it totally change the interface? i know TWC has a new HDDVR box...which sucks according to posters on here. does this software update youre talking about replace the current interface on the 8300 with the one found on those newer HDDVR boxes?

9/9/2007 11:22:48 AM

IIRC a few have replaced the drive on the AVSForum, but I think for ease, most people just add an external drive.

9/9/2007 11:42:08 AM

^^i got the new interface in december 06 just as a beta tester through work and now i'm stuck with it. my box is the SA8300 HD DVR box, which is the newest one. it was awesome when it had Passport (the old version interface) on it. the new interface is called Navigator and that's the one that blows.

what twc is doing now is releasing the SA8300 boxes with Navigator already on it. eventually, i believe they are going to slowly update everyone's box remotely, like they did mine.

[Edited on September 9, 2007 at 12:08 PM. Reason : Ø]

9/9/2007 12:07:17 PM

so i just need to get this?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817362002

and a 500GB drive that shows up on that database linked above? Does it really matter which hard drive you get?

Quote :

"i believe they are going to slowly update everyone's box remotely, like they did mine."

and no one is sure if the eSATA drives work with the new Navigator software huh? So do you have one of these boxes? /message_topic.aspx?topic=488437

9/9/2007 12:12:54 PM

yeah, that's what i have

i've had it for a while now- it's just started to trickle in mainstream

9/9/2007 12:15:05 PM

^^That is the case I got last week since it was listed several time on the Passport database. As for a HDD, the safest it to pick from the list. I'd prefer a Seagate for the 5yr warentee. Seagate is supposed to be realeasing a new line of drives very soon, so I've been waiting a bit to see how expensive they are and/or if the older ones would go down in price.

As for Navigator, there are 2 local reports in the database that says eSATA works.

9/9/2007 1:27:58 PM

as stated above, i'd stick to the list rather than getting a external drive like the one you initially posted. I made that mistake and the DVR wouldn't format it because it was already formatted for windows and had software on it. I was hoping that it would format it anyway but no such luck.

9/9/2007 2:33:18 PM

Quote :

"update: ok, first i had to do this: Quote : "Hold the SEL button down on the remote until the little mail icon starts to blink on the cable box. Then hit info (on the remote). This should bring up some text with info on the screen. Use the page +/- button until you find the page labeled "Software Versions". The number under the one labeled Res: is the version of Navigator you have. To get out of it press Exit." i have "2.3.45" which was not on this database: http://baseportal.com/cgi-bin/baseportal.pl?htx=/xnappo/navigator but those working tests seem to be a newer version (2.4.4_2) than what i have. in that link, there's another link that takes you to some 180 pages of discussion on the topic that i skimmed over, but didn't study. i could never find anything definite that my eSATA port was active (and i don't have an additional drive) on my 28 pages of diagnostics, but according to that database, it does seem possible. let me know if you want me to check anything out with it."

So I have the Explorer 8300HDC Box. Just got installed less than a week ago. I've been trying to access the diag menus to see if they fixed the signal strength problem coming into my house. I have attempted to use the above method for getting into those menus, but no luck. I hold down the select button and the mail icon pops up on the display, hit info and the info for the channel I'm on shows up. No extra menu. Is there something different I'm missing here. And I do make sure I hit Info (on the remote) before the mail icon goes away. I have even tried this on the box and nothing.

9/10/2007 4:56:49 PM

im gonna look into this once i get home.

9/10/2007 5:04:39 PM

hmm that's strange

i didn't have to do anything crazy to get mine to work, did it off first try. i doubt it matters, but i was on channel 290 when i did it.

the annoying part is that it's not a special screen like 999- it's just text menus overlayed onto whatever channel you're watching. try and go to a black screen (dvr pause between commericials or something). did you hold down info?

9/10/2007 5:13:05 PM

i remember reading somewhere that to do the "hold select" method you have to do it from the box, or maybe thats the only way i could get it to work. why not just turn to channel 999?

9/10/2007 8:39:49 PM

999 doesn't work, at least not on mine

neither does the SEL method

9/10/2007 10:05:37 PM

just to make sure, and I'm fairly certain that this is not the case, but are you doing it with the guide open? it will only change if you're just watching normal tv as far as i can tell. what model do you have?

just realized you could have posted that as an fyi as to why you wouldn't use 999. if so disregard the above

[Edited on September 10, 2007 at 11:53 PM. Reason : .]

9/10/2007 11:52:43 PM

I've tried it from HD channels and regular channels, with DVR paused on a black screen, with the box turned off, and all of this from the remote and the box. The only thing I haven't tried is with the guide active. I wonder if customer service will tell me how to do it!!

9/11/2007 6:25:58 AM

honestly they might. I found out about the 999 channel from the guy that brought my box out. He was like, yeah, if you're having problems and need to call, just turn to this channel so you can let them know whats going on. Don't know why you don't have 999, i'd say maybe its a model thing, but I have the HD DVR box also and it works fine for me.

9/11/2007 10:27:58 AM

you could call and ask for tech support, theyll tell you how to get to it.

you could also google the model# and "service", or "menu" or something like that.

9/11/2007 10:32:59 AM

With the new fall season approaching, I bit the bullet and got a WD5000AAKS 500Gb drive. The database suggests it works with the Apricorn enclosure, so I went with the safest option. I really don't feel like testing out a bunch a drives.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822136073

9/13/2007 7:40:11 AM

i didn't have 999 on my new hd dvr box

9/13/2007 9:42:34 AM

^^ lemme know how it turns out

9/13/2007 10:12:12 AM

Now there is a $15 rebate for the Apricorn case. I just missed it by 2 days.
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16817362002

9/14/2007 7:37:32 AM

Got the WD5000AAKS hooked up to the DVR this evening. No problems, just needed a soft boot. I recorded 2 HDTV shows and watched another and I did not see any glitches. I only tested it for about 15 minutes, so I'll need more time to competely stress test it.

The most annoying part is that when the DVR uses the external drive to 'watch' a program, you can not rewind. You can pause and play, but you can not fast forward. The way around this is to record the program and then play it from the list menu. From the AVS forum it looks like this is the cost of using an external drive. The DVR can't seem to use continually record on the external drive like it can in the internal.

9/17/2007 10:34:45 PM

Quote :

"You can pause and play, but you can not fast forward. The way around this is to record the program and then play it from the list menu"

so, so far this is the only drawback?

for example if you're 15 minutes into a program, you can't rewind those 15 minutes? But then if you hit the record button, then play the recording from the List menu then you have full control?

any other differences?

9/17/2007 10:54:03 PM

^You will have full control, but you still can't go back 15minutes. Basically when it is using the external HDD for live TV, it is not constantly recording. You have to manually record the show to have full control. Unfortunatly I do this a lot. If I did not hear what someone says for example I will back up 5 sec, but I don't think that is possible now unless you were recording it.

9/17/2007 11:27:01 PM

ahh so if you fill up the internal drive, you lose the ability to rewind "live tv"


hmm that kinda sucks...makes me want to look into replacing the internal drive so i could keep that ability...i assume it uses a normal desktop drive? any drawbacks there?

9/18/2007 9:03:55 PM

no... it records to the more open drive... so even if the 150 is clear i have a 500gig attached and until it gets to where hour glasses might start showing up it doesn't even think about using the main drive.

9/18/2007 9:07:11 PM

It basically uses the drive with the most free space for recording or watching live TV.

9/18/2007 10:09:44 PM

This thing is the biggest piece of shit produced since they thought electric thermal heating was a good idea for homes.

9/18/2007 10:15:24 PM

I experienced a few glitches last night when watching live TV. I'm not 100% sure it was the drive, it could have been the feed. I'll continue to monitor it.

9/19/2007 7:37:31 AM

^ any more glitches

9/26/2007 6:54:02 PM

I have not really have not watched much TV lately.

9/26/2007 7:27:36 PM

So I've had the external drive for over a month now and I can say that we don't experience anymore glitches than before the we added the drive. As long as you don't mind the disabled real-time recording functionality, I would recommend an external drive.

10/24/2007 7:13:53 AM

cool thanks for the update

10/24/2007 8:34:44 AM

My SA8300HD froze up tonight and tried to reboot. FAIL was displayed on the front and I had about 530 GB of TV now lost!

11/23/2007 9:07:01 PM

So I ended up getting a 8300HDC. Even though Navigator is craptastic, it appears to allow for real-time recording/pause/rr/ff while the external drive is connected.

11/25/2007 10:31:54 PM

my box finally updated this morning to give me passive recording back

only took a year

1/10/2008 8:01:06 PM

thinking about getting this 500gb WD drive for $125 and trying it with the 8300HD.

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/products/System_Drives/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&cs=19&sku=A1295209&dgc=CJ&cid=24471&lid=628179

anyone tried a mybook?

2/8/2008 7:45:13 PM

It's not in the database:
http://baseportal.com/cgi-bin/baseportal.pl?htx=/xnappo/passport&localparams=1&db=passport&cmd=list&range=0,20&sort=Case

So I'm guessing YMMV. My setup was not too much more expensive ~$150. Look in this thread for more details:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=5277957&&#post5277957

2/8/2008 8:50:20 PM

Sorry, that was the Passport link. Here is the Navigator link:
http://baseportal.com/cgi-bin/baseportal.pl?htx=/xnappo/navigator&localparams=1&db=navigator&cmd=list&range=0,20&sort=Case

2/9/2008 8:43:48 AM

FYI It looks like some of the newer Passport updates (2.4.8_2) are not compatible with eSATA drives. So far I have 2.4.5_4 that was updated on 8/29/2007.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=12977656#post12977656

2/9/2008 9:06:22 AM

Quote :

"my box finally updated this morning to give me passive recording back only took a year"

Yeah that was the reason I initially canceled my cable service. Of course most of the time it was that NO recording would work at all. They kept pretending like giving me a new box would fix it instead of acknowledging that the series they were pushing out at the time had absolutely shit software on it. 5 DVR's and 4 trips to the Cary "customer care center" was far too much for me and I gave up. It was so frustrating trying to just get the service I was paying for. I mean I wanted DVR and HD cable and I was fine paying for it, but they just didn't seem to want to actually deliver the product they advertised.

2/9/2008 1:57:39 PM