Review: Scientific Atlanta 8300HD

For almost 17 months my household had enjoyed a 40 hour Series 2 TiVo with almost no problems at all, but for May and June the unit was progressively dying, what was once the occasional artifacts became “Dark Screens of Infinite Pause”. Since then we had contemplated what its replacement unit would be. After moving to NY, we decided to give the Scientific Atlanta 8300HD a test spin.

Preface

This article was originally two articles (published on 07/19/2005 and 11/16/2005) first praising the unit and then scaling back that praise. I have decided to combine both articles into this single article.

Introduction

It was time to contemplate a TiVo replacement. Knowing that we were now in New York and Time Warner land (my previous cable provider was Comcast) I knew that they had a TiVo-like unit that I began investigating. The Scientific Atlanta 8300HD was a huge step in the right direction for Time Warner, many people had complained about the older unit (the S/A 8000) had a cumbersome UI and was breaking left and right. For what few reviews I could dig up, the S/A8300HD was a big improvement over the old PVR, but would it be good enough to replace my now dead TiVo?

So for a period of time we decided to experiment with the S/A 8300HD, learn its strength and weaknesses, and if the unit proves unworthy, we will buy another TiVo.

Available models

There are 4 major models from Scientific Atlanta that Time Warner uses in its DVR arsenal. The S/A 8000 (Standard, MR, HD, HD/MR) and the S/A 8300 (Standard, MR, HD, HD/MR). Now as you can deduct from logic, anything with the suffix HD is a high definition unit, the MR is a designation for Multi-Room which will allow you to stream to other digital cable boxes from the main box programming you have recorded. The MR units were not available in our region, so I opted for the S/A 8300HD. The older units are famed to have a horrible UI and a lower capacity hard drive to boot, so for this task I was going to go for the biggest and the best. Ensuring that we got the proper unit wasn’t nearly a problem as I thought it would be, but the Time Warner customer representative had the notion that the HD unit was inferior to the standard units. I just simply passed this off as nonsense, and continued with my order for the S/A 8300HD.

S/A 8300HD Specs

The S/A 8300HD has a list of impressive features including:

• 160GB hard drive (90 hours standard recording, 20 hours HD recording)
• Dual Tuner
• Composite, HDMI, Digital Audio, S-Video Output
• 480i, 720p, and 1080i HD video choices

What the S/A 8300HD lacks

• Suggestion programming
• Grouping of recordings “by name” or other criteria to organize your recorded list
• Passport software will re-record the same program on the same day
• Only 10 days of data compared to 14 days of the TiVo

Initial ImpressionsAfter the Time Warner technician dropped off the box and ensured everything was working, I immediately went to programming some “Season Passes”, now the Passport software does not call them season passes, but they will record all shows in a season, only at certain times, channels, you control how expansive the recording parameters are.

One thing I noticed is that Passport is not intelligent enough not re-record a program like the TiVo can. But with the large capacity and normal pruning of the list, this is easily maintained. A feature that I wish that Passport would incorporate to make things more organized is a “group by” feature so people can group by date, show, or other criteria that will allow people to better organize their recordings.

The unit’s guide and setting items to record are very responsive, and it reduces the live program to the right corner of the screen so you are not sitting through total silence while managing your programs.

Long Term Impressions

After a couple months of use, the S/A 8300HD has been increasingly showing signs of unreliability. These have included:

• Random multiple reboots
• System freeze-ups
• Missing programs to record
• No intelligence to know not to record programs just recorded

With those facts out of the way, my wife and I have been increasingly longing for the return of the TiVo into our entertainment cabinet. My wife was the first to want the TiVo to return, literally days after trying the S/A 8300HD out, and since the technical malfunctions have been happening, and now so have I. We have moved the S/A 8300HD to the bedroom to perform minor recording tasks, and our replacement TiVo now sits comfortably in our entertainment center.

This is not to say the S/A 8300HD is a total failure, quite the contrary. If Time Warner could improve to make features like suggestions a reality, and work out the bugs that make the unit not perform as expected, I think they could give TiVo a real fight.

For now I would recommend only getting the S/A 8300HD if you want to keep your entertainment center streamlined, demand dual-tuner capabilities, or if you feel suggestions are not needed for your experience. With the TiVo series 3 on the horizon it could be that there are no reasons to switch over to a cable company’s DVR offerings.