Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8000 Review

I have both the SA8000HD and a TiVo unit. I keep the SA box around for just one reason: the ability to record HD material. I always program the TiVo unit to record the same show in SD because there is no guarantee that the SA box will record the show at all. Sometimes scheduled recordings mysteriously dissapear before the time to record, sometimes they are deleted after recording (but before viewing) even with ‘save until deleted’ turned on.

The SARA software interface is abysmal. As a TiVo user of 3+ years, I have no idea what times (or even channels) some shows come on. The SA only allows you to search a particular day for a program, and then only allows you to select the first letter of a program to search for, then forces you to scroll through a list of hundreds of program names. In this list, it does not combine shows with the same name, so when searching for ‘Alias’ you have to scroll through about 3 pages worth of ‘Adult On Demand’ before you can select it.

Audio dropouts on playback of HD channels are frequent.

The box requires frequent reboots (only accomplished by pulling the power cable).

When watching long programs (2+ hours) I will frequently watch 15 minutes, then pause the program to return later. TiVo can maintain this state on a seemingly arbitrary number of shows at a time. The SA box resumes playing the program after an hour or so even if noone is watching, so the next day, you have to fast forward to the spot you last watched. Given that there is no 15 minute skip and the maximum fastforward speed is slow, this can be a frustrating experience.

I’m not sure what revision of the SARA software the reviewer had seen, but based on my own experience and those of forum regulars at other sites, this software is not widely available. Given that the SA8000 has been around for several years, and the software is still so immature and unstable, I can’t recommend this unit to anyone recording standard definition material. It is an inexpensive stopgap for HiDef material. When TiVo comes out with a HD CableCard version of their box, I will dump the SA box almost regardless of the price.

Rating: 3 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

I am on my second Explorer 8000HD, in six weeks, and my cable provider, Adelphia, wants two weeks to replace it. Fails to record. The first one failed to boot.

Rating: 3 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

Peace

Please someone help me…

I love this machine, but i’ve used up most of the memory and i would like to know how to put the shows i have onto my hard drive on my computer. There is a usb port in the front of the 800, how can i plug that into my computer and download all my tv shows onto the compter???

any help would be great!!!!!

Rating: 8 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

My wife and I call this SA box our TiNo because it ain’t no TiVo. The lag is terrible. Worst of all, you can’t start watching from the beginning of a show you are currently recording — you have to rewind all the way through from the current point in the show. Then, when the recording ends, the TiNo bumps you out of the show and you have to start all over. Piece of junk.

Rating: 3 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

Hey, Time Warner-Rochester, where is my software upgrade to enable the switchable video source? I pay alot of money each month to have to swap cables everytime I want to watch my DVD player!

Rating: 7 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

I signed up for digital cable not for the extra channels, but instead for the convenience of a DVR. After two machines failed within six months, I’ve given up and gone back to analog cable. As other reviewers have noted, the machine has a clunky interface and often fails to perform basic recording functions. Each machine we had needed frequent reboots before eventually failing completely. Since Cox (my Cable provider) seems wedded to SA equipment, I have no choice but to look into alternatives such as Voom’s forthcoming HD DVR.

Rating: 2 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

This is in response to the poster who was upset about watching programs as they’re being recorded:

1) The easy way to start from the beginning is to access the program from the function and not the . Selecting the program from the puts you right at the beginning of the show.

2) I discovered how to jump forward in 15 minutes increments – start fast forwarding and then hit the right arrow key. This saves a lot of time and frustration!

Rating: 6 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

After only having this unit for 4 days, I’ve experienced ALL of the problems mentioned. The unit FREEZES, mysteriously STOPS recording, and now (remember it’s only been four days) has apparently died on me.

I waited months for the season premiere of 24, and now I’ve missed it thanks to digital cable companies knowingly putting out a substandard box in order to capture the TiVo market.

Will they try to rcover my data? Not when it would take time and effort — as opposed to simply sending the unit back to the manufacturer for a replacement. THE SCIENTIFIC ATLANTA EPLORER 8000 IS NOT WORTH THE PAIN!!!!!!!!!

Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

Does anyone know how to transfer the digital recordings off the 8000 unit onto a laptop. Please let me know.

Rating: 7 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

I think the box is pretty good. But, Time Warner needs to upgrade there software. Whenever I’m recording 1 or 2 shows, the box gets extremely SLOW! Someone, help me with this…I also need some help finding a way of putting the Shows on My Computer. PLEASE HELP.

Rating: 6 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

I’ve had all the same problems listed. I’m on my 4th box in less than 6 months, box boots for no reason, 2 to 3 second delay from when you hit a key to when it registers, and “unrecoverable disk error”. In response to the poster who mentioned the unit getting hot and needing air, in my situation there is plenty of space around it. So that doesn’t seem to be the issue.

Rating: 4 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

I have an SA-8000HD DVR box from Time Warner Cable and have haed a lot of trouble and little enjoyment from it.

This is my second box in a matter of weeks. First one lated about 48 hours. Apart from comoing with a loose front panel, it quickly died and refused to reboot. Second one worked OK for about two weeks. Now it reboots on its own occasionally, after which it refuses to record or to pause live show, and does not display previously recorded material. It needs a cold reboot (unplug-replug) to recover, and after a few hours looses again most of its functions.

In addition to being totally unreliable, the box as served by TW Cable comes with instructions which are totally useless as they do not reflec modifications made by SA to Time-Warner-specific versions of the box. In particular, instructions on selecting aspect ratio and output format are totally wrong.

On top of that, you get for the $118/year charge for the privilege of using that lemon a horrible user interface and very crude recording management software.

There is no reason why a DVR should not be reliable, as it is a fairly simple device. I have owned a ReplayTV DVR for years, and it continues to perform flawlessly and offers features that are light-years ahead of SA/Time Warner.

Too bas city dwellers like me are stuck with whatever thei cable monopoly condescends to throw at them.

I just hope that Time Warner Cable will get so many complaints and returns on the SA-8000HD that they will end up loosing money on it.

Rating: 2 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

Having seen the TiVo in action, I can definitely say this unit is not in its class. However, it more than suits the majority of my TV watchin habits. What I do find as a major omission is a digital optical out. Why just a coaxial connection? For those of us with several components in their home theater setup, a little added flexibility would be welcome.

Rating: 7 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

This unit is horrible. It starts recording a show and stays on that channel and records everything on it till it fills the hard drive and then starts erasing and continues to record. It won’t let me cancel record. Time warner says I must be doing something wrong. The something wrong is being with Time warner and SA.

Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

The sound very often doesn’t not match the picture. Sometimes the lag is a full second. Also, there too much of a time lag between when you press a button and the DVR responds, which causes confusion when you press the button a second time and go past whatever it was you were trying to select.

Rating: 2 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

The Adelphia version of this sucker is pretty good, had it for about 9 months now, and no problems. Had to reboot once or twice, but no lost shows, no freezing, no real problems. From reading the posts here, I think the main problem with the unit is Time Warner, because my Adelphia version works great. I’ve used Tivo before, and while the software isn’t as good, its a close second. There was an update last august that fixed most of my complaints (now you can see how full it is, set recording to “record all in this timeslot” OR “record all on this channel” instead of just the channel). Picture quality is superb, unless you’re watching something with a lot of explosions. Really hard to tell the difference between a recording and live TV.

My only major gripe is that I can’t pull the shows off and onto my laptop. Now, I know I could buy a TV tuner capture card for the laptop, but they are expensive and I’m poor. With the firewire ports right on the fricking machine, you’d think someone would have worked out a way to use them by now.

Rating: 7 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

I’m using this device more than 8 months. The HDD is very noisy. Also, it makes a lot of extra heat. Do not try to put SAE 8000 inside your stack without good ventilation. If you left DVD on top it can melt the disk. But this is all OK until you see the RF output on your TV. The contrast level is out of any acceptable level. All is dark as you you see the night scene all the time.

Hope SAE 9000 could be better…

Rating: 3 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

I HAVE REPLACED 3 BOXES IN THE LAST MONTH,THIS IS HORRIBLE.

Rating: 3 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

I’m on my fourth box in three months all with hard drive failures.

Rating: 4 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

I dont know about all of these complaints, ive never had one piece of problem with my DVR, its a great piece of hardware. I love it, i dont know i lived without it!

Rating: 10 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

The SAE 8000 is a good product for the low cost offered by cable systems. I use BrightHouse (FKA TWC in Tampa) and their SAE uses SARA software. I would like to have the ability to time index like the Passport software version or a TIVO. These brands allow indexing in 15 minute increments. SA will have to provide a s/w update to add this feature. However, for $6/month the rest of the functions are a bargain. Our unit gets quite a workout too, and it has been replace only once in the one year we’ve had it.

Rating: 7 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

Box number 4 has the same issues as boxes 1 – 3. The HDD is very

noisy, there are a lot of freeze ups, and you could cook on top of the

box. If at all possible, I would stay away from the 8000. Have they

come out with a newer version yet and if so, does the cable company

let you buy one and use it on their system?

Visit me at http://www.digitaldysfunction.com/

Tons of comedy content and be interactive in our forums!

Rating: 3 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

The other benefit that came with the upgrade is it enable the auxiliary input in the back of the 8000, wich can be select by pressing the video source button from the remote

Rating: 9 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

1st unit died.
2nd unit froze up everyday and stopped responding.
3rd unit it beginning to lag in audio after replay and pause, also freezing up.

Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

Constant problem with power supply failures, rebooting. Every time COX cable comes out they bring me a recycled 8000. Isn’t there some regulation somewhere about bad service from cable companies

Rating: 2 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

The guide is too slow. Search feature is really bad.

I used to have a lot of issues with “pixellation” for months. After I plugged it in a power filter bar, all my problems went away and now I didn’t have an issue for more than a year.

I had to see it to believe!

I use Monster’s HTS 1000 MKII power bar but I think you can use an other model. That bar is rather expensive. I got it just to try it thinking I would return it, but since everything is fine now, I didn’t.

Rating: 6 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

The new updated ones are much better than the original. My first one blew up in 2 days, but the replacement has lasted 6 months no prob. Very friendly recording, 2 channels at once, and auto show recordings are good features that work perfectly.

Rating: 8 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

Worked okay when using component video hookups to HDTV, but when using DVI-HDMI connection with 1080p HDTV there are compatibility problems (see DVI Alert Box), usually dealing with authentication issues.

Trading in for a 8300HD solves the problem as it’s HDMI to HDMI connection. A Scientific Atlanta tech advised that the DVI conversion to HDMI causes a “bottleneck” which creates problems toggling back and forth between TV and DVD operation. Trade up to the Explorer 8300HD.

Rating: 4 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

i have not been able to make 900mhz headphones work on the exp 8000 audio out jacks-appreciate any help!!

Rating: 10 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

I have been using this for the past 4 years or so and have barely had a problem, my cable provider runs it on a different os though which could make a difference, I can’t do much with the usb port on the front, I found some secret menus but otherwise, no advance features it is still a wodnerful DVR.

Rating: 9 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

If you place the SA box on top of anything that genereates heat, it will likely die. Nor does it like anything placed on top of it.

I found that 2 inch spacers between the SA box and any other equipment above or below it usually gives enough relief from the heat to eliminate most crashes.

I went rapidly through several boxes at first, until a tech finally warned me about the heat.

After adding the spacers, they have rarely crashed. When they do, I have been able to get it to recover by holding in the power button for 10 seconds until it does a soft reboot. In more severe cases, you can get a hard reboot by disconnecting the power for a short while.

Hope that helps.

Rating: 7 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

I moved recently and was forced into getting one of these things. Previously I had one of the motorola DVR’s from comast, mainly because it was functional enough and far cheaper than upgrading my S2 tivo to an S3 would have been. After moving, comcast told me the motorola ones wouldn’t work in my new location and gave me one of these monstrosities…

In short, this thing fails miserably as a DVR. I can not believe that at any point anyone who designed or OK’d the purchase & rollout of these things ever actually made an attempt to use it.

Setting recordings is maddeningly frustrating due to a completely missing option for finding shows by name, rather than scrolling through lists of programs in a tiny 4 channel+ad corner of the screen. Once you do find the show you want to start recording however, that’s when the real fun starts. You have an option to record just the one showing just like any other DVR, however if you want a series recording you are stuck with “record all showings in this timeslot”… which is useless if it gets a new timeslot. “record all showings at all times on this station”… which is just awesome if your recording anything that gets shown several times through the week at various times… and finally “Record all showings at all times on all stations”, I think everyone can see how bad that would turn out. It’s sad when a DVR is so bad you wonder if it supports VCR+ codes since you could at least look them up in tvguide without the pain of the terrible interface.

The only reason I score this DVR as a 1 is that I didn’t have a lower option.

Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

I had Direct TV’s DVR prior to signing on with Charter. This DVR is awful compared to that one.

Only records 25 hours.

No such thing as “one touch recording”. Searching for a program means entering only one letter and having to scroll through ALL programs beginning with that letter.

Fast forwarding through commercials means rewinding a little after stopping – it always goes to far, and there is no auto rewind build in to allow for this.

All of these features and more were on my old DRV. I may switch back just because of this dreadful machine.

Rating: 2 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.