Getting Optimum online /Sci Atl 4200

[ericscottf]

Hi all

Making a move to a new house, going from SD fios service where i am to HD Optimum Online service.
hardware is in my sig.

I called the cableco and they say i'll probably get Scientific Atlanta 4200s.
A quick googling suggests that they have both SD and component outputs.

Anyone have optimum and HD PVRs?

Am I going to have any problems with my HD pvrs and this service/these boxes? I've been runnning SD into my HD PVRs since day 1, and they've been rock-solid. Will running HD into them potentially start causing me problems?

I've also got the HDHR, anyone know if very much comes over clear from optimum?

thanks!

[Opus4]

I have two 4250HD STBs from Cablevision connected to HD-PVRs w/firewire channel changing. I haven't had a problem in quite a while, except recently when one of the HD-PVRs needed a new power supply. I only record stereo audio. I don't know if those are the boxes you'll get, but I returned the ones they first gave me & picked up the 4250HD units so I had component out for the HD-PVRs & firewire ports for channel changing.

The only clear QAM from Cablevision tends to be the locals.

- Andy

[will]

I have the same setup with my two HD-PVRs as Andy with the exception of audio; I get my audio from optical and have no issues with the recordings.

The worst that happens is about once every one or two months one of the HD-PVRs will lockup because the cable boxes automatically update at 5 a.m. while things are recording. A simple power cycling of the cable boxes and HD-PVRs fixes everything (of course I do this remotely with a batch script and a network enabled power strip )

[ericscottf]

oh, firewire channel changing would be awesome.

do you have problems with boxes turning off at night/needing to turn them back on? Does firewire channel changing turn the boxes back on?

I've never had a situation where a cable box being off locked up the PVR. is that an HD specific problem only, or have i just been insanely lucky?

[will]

Originally Posted by ericscottf

oh, firewire channel changing would be awesome.

do you have problems with boxes turning off at night/needing to turn them back on? Does firewire channel changing turn the boxes back on?

Firewire channel changing does turn the boxes back on if your box is set to turn on with key presses, however, if the box is off, I have noticed that the full channel change code isn't sent. For example, if the box is off and I send it 1020 it most likely will tune to 20 because the 10 was used to turn the cable box on.

I have yet to find a dummy key (enter key?) that you can send to the box over firewire before changing the channel. I know with IR emitters you can accomplish this easily. However, firewire channel changing is great. I would say out of every 1000 channel changes, less than 1 gets messed up because the box was turned off or just reset. I use a batch script for power cycling my cable boxes and HD-PVRs. The script turns off the devices in a certain order and once everything reboots it sends a dummy channel change code to ensure the cable boxes are turned on. You just can't beat the reliability of firewire channel changing.

The only time my HD-PVRs lock up is when Time Warner sends a software update to the cable boxes. This only happens about once every 1 to 3 months.

[ericscottf]

Right now, I use STBkeepalive and a UIRT to send a dummy command (menu, esc) to the box at 6am and 6pm every day. menu turns the box on, esc gets out of the menu. If the box was off, it's good, if the box was on, it does no harm.

that's been working really well for a long time now, I'm guessing that my cableco does whatever it does just before 6am.

[big poppa pump]

Here are a couple of things I do with my STB to make sure it changes to the right channel everytime.

1) I have a batch file setup in windows task manager that runs every day at 8am and 4pm and changes to a set channel. With this I don't have to worry about the STB being powered off and additionally the STB is parked on a non-SDV channel.

2) When Sage changes the channel to record a program, it uses a batch file to change channels rather than the actual firewire command. The batch file changes the channel once, waits for 4 seconds and issues a second channel change command. This way, if for some odd reason my STB is powered off and the first channel change misses a digit, the 2nd change gets it right.

Been using this for over a year now and I haven't missed a single recording.

[ericscottf]

Hey, how do the boxes do their thing btw HD and SD channels?
How do you wire up an HD PVR to such a box?
Do SD channels come out of the SD connectors and HD from the HD connectors, and you wire it all up to the PVR and it figures out which has video on it?
Does everything come out of the HD connectors?

[big poppa pump]

Originally Posted by ericscottf

Hey, how do the boxes do their thing btw HD and SD channels?

The boxes don't. Sage does!

Originally Posted by ericscottf

How do you wire up an HD PVR to such a box?

Component + Optical.

Originally Posted by ericscottf

Do SD channels come out of the SD connectors and HD from the HD connectors, and you wire it all up to the PVR and it figures out which has video on it?

No. You use Component or RCA connections only. Using RCA defeats the whole purpose of getting a HD-PVR, so use component for everything.

Originally Posted by ericscottf

Does everything come out of the HD connectors?

Yes!