6208 testing

[kojak light]

Well, I received my Motorola 6208 yesterday along with the test remote and I have to say that I was very impressed!

First, the new guide interface is a nice blue that is very easy on the eyes. Also, as expected, the grids accomodate 60 minutes of programming rather than the old 30 minute grid. Navigating was a real snap!

I immediately tested out the replay, pause and live tv functions. In one instance when I pressed "replay" there was some tiling, but other than that all functions performed wonderfully. Then I set up the DVR to record The Simple Life, while I went to watch another show in the family room. At 9:30, we watched The Simple Life (fast forwarding through commercials) and finished in enough time to catch a program at 10:00, with time to spare.

This is one sweet unit and I will continue to take it through its' paces and post my experiences on this thread for those who are interested...

Cheers!
kojak

[sillygoose]

Any idea on when these are finally going to be released to customers?

[kojak light]

Hard to say, really.

My best guess is that California may see these released in late February to mid-March. Can't speak for the rest of the US.

[57U]

Some small areas of the US and Canada already have this unit available to customers. If you search for 6208 you should be able to find the threads...

[rodman9866]

i just got my 5208 replaced by a 6208 recently because of something bad happening internally of my 5208. the tech guy told me it had something like TiVo in it. how do u activate the replay and record functions of it?

[57U]

6208 Demo.

http://broadband.motorola.com/dvr/multimedia_demo.asp

Didn't you get an operating manual?

You don't know how upset many of us are that someone who doesn't even know what they have, get's access to something like this, while some of us have been drooling and waiting for 2 years and still don't have access. Don't take this personally.

[rodman9866]

i was juts as surprised as all of you. the guy said he didnt have one. but when he gets one he'll drop it back off. i didnt complain that all he had was the box and just no manual.

[rodman9866]

im gonna try this out 2nite guys......thanks for the link i love it!

[MickeyGee]

Originally posted by kojak light
Well, I received my Motorola 6208 yesterday along with the test remote and I have to say that I was very impressed!
kojak
So, it looks like the 6208 has one tuner. You can't record one HD program while you watch a second HD program. Correct?

[57U]

Correct, but you can watch a programme you've already recorded, while recording a new programme since that requires only one tuner. You can also "pause live TV".

[MickeyGee]

Do we know what the incremental monthly charge will be for the 6208?

[rodman9866]

Originally posted by MickeyGee
Do we know what the incremental monthly charge will be for the 6208?

they charge me $7.25/month

[sillygoose]

A message appeared on my boxes last night that said DVR was available in my area. So I called and tentatively have an appointment for Sat. they are supposed to call back to confirm. That seemed a little odd so I wonder if they really have them yet.

[rodman9866]

Originally posted by sillygoose
A message appeared on my boxes last night that said DVR was available in my area. So I called and tentatively have an appointment for Sat. they are supposed to call back to confirm. That seemed a little odd so I wonder if they really have them yet.

the tech guy who gave me my 6208 said DVR wasnt working yet and he dodesnt even knwo why they put it on that box yet. maybe your area is more up-to-date than mine :)

[bgarroway]

I have Armstrong Cable in Western Pa. The 6208 has been available to subscribers since the first of the year. I've had mine since mid January. This thing is incredible!

First of all, the "freezing issues that I had with the 5100 are gone.
It's extremely user friendly and offers a lot of flexibility as far as recording options are concerned(you can record from the menu, guide, etc. etc. as well as record from a specific start time to a specific end time(sporting events).

For those of you wondering if it can record HD, please be assured that it most definitely CAN! I currently have 20 movies saved including 2 in HD and the memory is only 60% full.

Hopefully this helps out somewhat. It's nice to give back a little bit to people that have been so helpful. Please feel free to PM me if anyone has any specific questions.

[sillygoose]

From other posts I've seen it looks like my county is going to be one of the first that comcast rolls this out to. I'm getting it this Saturday(just in time to record the Superbowl, I'm going to be stuck watching it in analog at my in-laws). I'll let you know how it is.

[sillygoose]

Well after showing up about 12 hours late I got my 6208. Works fairly well so far. It takes a bit longer than the 5100 to change channels but it scrolls through the channel menu just as fast as the 5100 which should be good enough for me. My 2000 does both slowly which is really annoying. The DVI port is enabled but I had some strange results in trying it. The picture was tinted red I'll have to do some more testing to figure out if it's my color decoder or the 6208 causing that problem.

[Roddym4]

I also just received my 6208 from Comcast. The menu options are fairly basic and no real intelligent recording options, a la Tivo or SageTV (no "season pass," only daily, weekly recording options -- just like 25 year old VHS! Of course, HD looks great live and recorded.

What has gotten worse, however, is SD. All channels under 100 look noticeably worse than the 5100 via component. I believe that the box is probably recording at too low a quality for SD which is more noticeable on an HDTV. This quality setting does not appear to changeable. My guess is, they dumb downed the quality level of SD recording for SD sets, while perserving max quality for HD -- people ain't quite thinking this stuff through.

No perfect yet, but at least HD recording is, in fact, here.

More to come.

[sillygoose]

There are different quality levels although I haven't found any way to change it in the current menu software. You can see what level your box is set for in the system info by powering off and hitting the select button. I forget which screen I found it in but it is in there somewhere I think I recall mine being set to high.

To me the analog channels look better. I notice some softness but before I thought they looked blurry and blocky.

[Roddym4]

Interesting, to me just the opposite has happened. The SD channels look more blocky, like you can see edge pixilation particularly on fast moving scense.

I found the menu settings on the PVR page, which says MPG2 High Quality 2. However, it doesn't differentiate between HD recording and SD. I know it's different, but I don't see where. My firmware is 7.07.

What kind of set do you have? I have a 2003 Hitachi HD RPTV. I watch everything through composite.

Thanks.

[sillygoose]

Originally posted by Roddym4
I found the menu settings on the PVR page, which says MPG2 High Quality 2. However, it doesn't differentiate between HD recording and SD. I know it's different, but I don't see where. My firmware is 7.07.
The quality value should only be for analog not SD or HD they are already encoded just record the transport stream straight to the disk. The analog needs to be encoded before it can be written to the drive and that is what the MPEG quality setting is for.
What kind of set do you have? I have a 2003 Hitachi HD RPTV. I watch everything through composite.
I have a Hitachi 65SWX20B. I hope you meant component. That is what I have been using also. I tried the DVI but had some issues that I haven't gone back to figure out yet.

[Roddym4]

Yeah, I meant "component."

My understanding is that SD/analog (all channels under 100) are being encoded separately by the box using different quality settings, which explains why you get more storage of SD than HD. I notice obvious edge pixellation which is exactly what you see with a lower mpg2 encoding rate/resolution.

My guess is, as you say, the HD Transport Streams are being copied write to disk, which is why they look, well, perfect. However, the below 100 channels are being encoded at MPG High2, which may not be the best setting, but maximizes disk space for these recordings.

Can't do DVI as my set don't got it.

I'll keep plugging. I'd love to change that setting to see if any changes are noticeable.

Thanks.

[sillygoose]

Let me clarify. I meant that the SD digital channels also were recorded directly to disk. You are correct that all 1-100 channels need to be encoded before writing to disk. A value of High2 seems like it should be pretty good but it is just an arbitrary name so who knows maybe they can do better or maybe this is all we're going to get with this hardware. With a clean analog signal the analog channels should now look similar to the SD digital channels since the box always encoding the analog first and playing it back through the decoder like the digital channels to enable the pause feature.

[Roddym4]

Well, perhaps my analog signal just ain't that clean, and I think a dirty signal may look alittle worse converted. Just a thought.

If the setting could be configurable, I might try another recording quality option just to see.

Thanks for the info.