Multiroom DVR viewing coming soon:

[LonghornXP]

Multiroom DVR viewing will be coming soon to all Bright House Networks customers in all markets soon. The Tampa Bay and Central Florida markets will be first. Multiroom viewing will require a tech to come out to install a filter on your main cable line that goes into the box on the outside of your house. They will also be replacing at least one of your DVR boxes with the multiroom option.

The multiroom model numbers will be these two below.

SA 8300-MR.
SA 8300HD-MR.

Now any digital box (basic box, DVR, HD box and HD DVR) can be used to playback from the MR DVR box. The MR box can stream anything from the hard drive in upto 3 extra rooms. If you have three HD DVRs it would be best to swap them all with three MR Hd DVR boxes. This means that anything recorded on any of the boxes can be played back anywhere around the house.

This means you have 6 total tuners for live TV with three HD DVRs. Also the multiroom HD DVR can stream HD content to an a basic non DVR HD box at full HD quality. Now I'm hearing that you can't stream an HD show to a non HD box. So to playback something HD from the MR DVR the playback box must be an HD box.

 

[gbertler]

Let me know if that's true about having several MVR units. I know for sure that if you have an SA 8000 or 8300 non-mvr, it won't be able to get anything from a MVR DVR. It doesn't have the software in it. I know it's already a DVR, but you won't be able to use both features on it.

 

[Khandurian]

I can see this becoming a wiring nightmare for installers. Do you have any links that might show how this would be accomplished?

Khandurian.....

 

[JosephB]

This system (IIRC) uses the coax cable for transmission, so all it requires is the aforementioned filter to prevent your MRV shows from leaking over to your neighbors. Acutally the way it works, or atleast when I read about it a while back, is the receiving box sends the request for the show to start playing and the MRV "server" just plays it out on a regular channel on the cable and the receiving box just tunes to that channel, and its digital through QAM so you can do HD/etc. Theoretically you could watch it with a digital TV that has a QAM tuner.

 

[iceturkee]

okay, sorry to sound ignorant, but can somebody explain this to me in simple english? thanks.

longhorn, is there any possibility that the 8300 mr hd dvr would have a bigger hard drive in it to record more programs?

 

[korsjs]

i believe the mr hd is the same size.

 

[LonghornXP]

The 8300-MR and 8300HD-MR boxes are exactly the same as the current 8300 and 8300HD boxes expect that the MR boxes can act as a server. Now only a MR box can share the shows to other boxes. As long as one box is a MR box any other digital box starting with the Explorer 2000 series can playback anything recorded on the MR server box. All current DVRs out today have multiroom server and client software loaded but just because the current boxes have the software they still need a new box with a special added piece of hardware inside of it. Again just to clairify that as long as one of your DVR boxes has the MR at the end of the model name you can use "any" digital box to playback shows from this MR DVR.

Everything will work using the existing coax cables with nothing more to add. Now when they roll it out you can bring in your current DVR box for the new MR box and it will work right away because all BHN must do is show up at your house within a few weeks to instal a filter to just keep everything closed on your wiring because without this filter the other houses in your area could playback and access your recordings. This filter can be installed in about five minutes and doesn't require you the customer even being home nor does it require a service call either.

So if you have three total rooms with one 8300-MR box and two 2000 boxes all your recordings can be played back in all three rooms. As we know it can be played back on the DVR but now you can playback anything on the explorer 2000 boxes. Just so you know your explorer 2000 boxes will have a new channel like channel 899 that will allow you to navigate a list of everything that is on the DVR. You would view this list like you would an on demand list and once you find the show you want to watch just highlight it and press select and it starts playing. Once playing you can pause, FF and rewind it using your existing remote control just make sure that the remote switch is set on VOD. I know its not a VOD selection but it must be in this mode so the box knows todo this.

 

[korsjs]

good breakdown for everyone. thanks longhorn.

 

[JosephB]

And the method of trasnport is via a standard channel. The MR box is not sending the file encoded to the box, it is actually playing it out on a channel like a VCR on channel 3/4, although it IS digital as in digital cable. SciAtl says that ANY of their boxes from the basic 2000 up can use this as long as its VOD capable, because to the receiving box the MR box looks like the cable company's head-end VOD server.

 

[iceturkee]

thanks, longhorn, got it.

 

[ColdOnes]

Any updates on when this DVR is supposed to be released ?

 

[LonghornXP]

Any updates on when this DVR is supposed to be released ?

Last I've heard is that its been put off the table until after the first of the year. Knowing BHN it might end up being Christmas 2006 before they get around to rolling this out. It is very close to the end of the year now that it seems that after the first of the year isn't that unlikely. You don't want to deal with something new so close to the holidays if you know what I mean.

 

[HDTVFanAtic]

Theoretically you could watch it with a digital TV that has a QAM tuner.

How sure are you about that statement?

 

[LonghornXP]

How sure are you about that statement?

The channels that will be used to send recorded shows to other boxes will be encrypted and will require an authorized set-top box to tune into it. This means that a QAM tuner will not work because only the set-top boxes will be authorized and QAM tuners will not be authorized nor support now or into the future. Besides that the QAM tuner must have client multiroom viewing software which it won't have which means your QAM tuner cannot gain an IP connection with the server box to begin with. Now once a two-way cable card comes about we most likely will see the ability for a two-way cable card to be authorized to playback anything from the server but it will need a cable card to work to start with and only a two-way cable card can gain the connection needed with the server.

 

[HDTVFanAtic]

The channels that will be used to send recorded shows to other boxes will be encrypted and will require an authorized set-top box to tune into it. This means that a QAM tuner will not work because only the set-top boxes will be authorized and QAM tuners will not be authorized nor support now or into the future. Besides that the QAM tuner must have client multiroom viewing software which it won't have which means your QAM tuner cannot gain an IP connection with the server box to begin with. Now once a two-way cable card comes about we most likely will see the ability for a two-way cable card to be authorized to playback anything from the server but it will need a cable card to work to start with and only a two-way cable card can gain the connection needed with the server.

This is what I believed to be the case, because if the previous statement was correct, you could capture HD Movies simply by putting them out on your in-house network and cap them with a MyHD130 with a QAM tuner - thus bypassing any 5c firewire copy protection built into the SA8300HD.