Lots of HDD-200s on flebay

[dem0nlord]

My HDD-201 keeled over tonight, so I went looking for another one. This guy sure has a lot of them. Price is not too bad. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290075151042

 

[crankbooster]

My HDD-201 keeled over tonight, so I went looking for another one. This guy sure has a lot of them. Price is not too bad. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290075151042

Can this unit work with any receiver or it is only Motorrola or G.I products

 

[tdti1]

Thats a great price, I mite grab one for a backup. Thanks

 

[vfrjim]

I wonder if it comes with the cable to attach?

 

[HDTVFanAtic]

My HDD-201 keeled over tonight, so I went looking for another one. This guy sure has a lot of them. Price is not too bad. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290075151042

I wonder how he ended up with 115 of the things.

Considering there are 2 types of cables - chances are nil to none he has the cable, but they are pretty easy to make - only 3 wires needed.

If I had not gotten 3 for $150 I certainly would be looking at those.

 

[dem0nlord]

I wonder how he ended up with 115 of the things.

My guess is it is a lot of equipment a cableco is no longer using after upgrading to something newer.

 

[iammike]

That is a good deal. I've already got a r5000 modded 922 hooked through my Sage network, but it might be cool to hook up an hdd200 to my projector for channel surfing.

Can anyone tell me more about the cable requirements?

Thanks,
Mike

 

[Mr Tony]

I assume this will only work with the HD stuff and not any SD programming and you also need a 4DTV already?

 

[iammike]

I assume this will only work with the HD stuff and not any SD programming and you also need a 4DTV already?

It should work with all SD and HD as long as it's digital. It won't work for analog. You will need a 4DTV receiver.

 

[Mr Tony]

ok. So I could hook this up stand alone and get SD channels in DCII?

 

[iammike]

Ice,

No, you'll need a 4dtv receiver. It should work with a 922 or 920, and I think a 905 sidecar but I'm not certain. You'll also need to be subbed to 4dtv for it to have much value.

The hdd200 connects via an MMAP cable to the receiver. That's the cable I asked about earlier. The cables seem to be somewhat hard to come by if you want to purchase one, but I think some folks are making they're own. If I'm reading the ebay ad correctly, the cable doesn't come with the HDD200's that he's selling.

Mike

 

[Mr Tony]

OK thanks!

 

[dem0nlord]

Yes they work with the 905 and some GI/Motorola Cable TV boxes also. Besides the MMAP interface you can connect the SD audio/video cables from the receiver to the HDD200 and it will upconvert the SD video(DCII & Analog) and pass it to the component out so that you don't have to switch sources on your home theater. It's not the best upconverter though.

The MMAP cable is an 1/8" stereo miniplug on the HDD end, and it varies on the receiver end, I know the 922 takes a 9 pin connector just like a PC serial port, the 905 is just another 1/8" stereo miniplug.

Best I can remember right now the only FP or ZK HD channels are Wealth TV and one of the PBS ones. But 2 HBO, 2 Starz, and one Showtime HD cost nothing extra if you are already subscribing to those services. Leaves just Discovery HD which is $5.50 a month as I recall.

What I really want to hear about is the R5000 inside the 922 rather than being in the HDD200. I've wondered about that, does that strictly give you the ability to record HD, but not watch it live since there is no HDD200?

 

[tdti1]

ok. So I could hook this up stand alone and get SD channels in DCII?

No, it'a just a decoder, and if you had a 4dtv I would not pass the SD to the HDD 200 the upconverter sucks, its just good for the HD channels.

 

[HDTVFanAtic]

What I really want to hear about is the R5000 inside the 922 rather than being in the HDD200. I've wondered about that, does that strictly give you the ability to record HD, but not watch it live since there is no HDD200?

You could watch it live IF you played it on a HTPC to you HDTV as it was recording.

The R5000HD software does not lock the file to exclusive use for this reason.

Some Software Players and the MyHD Card for example also will play the file without locking it - thus they can play the Program in virtual real time as it is captured.

Likewise, if you instructed the R5000HD to feed a DVHS deck at the same time, you could monitor it in real time via the DVHS deck connected to your HDTV.

However, you need the newer R5000HD to go directly in the DSR920/922 - if you have the one that goes in the HDD-200 they will not reuse that part and sell you a whole new unit for full price instead - even though the only difference is a small subchassis with 2 ICs that connects to the original unit.

 

[iammike]

What I really want to hear about is the R5000 inside the 922 rather than being in the HDD200. I've wondered about that, does that strictly give you the ability to record HD, but not watch it live since there is no HDD200?

I've had my 922 modded with the r5000 for about a year now. It works pretty well. If you use it with SageTV, then you can watch live TV and channel surf, otherwise it's just for recording. The recording capability is pretty solid, I've archived quite a few HD movies and shows over the last year. The Sage network encoder is working okay but needs some work.

I've just got it set up with 2.5 beta for Sage in the last couple weeks. The first cut of the Sage software didn't work so well. Regardless of what sat your channel was on, it always went through the dish moving logic when changing channels. It took 30 to 40 seconds to change channels every time. The new version has channel surf mode. This allows you to change channels on the same satellite without going through the dish moving logic. Even when you change sats, the performance is improved. It takes around 10 seconds for channel changes on the same sat, and about 25 if you go to a different one. The cool thing with Sage is that you have a real guide for 4dtv, the equal of any cable or pizza dish system, which reduces the need to channel surf somewhat. Another cool thing about Sage is you can integrate PC cards running MyTheatre and get FTA channels. I've got the G10 equity channels in Sage with full guide info for the RTN's.

The downside to the Sage solution is you need to have good PC skills to set it up well, and there's still some bugs that Nextcomm needs to work out. All in all, it works pretty well for a beta though.

 

[JerryK]

Hi Guys,
forgive me if this is already in the thread..I didn't read too close....

Can an hdd200 with a '922 decode OTA (terrestrial) HD? ..or can in only handle signals coming off my dish's lnbs?

 

[HDTVFanAtic]

The hdd200 connects via an MMAP cable to the receiver. That's the cable I asked about earlier. The cables seem to be somewhat hard to come by if you want to purchase one, but I think some folks are making they're own. If I'm reading the ebay ad correctly, the cable doesn't come with the HDD200's that he's selling.

http://forumz.tomshardware.com/games/HDD200-MMAP-Data-Cable-Pinout-ftopict40439.html

 

[HDTVFanAtic]

Hi Guys,
forgive me if this is already in the thread..I didn't read too close....

Can an hdd200 with a '922 decode OTA (terrestrial) HD? ..or can in only handle signals coming off my dish's lnbs?

Neither.

It is the External HD Decoder for Motorola Consumer Products.

 

[dem0nlord]

The cool thing with Sage is that you have a real guide for 4dtv, the equal of any cable or pizza dish system, which reduces the need to channel surf somewhat. Another cool thing about Sage is you can integrate PC cards running MyTheatre and get FTA channels. I've got the G10 equity channels in Sage with full guide info for the RTN's.

The downside to the Sage solution is you need to have good PC skills to set it up well, and there's still some bugs that Nextcomm needs to work out. All in all, it works pretty well for a beta though.

Very interesting. I'm going to go read up on this now. I had 2 DVB cards plus an ATSC card running pretty well with a MythTV setup here at one time. If I can get all of this stuff to work seamlessly through one PC, I think that is worth trying, would simplify surfing greatly for me. At first glance I see they do have Sage for Linux, so that's good.