Are the 8300 HD pvr's still available anywhere?

[Pottertons]

After growing more and more frustrated with the recent updates to the guide, I am currently trying to find out if I can still get a hold of the previous version of HD PVR's so that i can go back to the previous guide. 

Does anyone know if there is a way to have store locations checked for inventory? 

***Edited labels***

[Lurker]

They are not sold in stores.

You ĉan buy online  at theshoppingchannel.com.  $179.99

[joeFerreira]

Don't go with Shopping channel they are pricey, go online to craigslist and they have them for $100 no tax. They have quite a few on there, I just bought a Nextbox HD PVR for $150.00, just a matter of taking the time to search on craigslist and going to pick it up, usually they will plug it in for you, so you are sure that it is all working, what I did and I suggest you do it too when you buy it on craigslist, is ask the seller to send you the serial number of the box so this way you can call Rogers and they will confirm if it is a good box and if it works on their network..

Cheers.

[Gdkitty]

Joe brought up some good points.

Make sure the seller shows you its working (powers on at least).
Also the serial number thing, is the most important.

Even if someone has CANCELED their rogers account, the box can sometimes still be tied to their account.
If a box is still on someones account, it CAN NOT be added to yours.  Even though they own it, etc.. if its 'active' on their account, you can not add it.
They need to call in and make sure its removed, before you can add it to yours.

[jimboden]

Pottertons:

I live in Toronto and have a disconnected 8300HD PVR which I bought many years ago. I was intending to sell it on Craigslist, but have held off. I rented a Nextbox 3 back in early August and have considered switching back to my 8300 because of audio issues with the NB 3. I definitely agree that, if you buy one, you should get the serial number checked out with Rogers. When I rented the Nextbox, I called Rogers and had them unauthorize my 8300, so it's no longer connected with my account. The downside is that I can't show a prospective buyer that the box is actually working without having it reauthorized.

[OLDYELLR]

The 8300HDs that the Shopping Channel sells are refurbished units with a 2-year warranty. Rogers owns Shopping Channel and that's where all their stock went after these were discontinued. (They gave the SD models away as a promotion. I have one).

While you may save $100 getting one off Craigslist or Kijiji, it will have no warranty. Your choice.

jimboden, if I were you, I'd hang on to your old 8300HD for a while longer. I've been following various threads on the forums about the NB3 and it's far from bug-free. Who wants to be recording all their favourite shows, not knowing if it will work or if the recordings will disappear or whether the box will decide to reboot unexpectedly?

Today I'll be picking up a brand new 50" Smart TV. If the picture doesn't look good enough with my 8300SD, I'll be getting a refurbished 8300HD for sure. I wouldn't even think about a NB3 until it's perfected, or maybe replaced by version 4.

[jimboden]

OLDYELLR:

Yeah, I'm still hanging onto my 8300. Selling it isn't important to me anyway. Congrats on the new Smart TV. I have a Samsung 3D LED Smart TV and love it! Samsung really does a nice job with all its apps too.

I've been hanging in with the NB 3 and gritting my teeth, hoping that Rogers is eventually going to acknowledge all the issues and finally start to do something about it. Last night, I noticed my box was displaying CDxx, which may mean some kind of big update. Will look at it later today to see if there was a firmware update.

[Gdkitty]

Been talking with a few on digitalhome about this, as many users posting about different errors, etc there as well (i like to take stuff back and forth between to two).
One of the admins there, does home theatre setup.  WHile himself he still has the 8300s ... he has done alot of setups with the NB3.

His experience its 50/50.  Some users have loss recordings, reboots, etc.

Other users.. like myself the same... DONT have it.  Has recorded everything fine.. no random reboots, etc.

The 8300 is a decent box... i had bad luck with it though.. back when renting, went through 5 of them with bad hard drives, and one the tuner went. 😛
But others have had them SOLID for years.

It seems, period, like some of these boxes, are a crapshoot any way you look at it 😞

[OLDYELLR]

---

@Gdkitty wrote:

The 8300 is a decent box... i had bad luck with it though.. back when renting, went through 5 of them with bad hard drives, and one the tuner went. 😛
But others have had them SOLID for years.

---

The first freebee 8300SD box I received had a problem. Checking the info, I saw it had a Maxtor drive with errors. The replacement has a WD drive and has worked fine for 4 years, except once when it lost all recordings, perhapsdue to a power surge. I never liked Mxtor drives since one started to fail on me in my PC.

[Hogwash]

Yea, they really need to design these things so the end user can easily swap out the drives in case of failure or future upgrade. Hardware with no upgrade path at that price point is pretty ridiculous. You should also be able to upgrade the processor and memory in a perfect world. I mean at $500 a pop you need to be able to get some mileage out of the thing.

[Gdkitty]

While more propritary... something along the lines i saw on some older HP systems a # of years ago.

Had a bay in the front, which took this propritary shaped external drive enclosure, its own connector, but acted as a 2nd internal drive.

Something akin to that.. you could keep the connector the same..but allow different ones, that could have different drives put in them.. then you pop that into a slot on the PVR for the drive.. easily changable if needed.

Heck, could even allow maybe for swaping of stored stuff between same models at that point?