Digital Trends

Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8000

September 13th, 2004 | by Jeff Fila

Playing Recorded Programs

To play back recorded shows, simply hit the “list” button on the remote control and you are presented with the list of all recorded shows. The list shows the name of the program, the original air date and time, and the length of the recording. From this list you can hit the “info” button for a program description or hit the “select” button to see other options. You can play, block or erase the program, change how long it will be saved on your hard drive, or copy it to a VCR. The “copy to VCR” option was just added in the recent software update, and it allows you to easily transfer your recorded shows to a VCR connected to the analog “VCR out” connections on the back of the unit.

The new update also added a few useful options to the recording preferences menu. One option we were glad to see is the “recording space used” feature. This shows you the percentage of hard drive space used and the number of recordings currently on the drive. By checking this periodically, you can manage future recordings to make sure you have enough room. The upgrade also added “auto erase” which can be enabled or disabled in the recording preferences menu. Auto erase will erase your oldest recordings to make room for new scheduled recordings. The other useful option on this menu is the ability to change your recorded show view from an alphabetical list to a list sorted by original air date.

Viewing the "Recorded List" gives you access to all recordings and recording options.

If your recording setup results in scheduling conflicts, such as selecting three shows to record at once, the Explorer 8000 will notify you of the conflict and allow you to delete one of the recordings.

The Explorer 8000 is constantly recording live TV, allowing you to pause and rewind television as you are watching it. This feature is pretty straightforward and works as we expected. By hitting the rewind button at any time during a program, you can rewind at one of three different speeds. Hitting play will play back the recording and hitting it a second time will play in slow-motion. Hitting the “live” button will bring you back to live TV. There is also an instant-replay button that will automatically replay the last 10 seconds of a program.

With the Explorer 8000's picture-in-picture (PIP) feature, you can also watch two shows at once. Since the Explorer is rendering the second picture, PIP can work on any TV, even those that don't natively support PIP. The PIP can be moved from corner to corner and you can switch from the main screen to the PIP show with the click of the “swap” button. The Explorer 8000 allows you to record both shows as well. The only downside to the PIP we could find was the tendency for the Explorer 8000 to “pixelate” the show in PIP — presumably because the image is “downscaled” by the Explorer's software.