HD 300

[Doubledose]

What is everyone using to replace a hd 300 with? My hd 300 bit the dust and trying to decide what to replace it with. Will the sage interface work on any other media player?

Wayne

[KeithAbbott]

If you are looking to stay with the Sage interface, your best option(s) are to purchase a used HD200/300, or build a client.

[teststrips]

Yep - unfortunately there aren't many options. Most of the extenders (hd200/300) are still selling for higher than their original price (much higher in some cases). You could build a client PC but then you need to fight with getting it to boot quickly and not be too annoying with windows updates, virus protection, etc. I have also had bad experience with getting a PC based sage machine to work properly with a remote.

If you move away from sage - you could consider using Kodi (formally XBMC) with the ServerWMC backend (which basically makes Kodi control Windows Media Player). Kodi can run on a TON of different devices, however I can't comment about how well it works or how difficult it is to set up - it doesn't look too bad, but I haven't made the leap yet.

My sage extenders still work, however the remote controls have seen better days - I think I've had to super-glue every remote in the house at least once. Sage has a high WAF (wife acceptance factor) in my household and I haven't been brave enough to try something else.

[Doubledose]

Thanks for the reply guy's.
Is anyone using the popcorn hour boxes with any luck?

Wayne

[PulsedPower]

Just out of curiosity, what happen to your extender that makes it unusable?

[Doubledose]

When you are watching it at times the bottom half or so of the picture will go like a green pixelated picture for a second or 2 or 3 then goes back to normal picture and then it may go 5 or 10 minutes and then do it again. Grabbed a HD 200 I had on another tv and used the same cables and it is ok. So it appears something in the 300 is going bad.

[KryptoNyte]

I have seen that green bottom of screen situation occur on (3) different, functioning HD300's. But I also have HD300's where it never occurs. I'm actually leaning towards connection quality here - I'll have to swap HD300 positions at some point and see if the issue moves with the unit.

[Doubledose]

Update!
I am sure glad I did not throw out the HD 300 after I put in a hd 200 and it seamed to work pretty well. It got so another of my hd 300s was acting a little strange. and then I noticed that the hd 200 was acting a little on the strange side. So I started checking things out, unplugging cables and plugging them back in and making sure all was connected good, still same problem. I then happen to remember I had a port go bad on a switch that was the same as this one. So on a chance I went up in my attic stock and found an old 10 /100 switch and changed out the switch. Low and behold a beautiful picture. So at this point in time I think I had a switch that was dying that my hd home run was plugged into and my HD 300's was plugged into. I did not take any more time to see if I could isolate a port.
Time will tell.

Wayne

[mfgolfnut]

My HD300 locked up and would not show bootup on tv and had the perpurish color as well. Tried multiple times to reboot no love. I then brought up my HD 300 from the basement and it booted immediately with all the cords used from the HD 300 with the boot issue. I guess the old 300 is dead? Would tech support help?

Thanks,

mfgolfnut

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by mfgolfnut

My HD300 locked up and would not show bootup on tv and had the perpurish color as well. Tried multiple times to reboot no love. I then brought up my HD 300 from the basement and it booted immediately with all the cords used from the HD 300 with the boot issue. I guess the old 300 is dead? Would tech support help?

Thanks,

mfgolfnut

This seems to be the common mode of failure when they decide to go. I've got two here that do the same thing - it basically is not resetting the CPU on boot. There is a post-production patch component on them that appears to be part of the initialization reset circuit that seems to fail.

[mfgolfnut]

Thanks

[gtallan]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

This seems to be the common mode of failure when they decide to go. I've got two here that do the same thing - it basically is not resetting the CPU on boot. There is a post-production patch component on them that appears to be part of the initialization reset circuit that seems to fail.

Is there any more information on what the common repair actually involves? Even with SMD soldering involved, it would be good to know!