The only thing the boxes report back to the cable headend about viewing is pay-per-view purchases. Reporting all viewing habits would overload the datapath back to the headend (it's only 1.5Mb/s per ~10,000 boxes).
The box does not do any recompressing of the digital channels. If you record an analog channel, usually anything below channel 100, the box has to real-time encode the analog to mpeg. If your cable has some noise on it, the encoding get that too.
Digital channels should play back as clear as the broadcast. That said some cable operators compress the signal before it leaves there headend.
Play with live recording some and see if the poor playback quality is on the analog channels. If it is, well unfortunately high quality realtime mpeg encoders cost more than $10/month.
Currently the 8000 can only play back to itself. S-A knows how to and is working on 'Multi-room PVR'. What the cable companies will charge for that is up to them.
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The only thing the boxes report back to the cable headend about viewing is pay-per-view purchases. Reporting all viewing habits would overload the datapath back to the headend (it's only 1.5Mb/s per ~10,000 boxes).
The box does not do any recompressing of the digital channels. If you record an analog channel, usually anything below channel 100, the box has to real-time encode the analog to mpeg. If your cable has some noise on it, the encoding get that too. Digital channels should play back as clear as the broadcast. That said some cable operators compress the signal before it leaves there headend. Play with live recording some and see if the poor playback quality is on the analog channels. If it is, well unfortunately high quality realtime mpeg encoders cost more than $10/month.
Currently the 8000 can only play back to itself. S-A knows how to and is working on 'Multi-room PVR'. What the cable companies will charge for that is up to them.