Comments on: A Review of the TiVo® Series3™ HD Digital Media Recorder

By: anonymous

anonymous — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 23:55:20 +0000

I just called the VIP Offer phone number and verified that you do not have to buy your Series 3 tivo @ tivo.com to qualify for the VIP upgrade. All you need is the service number of your old tivo and your new tivo, and they’ll make it happen.

By: shiftless

shiftless — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 03:42:48 +0000

The new Series 3 is awesome. Sadly, mine came defective. What’s worse is that their tech support this time around has been rude and horrible. They said they’d have an engineer connect to it only to later find out I’d been inexplicably taken off the list. Come on, this thing is $1,000 dollars (incl. lifetime) and you only have 30 days to swap a defective unit!

By: megazone

megazone — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 05:28:52 +0000

The guide has exactly the same functionality that you had on the Series2. If you use both antenna and cable then the channels are integrated and interlaced in the guide. So if you had cable channels 2,3,4 and antenna ATSC channels 2-1, 2-2, 3-1, they’re listed in the guide as 2,2-1,2-2,3,3-1,4. You can select and deselect any of the channels in the channel manager screen, just like before.

The only exception is if you try to use digital cable WITHOUT CableCARD. Without CableCARD the S3 has guide data for antenna (ATSC & NTSC) and analog cable. No data for digital cable. WITH CableCARD, you also have guide data for digital cable.

Most digital cable channels are encrypted, so you can’t use them without CableCARD anyway. However, some digital cable channels, usually local channels, are sent in-the-clear. The S3 can tune these, but you have to manually enter the right number. And you can record, but only by time & channel since there is no guide data without a CableCARD.

There is a reason – the channel numbers we use, say channel 200, aren’t the actually channels the digital tuner needs to use. That could be, say, 85-1. Cable boxes, and CableCARD, map those channels. So the S3 would know that channel 200 is on carrier frequency 85-1. But without the CableCARD the S3 doesn’t get the mapping, and cable companies can, and do, change the mapping at whim (to optimize their system). There is no centralized source of these mappings, like there is for guide data, so TiVo doesn’t have a good way to do the mapping without CableCARD, which provides it automatically.

It shouldn’t be a big deal, most users with digital cable are going to want to use CableCARD to access all of their channels anyway.

By: anonymous

anonymous — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 18:56:17 +0000

Please pardon my ignorance, as I’m fairly new to TiVo. I’m a bit confused about the access to the channel guide. I have Cox digital cable with their (pos) SA 8300 HD unit. One of the things that I’ve always despised is their faulty recordings, and their lack of ability to deselect channels that I do not have (nor want). If I remember correctly, I could remove those channels from the tuner within my old Series 2. But my main issue, is the use of the guide. From what I’ve read of the review, I just wanted to clarify the availability of using the guide feature. Will I no longer be able to see what shows are coming on at a later time/date? If so, this completely negates the overall usage of a Series 3 for me. I’m also thinking this wouldn’t be a good solution for me, since I would lose the wishlist/season pass feature. = /

Thanks for any insight.

By: weaktwos

weaktwos — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 08:13:35 +0000

Well, a used unit should depreciate, shouldn’t it? Couldn’t they sell it at a “refurb” price?

By: megazone

megazone — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 07:51:31 +0000

If they gave viewers free, or discounted, boxes then it could taint the reviews.

By: weaktwos

weaktwos — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 07:49:31 +0000

Excellent review! Thanks for all the hard work. Wow, you actually have to return the unit? Couldn’t they give you a discount on the test box?

By: aizjanika

aizjanika — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 05:21:53 +0000

Thanks for the fantastic review. I’m still a bit sad that I’ll probably never be able to use a Series 3 since we have satellite and are unlikely to ever go back to cable.

Instead I splurged and bought two standalone Series 2 (for the other TVs in the house) and upgraded my Humax DRT800. We’ll probably be upgrading to HD TV in at least one of the rooms soon, though, and eventually in all the rooms. I wonder if that will be a waste of time since the non-HD pictures don’t look as good on an HD TV and I watch almost no live TV.

By: megazone

megazone — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 04:01:33 +0000

Bingo.

By: megazone

megazone — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 04:01:22 +0000

Yes, you can use antenna without cable. And there is one antenna input, the signal is split internally.

By: stile99

stile99 — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 01:50:33 +0000

*eyes MZ warily*

Aha. So this explains the looking for recording times on the Humax boxes…

http://community.livejournal.com/tivolovers/333075.html?nc=5

You are one sneaky devil.

By: anonymous

anonymous — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 01:49:45 +0000

With the Series 3 Tivo could I take advantage of its dual tuners with only OTA HD (no cable provider)? If so, would I need to connect one OTA Antenna or two?

By: megazone

megazone — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 22:04:19 +0000

You’re welcome, mystery person.

By: anonymous

anonymous — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 21:58:30 +0000

Awesome review and info. It spanks all the other reviews. You rock!

By: mhaithaca

mhaithaca — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 20:35:49 +0000

I feel your pain.

Eventually got to a point in the review where you mention that, too. Can’t wait to hear what they say about the magic rebooting SD show.

I keep looking at Time Warner Cable and wincing. I just can’t bring myself to switch. Maybe Verizon FIOS TV will have a decent lineup, but I’m not holding my breath. My part of town doesn’t even have DSL.

By: megazone

megazone — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 20:27:01 +0000

Yep, it goes back. I’ll be buying one.

By: mhaithaca

mhaithaca — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 20:25:27 +0000

Yup, and I’m hoping, like you, that it’s something they can fix in software.

Thank you very much for this excellent review! I’m still not done reading, but I really appreciate all the work you obviously put into it! And, I’m really jealous. I won’t get to use this product.

So do you have to send the thing back?

By: krellis

krellis — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 20:13:44 +0000

As I understand it, many (most?) cable companies consider the rental fees for the CC to be “per device” – so if you have one device with two cable cards, it’s just one additional fee. Obviously that will vary from cable company to cable company, but it seems, from what people have been reporting over on TiVoCommunity so far, that the companies that consider it to be two devices have smaller fees per cablecard ($2/mo or so) than the ones that consider it one device (or outlet – $8/mo or so). Probably a good idea to call your cable company first and find out what they consider it, if that makes a difference to you.

By: megazone

megazone — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 20:13:42 +0000

Well, the target market for the S3 is HD users – not their overall market. TiVo said they expect the majority of buyers to want to use the dual-tuner functionality, and therefore get two cards.

CableCARD rental ranges from free to $5/month it seems, so it isn’t too harsh.

By: mhaithaca

mhaithaca — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 20:08:27 +0000

I think the none-or-two CableCard requirement IS a big deal. Since you’ll have to pay a rental fee for each one, I can imagine a lot of users would want to get one, and then be able to record just one digital cable show at a time… but anything else they want from analog or antenna. Since TiVo’s whole premise behind this product is that the whole market for it is cable and antenna users, I imagine a LOT of what the average user needs to record is from analog or antenna. (Especially when you consider that the vast majority of “digital cable” isn’t.)

By: krellis

krellis — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 16:39:40 +0000

Excellent writing, thanks for such a comprehensive review! It’s nice to see companies like TiVo acknowledging bloggers as a true, valid part of the “media”.