As a brief disclaimer this post was written about two months ago and I never had the time to finalize it - given the Series3 units are now on close out I figured I should post this in draft condition or it would be fairly useless by the time I posted it a few weeks from now…
After many issues with my Comcast Motorola DVR 3416 I decided to take the plunge and get a Tivo Series3 HD. The real clincher for me was the ability to purchase lifetime for $400 since I already have a DVR810H-S with lifetime.
Anyway, I ordered it a few weeks ago on Amazon for about $559 (unfortunately it costs more now and is seemingly unavailable). There is a $200 rebate as well so it works out to be about $110 more than the Tivo HDso at the end of the day it was a pretty good deal. The big differences is really a 250gb drive in the Series3 versus the 160gb in the HD, a nicer remote, THX certification, nice OLED screen, Crestron integration, TiVo Togo transfers are about twice as fast as the HD, and the lack of M-Cable Card support (the HD has this). The thing I really got me was the lack of M-card support, which may be available in a future software update. It didn’t matter much since Comcast didn’t have the M-Cards or know what they even were… If you are wondering the M-Cards let you view up to 6 HD streams with a single cable card - a regular cable card only views 1 stream so you need two of them for dual tuner support.
So, I got the Series3 from Amazon in a fairly mangled outer box, but the TiVo itself was ok. Then I ran out and got 2 cable cards - pretty easy at the local Comcast office. Supposedly they activated the cards while I was there but I had to call to activate them after I got them in the TiVo.
Setup took a while since I constantly connected to get the latest software updates, but once it was done everything worked great. The only problem I have had in about a month has been one of the cable cards being deactivated which was fixed by a quick call to Comcast.
In terms of the features I won’t get into too many specifics except that it works just like any other dual tuner TiVo but records in HD. Some of the menus are not fully HD, but still look great. The TiVo Togo works great as well - even for HD recordings. As far as Multi-room Viewing, you just cannot transfer HD shows to a non-HD TiVo. It would be great if it transcoded the HD shows to a Series2, but it would be a bit much to expect that. To be honest, the only stand-out difference (aside from HD) on the Series3 I noticed was the ability to change the aspect ratio on the TiVo rather than the TV itself - this way you get to see the fast-forward and guide overlays without a problem when zooming, etc.
To say the Series3 is just as good as a Series2 with HD is really a compliment though. When the Series3 first came out it was lacking quite a few features. It really makes me a little thankful I waited this long to take the Series3 plunge. Plus, I just heard that SDV is going to be supported via an upcoming USB dongle on the Series3 and HD so that is great news as well.
If you hate your cable company’s DVR and have some cash to burn, the Series3 (or HD) is really worth it. Having been a TiVo user for a while before using Comcast’s DVR I was really happy to have TiVo back on my main TV. Now, if Comcast can get its own DVR with TiVo out sometime in the next decade there will really be a tough choice to be made. I suspect that advanced features like MRV and TiVo Togo will be missing on the Comcast TiVo though so I will probably be happy with my Series3 choice for a while… until the Series4 comes out at least…
February 15th, 2008 at 6:57 am
I can sing the praises of the very similar TivoHD. A little over a year ago, all Ginna and I had in terms of DVRs was two lifetime equipped ReplayTVs. We got them both for under $200, about a year apart, and at a time when there was no TivoHD or Series3, they were fantastic. Networking and program sharing, component output, hacked with larger hard drives, plus no fees ever was a fantastic feature set. When we got married and had an actual living room for a nice HDTV, I looked at what Charter was offering for HD DVRs and I found the Motorola MOXI box. This piece of hardware was leaps and bounds above the ReplayTV, not just for allowing HD content but also in that it was a cable company box that would allow you to plug in your own USB hard drive to up your show storage. I used a 750GB WD My Book and we were off to the races.
I know I said I would talk about the TivoHD but I had to set it up first. When we moved from Athens to an area where only Comcast offered service, I again evaluated their HD DVR offerings and was completely let down. They wanted to charge more for the HD tier of programming and about the same amount to rent an HD DVR that had no expandability and drastically less HD recording than we were used to. Enter the TivoHD. I began looking for a way to get my storage up to near 100 HD hrs for the least amount of money possible. I had an interesting time getting two working cablecards delivered but when they got here I was in business with dual tuners for recording two HD programs at once, and when they finally found an M card I wasn’t willing to undo what the perfect working setup I had. Luckily the My Book hard drive was a perfect addition to the TivoHD once I opened the cases of each. So now I only pay the Tivo monthly subscription fee which is close to the box rental price from either Comcast or Charter and $1.50 for the second cablecard. The beautiful part about using TivoHD at least with Comcast is that they send over most of the HD channels unencrypted for the cablecard to pluck out and deliver in Hi-Def glory—sayonara HD programming package fee.
Now in addition to the cost savings and the additional supported features that Tivo brings to the table, TivoToGo, Online program Scheduling, etc., we genuinely love the interface. Ginna had become accustomed to the ReplayTV and MOXI interfaces and could navigate them just fine, but the layout for Tivo is much more user friendly and she liked it best of all systems the first time she tried it.
I talked to Garrett about installing the larger hard drive and certainly if maintaining a fully intact warranty is what you’re after than the Series 3 might be the way to go for its external-non-warranty-busting expandability. I wasn’t interested in going that route for a few reasons. 1) I wanted to use my existing hardware and luckily enough the My Book Hard drive was a SATA drive inside a USB enclosure, take it out it fits the TivoHD, leave it in, and it still can’t plug into the Series3, 2) like the ReplayTV, the Xbox, a Mio GPS, my three Linksys WRTs running DD-WRT firmware, or any other piece of electronic technology I own, if it can be hacked to add more useful functionality, and I am capable of doing it, then I will in fact do it. 3) The Tivo Community forums mentioned that while Tivo will still know that you opened your box after the hack, that if you have problems and reinstall the original drive, you can still get access to technical support. While I hope I never have to do that, I was perfectly willing to take my chances to create the best DVR I’ve ever seen, packed with storage, features, and the most usable interface out there.
That said, I highly recommend the TivoHD to anyone out there currently running a cable provider’s stock box. You will lose nothing and have everything to gain, particularly if you can get out of paying the programming fee to you provider and make use of the free HD content they provide to cablecard users.
February 26th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Scott, Comcast may not know what the M-cards are, but they have them. I have one in my Tivo HD.
February 26th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Yeah, I got an M-Card this past weekend from the Comcast office at Greenbriar Mall. It seems they may have discovered them between the time Scott asked and I did. I’m going to write a post with my impressions as soon as it arrives. (This Thursday!)
February 27th, 2008 at 11:07 am
Yeah - I was extremely jealous when I learned from Garrett the M-cards were available. When Comcast initially told me they didn’t have them I managed to justify the lack of M-card support in my Series3 and the extra $1.50 a month the extra cable card cost me as a necessary expense. Now that Garrett has an M-card in hand I am really hoping that M-card support will be released for the Series3. It is not that big of a deal though - $1.50 over 3 years is just 50 bucks or so… I really cannot complain that much.