TiVo Series 3 - "Official" Thread

Just ordered mine from CC. Note: Through 9/30, if you navigate to them from this site:

http://dealmac.com/deals/Circuit-Cit...=rss_dealmac_7
(or any affiliate site)
You get 10% off. I did it, was skeptical, worked. $80 off on line order.

May belong in great found deals, no time....

Ordered one direct from TiVo early this morning, if it ships Thursday I'll have it Friday.

Ordered mine from CC -- shipped this afternoon -- FedEx says I should get it Friday.

Order status page says: Estimated ship date: 09/14/2006. BB also had them this AM (sans 10% off coupoun) but later in the day they were not on the site anymore. I presume they sold out.

I can't wait for mine to get here. Now I just have to mess with getting a lifetime gift card applied to it. Then that POS Motorola/Comcast HD DVR won't be able to come off my rack fast enough.

Gotta find an OTA antenna. Not to get too far off topic but anyone have a recommendation on a good one? (no snake oil).

A couple of (potentially dumb) questions:

1) TiVo sent me an e-mail saying that if I bought the Series 3 now, for $199 I can transfer the lifetime service on my current non-HD Series 2 to the new unit. This offer applies only if I order directly from TiVo and not, say, Circuit City or elsewhere right? Am I really going to find a better price elsewhere than $800? $199 for lifetime service on the new unit when such a subscription option isn't offered anymore seems like a really good deal.

2) Are the necessary CableCARDs going into the TiVo unit only? If so, does that mean that my HDTV (an NEC) need not CableCARD-compatible (i.e., have slots for the card) itself?

Good work Getgray, the 10% off coupon worked for me, total $782 with tax and one day shipping supposed to be here Thursday.

yes, silentbob the S3 has two cablecard slots.

depends on your area GG. have you checked antennaweb.org to see what stations and direction distance you are from towers.

warren electronics has a good range of antennas. the channel master 4228 usually gets great reviews. I use a old style looking rca large outside uhf/vhf bought it at home depot for $60, and 3x 5 ft poles to put it 15ft in the air. i am 25 miles from my towers and get good solid reception.

Thanks. I had not looked but have now. Of the stations marked "DT" ( I presume those are the HD channels), all but one requred the lowest antenna (yellow); the other one had red. All of the are basically at the same angle. Most are are about 7 miles, a couple at 21 miles. I'd like to put my antenna in my huge, empty attic.

Just ordered mine from CC. $768 total. It says 9-14-06 as ship date. I hope that means shipped to me. Man I can't wait. With this and my HDD-250 I will be able to record 3 HD channels at the same time. Hot diggity. I will post back after tryin it out.

GG, at 7 miles most any antenna should work and if in the same direction at 21 probably will too. attics usually work fine too. (just with ota there are always variables), hills, trees, other houses/buildings etc..

do you check to see if you have any uhf digital stations? most use vhf but also remember some may revert back to vhf in a few years. you can always start with a small antenna in the attic from radio shack or home depot or lowes and if that doesnt work try a larger one. with those local sources it is easy to return if it doesn't work.

if you can't find an antenna locally try warrenelectronics.com or starkelectronics.com. i've used warren a couple times and they have good prices and shipped fast.

some UHF only like the Channel master 4228 will also pick up channels in the upper vhf range 7-13.

HDD-250 I thought I'd get at CC was $339 (couldn't talk them down lower than that and $200 was my cut-off) so i'm gonna roll w/ the Tivo instead. Coupon worked for me, too.

Does anyone know if the Tivo wireless network adapter works with the series 3? I plan on using it with the Airport extreme, should be a good set-up I hope!

Yes, it does.

That said, you'd probably get better network performance by using a 100mbps ethernet -> wireless bridge or an ethernet -> wireless gaming adapter. One example of a wireless bridge would be Apple's Airport Express.

Cheaper alternatives are available if you don't care whether it's from Apple.

The extra performance wouldn't really make a difference now, but it would if/when Tivo releases updated software with TivoToGo and MRV support.

Thanks Scott! I'm in at <$800 and can finally use my lifetime card to good effect.

From the Tivo thread I read this morning, that's correct. It has to be purchased directly from Tivo.

I'm waiting until I hear some reviews - at $800 plus $199...damn. It better be great - but I would like the dual tuners.

Hold out a few weeks for the dot.com vendors like Amazon.com and Buy.com to sell 'em for $600-$650.

At a wholesale price of $500, there is certainly some room for differentiated pricing, assuming Tivo doesn't set MRP.

I noticed it only has 32 hours of HD storage and no mention of any ability to add additional hard drives. Plus it says the eSata port is "reserved for future use".

What's the chance of TIVO offering larger internal hard drive sizes in the near future?

If I buy it now and they later enable either the eSata or USB ports for expanding storage, will that be a software upgrade that I can download (or that gets automatically pushed to the box) or will I need to replace the whole box?

Does the series 3 have two live buffers, and if so how many minutes do they allow?

Thanks,
Jim

From the information in TCF, the eSATA port could be enabled through a software update. And, initially, it was thought the internal drive would be IDE. But it's a SATA drive, which, in theory, could be replaced (upgraded). TiVo's plan all along (and it was shown at CES 2006) has been to allow adding an external SATA (eSATA) drive to increase storage. An external drive was on display at CES this year.

Yes, 30 minutes for both.
There's an S3 FAQ here.

Certainly it's all speculation at this point. I believe that TiVo's intent in providing the eSATA port was to discourage users from replacing the internal HD. Fact is, it would be a much wiser investment (when the port is enabled) to buy an eSATA enclosure and drop an internal SATA drive in it. You could double the S3's storage for under $100. And I'd be much more comfortable doing that than swapping out the internal HD. I've swapped out/installed many internal hard drives, so I'm not a novice. But TiVo is making it easier to increase storage (hopefully when, and not if, they enable the eSATA port).

Spiff, I believe that's true (operationally). I believe you can disconnect it, but certainly would have to reconnect for the TiVo to function properly. I don't believe disconnecting it would "damage" anything. I'm stating this from memory (can't find the info right now on TCF).

A recorded program can exist across both the internal and external drives. Someone wrote that removing the external drive would cause such a program to vanish from the recorded programs list.