Might buy one....

[kmp14]

I hope you all can help me pull the trigger. A couple questions:

1. I plan on using the HDMI output. Is the composite (analog) output active when HDMI is being used? I would use a channel modulator to send the analog output to the rest of the house. I do that now with my Motorola DVR.

2. Are the partial recordings and audio problems happening to EVERYONE, or are most having NO problems?

Thanks!

[Stanley Rohner]

$700-$800 is a lot of money to spend to record TV shows plus another $12.95/month TiVo fee just to use it plus whatever the cable company is going to charge you to rent their cablecards.

Have you read about the problems people are having with the cable TV companies and cablecards ?

You'd be way better off to save your money and keep the Motorola DVR for now and check back in a year or so to see if the price of the TiVo has come down.

[hookbill]

$700-$800 is a lot of money to spend to record TV shows plus another $12.95/month TiVo fee just to use it plus whatever the cable company is going to charge you to rent their cablecards.

Have you read about the problems people are having with the cable TV companies and cablecards ?

You'd be way better off to save your money and keep the Motorola DVR for now and check back in a year or so to see if the price of the TiVo has come down.

Do you own an S3? So you only know what you read and that is the from people who have problems.

I could sent you to the Vonage forums and you if you made your judgement based on that alone you would think Vonage is horrible. It isn't, it works great.

My S3 works fine. My cable installation went smooth. Further you didn't answer the OP's question, all you did was base an opinion on what you have read in the forums. Try reading the opinions by people in the electronic media on the S3. You'll fine it is the best you can get.

Now having said all that I can't answer the OP's question either. But I just can't have you make a statement like that without knowing the other side of the coin.

[moyekj]

I hope you all can help me pull the trigger. A couple questions:

1. I plan on using the HDMI output. Is the composite (analog) output active when HDMI is being used? I would use a channel modulator to send the analog output to the rest of the house. I do that now with my Motorola DVR.

2. Are the partial recordings and audio problems happening to EVERYONE, or are most having NO problems?

Thanks! 1. Yes, S-video & composite outputs are always active regardless of which HD output you use.
2. Tough to say for sure how widespread the issue is, but it certainly does not affect everyone - remember that this forum is skewed with people posting about problems. Personally I have not had any of the partial recordings and/or missing channels problems that have been posted by several and I use a mixture of sources from both OTA & Cablecards. In my case the most painful thing so far was getting the CableCard installation going - took 3.5 hours to get it working.

[snathanb]

I hope you all can help me pull the trigger. A couple questions:

1. I plan on using the HDMI output. Is the composite (analog) output active when HDMI is being used? I would use a channel modulator to send the analog output to the rest of the house. I do that now with my Motorola DVR.

2. Are the partial recordings and audio problems happening to EVERYONE, or are most having NO problems?

Thanks!

1) Yes
2) I've no problems with mine and couldn't be happier with it. More importantly, the wife is absolutely thrilled with it and wants a second one.

[Sy-]

$700-$800 is a lot of money to spend to record TV shows plus another $12.95/month TiVo fee just to use it plus whatever the cable company is going to charge you to rent their cablecards.

Have you read about the problems people are having with the cable TV companies and cablecards ?

You'd be way better off to save your money and keep the Motorola DVR for now and check back in a year or so to see if the price of the TiVo has come down.

No... $700-$800 is only a lot of money if you cant afford it. If you are not stuck watching DirecTV and you can afford $800 plus monthly fees then I'd highly suggest getting a S3. It kicks the crap out of any DVR box that your cable or satellite provider is offerring.

~Sy

[msu2k]

I hope you all can help me pull the trigger. A couple questions:

1. I plan on using the HDMI output. Is the composite (analog) output active when HDMI is being used? I would use a channel modulator to send the analog output to the rest of the house. I do that now with my Motorola DVR.

2. Are the partial recordings and audio problems happening to EVERYONE, or are most having NO problems?

Thanks!

2. I haven't had a single problem with partial recordings or audio dropouts and I've had my S3 since the week they came out.

[mike300]

2. Are the partial recordings and audio problems happening to EVERYONE, or are most having NO problems?

I have had no problems at all. It's so much better than my old Motorola DVR. Buy it!

[Jerry_K]

I won't be getting cable but I may be getting the S3. OTA is great HD.

[bubba1972]

1. The output is active, but when watching HD content, the whole picture is squashed into the 4x3 output picture. It may not look good on older TVs that don't have format options to stretch it back out.

[moyekj]

1. The output is active, but when watching HD content, the whole picture is squashed into the 4x3 output picture. It may not look good on older TVs that don't have format options to stretch it back out. Yes it's anamorphic widescreen output which I think is great especially if the intent is for it to end up on a DVD or to be displayed on another widescreen TV. I haven't tried but perhaps by setting output format on the S3 to 480i Fixed it would make the composite/S-video outputs letterboxed for HD channels instead of anamorphic widescreen.

[Gregor]

Other than 2 occurences of the S3 hanging and having to unplug it to reset it, it's been great.

Biggest SP issue for me is picking the SD feed instead of the HD feed.

[kmp14]

Thanks so much for the responses. I may just get one soon!

[snathanb]

Good for you! I swear half the negative posts around here are by people who don't own one. Sour grapes, if you ask me.

[mikbrown]

Over a week now and no problems (Comcast Seattle, 2 Cablecards). I picked up the cards at my local office and self installed, no problems (no charge for the cable cards at all).

From observing these forums for the last month, it appears to me that problems fall into 3 categories:

1. Poor cable company handling of cable card installs (bad cards, bad handling of installs by CableCo employees (and some users).
2. Poor signal quality (either too strong or not strong enough) causing some breakups, audio drop outs and missed recordings.
3. Some defective Tivo units... a lot of the hangs/picture breakups, constant reboots seem to have been fixed when folks RMA'ed the broken ones.

By far #1 is the cause of issues IMO. If you have a good cable co that knows what a Tivo Series 3 is and will work with you (or better yet allow a self install) then your chances of a problem diminish greatly.

[hookbill]

Good for you! I swear half the negative posts around here are by people who don't own one. Sour grapes, if you ask me.

I wonder about that as well. I hate to say it but it could be that some people who maybe can't afford or just plain don't want to spend the bucks are just hell bent on picking on the S3. This doesn't include those who have posted about their very real problems, but it does include those who maybe after having a problem experienced buyers remorse and launched into their anti S3 pontificating.

[HiDefGator]

Good for you! I swear half the negative posts around here are by people who don't own one. Sour grapes, if you ask me.

So you're suggesting that people that have never owned an S3 are making up fake problems and posting those problems here because they can't afford an S3? That seems like the biggest stretch of the imagination ever. Perhaps those who have laid out the $800 are just in denial that problems exist.

[toots]

I've had a pretty good experience with my S3 as well. One minor problem that was quickly fixed, and no issues since (knock wood).

The always-active S-Video and Composite outputs were especially important to me since given its lack of MRV, it's what I use for multiroom video distribution off the box. Yeah, there's that whole aspect ratio thing, but it's no big to me.

So far, it's recorded everything I've asked it to record (other than 3-way conflicts), all all to completion. The playback quality looks just as good as watching live off the cable box.

I have precious few complaints.

Is it worth $800 + monthly service fee + monthly rental of 2 cable cards + monthly "outlet" charges? I'll leave that one up to the room. I guess it's worth it to me, 'cause I haven't had any regrets.

[cwoody222]

2. Are the partial recordings and audio problems happening to EVERYONE, or are most having NO problems?

Thanks!

Other than a few audio problems that myself and others here traced to the broadcast signal and some video problems due to me losing my OTA signal during a storm and power outages, no problems here.

Analog cable recording is perfect and so is HD OTA when I have a solid signal.

[kmp14]

OK, thanks again for the input - I have ordered one! I am initially going with std cable and OTA and keeping the Motorola DVR for the other stuff (On Demand, etc).

[snathanb]

So you're suggesting that people that have never owned an S3 are making up fake problems and posting those problems here because they can't afford an S3? That seems like the biggest stretch of the imagination ever. Perhaps those who have laid out the $800 are just in denial that problems exist.


No, that's not what I was suggesting at all. But there are plenty of posts complaining about various aspects of the S3 coming from people who don't own one.

[davecramer74]

OK, thanks again for the input - I have ordered one! I am initially going with std cable and OTA and keeping the Motorola DVR for the other stuff (On Demand, etc).

Thats exactly what i plan to do if i end up getting one. Im personally waiting on the price to come down before i pull the trigger. But im going to keep my motorolla one until im sure the tivo's not going to be a pain. Its obviously got some issues, but what new products dont? You can go read about directv's new dvr. My buddies got one of those and he had nothing but problems early on. They got some updates out to it and its running alot better for him. But he was smart like you, kept his old tivo HD one until all the kinks were worked out.

[jfh3]

Over a week now and no problems (Comcast Seattle, 2 Cablecards). I picked up the cards at my local office and self installed, no problems (no charge for the cable cards at all).

From observing these forums for the last month, it appears to me that problems fall into 3 categories:

1. Poor cable company handling of cable card installs (bad cards, bad handling of installs by CableCo employees (and some users).
2. Poor signal quality (either too strong or not strong enough) causing some breakups, audio drop outs and missed recordings.
3. Some defective Tivo units... a lot of the hangs/picture breakups, constant reboots seem to have been fixed when folks RMA'ed the broken ones.

By far #1 is the cause of issues IMO. If you have a good cable co that knows what a Tivo Series 3 is and will work with you (or better yet allow a self install) then your chances of a problem diminish greatly.

The issues you mention are all valid, but there are also clearly some problems. Tivo has acknowledged to some of us that the partial recording issue is a problem. I happen to think it's a error handling issue.

The problem that some are having with missing channels in the analog range may be hardware, but the two "biggies" are almost certainly issues that can be addressed in software.

I'm fairly confident that these will be addressed ASAP - Tivo can't afford not to - but because they aren't consistent or apparently easily reproducable, it may take some time.

But as annoying as these problems can be if they happen to you, for me the Series 3's have been far less problematic than the cable DVR they replaced and the benefits of the Series 3 makes it worthwhile.

If future software updates don't address these problems in a reasonable about of time, I may feel differently, but I'd say to the OP - don't let those issues keep you from getting one - they aren't chronic problems.

[jfh3]

So you're suggesting that people that have never owned an S3 are making up fake problems and posting those problems here because they can't afford an S3? That seems like the biggest stretch of the imagination ever.


Agreed.

Perhaps those who have laid out the $800 are just in denial that problems exist.

I haven't seen a single post that would support that claim either.