TivoHD vs Series3 HD

[Innkeeper]

I purchased my first Tivo some years ago, a Pioneer 810 and still have it and love it but I just made the leap and purchased a 50" Panasonic 1080 HD Plasma so I want to upgrade my Tivo also. The obvious thing that I can see is Different is the THX sound with the Series3 compared to the TivoHD but other than that what could I expect to see different comparing the two.

Also if I were to go with the Series3 does this mean that I need to purchase a receiver that has THX also?

One last dumb question...with a HDMI plug would I just need to plug the cable from the wall into the Tivo unit and then the HDMI plug from the Tivo to the Television?

Thanks for any help or advise

[samaritan66]

The TiVo S3 has a OLED on the front to let you know what it is recording. It has a spiffy glow remote (I use a harmony 676 so that didn't matter to me) and it has THX Certification.

The THX certification wasn't that big a deal for me since the TiVo HD still has great sound. TiVo just didn't go the more expensive certification process route.

S3 also comes with a larger hard drive (250GB compared to the HD's 160GB) and it is grandfathered and can use any unsupported external ESATA storage device. The HD has only one storage device that will work with it natively (You can do some hacks to make other solutions work).

My understanding is that you are right, a cable line, an HDMI cable (buy it from a place like monoprice.com for $7 or $8 including shipping) and you are good to go.

[GaryD9]

THX: No, you don't need a THX reciever... THX is just a certification process...

HDMI: If your TV has HDMI in, then your wiring could be as simple as AC plug, cable coax, and HDMI plug (HDMI carries video as well as audio.)

S3 vs TivoHD: There are various internal differences, but CURRENTLY, the noticable pros for the S3 are the drive size, OLED, external buttons on the tivo box, glow remote, easy ability to add an external drives (other than the DVD Expander), and faster MRV/TTG (I didn't notice a difference between the audio on the different units using an optical audio.) In favor of the TivoHD is that it can use a single MCard cablecard for two tuners and it's $100 less (after S3 rebate.)

[RonDawg]

Note that with HDMI many members have had issues with the HDMI "handshaking" which is the communication between the two devices.

I occasionally get "HDMI Not Supported" error screens but this goes away after a second, after which I can watch TV normally. However some members can only solve their issues by switching to Component.

[mnmsmith]

So am I reading this correct, with the S3 I can plug any external eSATA drive in, whereas the HD you have to use the only one that is 'certified' for it? Without hacks of course, out of the box.

[demon]

So am I reading this correct, with the S3 I can plug any external eSATA drive in, whereas the HD you have to use the only one that is 'certified' for it? Without hacks of course, out of the box.

You are, yes. Though apparently the S3 will warn you about something along the lines of "this drive is not certified for use with your TiVo, proceed anyway?" (I used the kickstart-62 method before official eSATA support appeared, so I've not seen it myself).

[aaronwt]

The TiVoHD also has the cablecard slots in the front, which makes things easier. IF the S3 had the CC slots in the front it would be almost perfect.

[chedlin]

If the S3 supported M-Cards, SDV, and had the cable card slots in the front, it would be a perfect machine. Since it isn't perfect, I'm on the fence.

I have an S3 from well before the HD was available. At some point I will add another TiVo to my house (Currently one S3 with broadcast only, 2 DirecTivo SD units, and a broken S1 in the closet (just hard drive, but I transfered the lifetime service in '06 and repaired it wouldn't be useful to me).

I have an extra glow remote (2 actually, I use a Harmony in the livingroom and the standard s2 remote in the bedroom. I really should swap in the glow remote in the bedroom), so I will probably go the HD route to save on the cable card costs, but MRV performance concerns me.

I am not doing anything until we get an SDV resolver though. Then my cable company needs to get a decent selection of HD channels, and I will switch. This delay will probably make the S3 unavailable and make the choice easy.

[bizzy]

guys, seriously, how many of these threads do we need?
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=378318