Tivo Series 3 HD or Tivo HD?

[steak]

Happy New Year!!!!

So, my wife and I recently ditched our crapy Fios Motorolla boxes and we are looking for replacements. We used to have Tivo from Directv for SD programming but now want to get an HD Tivo with Cable Cards from Verizon. My question is this....

Will I be okay with the base $299 HD Tivo unit or should I spring for the full Series 3 version. I have read there are speed differences between the two of them which would be an important factor for us. One of the reason we ditched the Moto Boxes from VZ was speed (amoung others).

Advice is appreciated.

Thanks!

[bkdtv]

If you plan to make regular use of MRV (transfers of recordings between rooms), then you should opt for the Tivo Series3 model.

Otherwise, I would buy TivoHDs and spend the difference on external storage or hard drive upgrades.

You should also keep an eye out for two Motorola NIM100s on ebay. This will provide a 100Mbps wired network connection to each TiVo using coax cable. Do not pay more than $50 per NIM100.

[bkdtv]

As far as cost, be aware that Amazon has the TivoHD for $259 and the TiVo Series3 for $392 (after $200 mail-in rebate). That makes them significantly less expensive than TiVo.com.

[bizzy]

I could be wrong, but I've noticed a lot more posts here about problems with Tivo HD boxes in the last couple of months.

Now, there could be some mitigating reasons for that:

* Most people are now buying Tivo HDs and most problems are with initial setup
* Many seem to be with external storage, which is needed more with the THD
* Issues supporting M Cards, which arent used in multistream mode in the S3

but it seems to me that there are common problems with the THD (reboots, loss of cablecard auth) that I have not seen from the S3 population (and that I have not experienced with my S3).

I was tempted to buy a THD for extra tuners but the last couple of months of problem posts have given me good reason to hold off on a purchase.

[Scott D]

Happy New Year!!!!

So, my wife and I recently ditched our crapy Fios Motorolla boxes and we are looking for replacements. We used to have Tivo from Directv for SD programming but now want to get an HD Tivo with Cable Cards from Verizon. My question is this....

Will I be okay with the base $299 HD Tivo unit or should I spring for the full Series 3 version. I have read there are speed differences between the two of them which would be an important factor for us. One of the reason we ditched the Moto Boxes from VZ was speed (amoung others).

Advice is appreciated.

Thanks!

What's the difference between the two. Is one a S2 HD and the other a S3?

[bkdtv]

What's the difference between the two. Is one a S2 HD and the other a S3?The TivoHD is a cost-reduced version of the S3. It uses newer, more integrated components to cut costs. The DVR functionality is the same.

[Resist]

I would have bought a Tivo HD had I not been able to get my S3 for $330. I just couldn't pass up that deal. The S3 turned out to be better than I had hoped.

[steak]

As far as cost, be aware that Amazon has the TivoHD for $259 and the TiVo Series3 for $392 (after $200 mail-in rebate). That makes them significantly less expensive than TiVo.com.

Amazon is out of stock on the S3 unit. I wonder how long it will take to get it once I order. Not in a hurry per se but don't want to miss the $200 mail in rebate either plus I have $100 in Amazon gift cards to spend.

[dwit]

Amazon is out of stock on the S3 unit. I wonder how long it will take to get it once I order. Not in a hurry per se but don't want to miss the $200 mail in rebate either plus I have $100 in Amazon gift cards to spend.

Doesn't the store run by this very site have the S3 for $399.xx AR? If it's available here, and the deadline nears, buy it.

There's always other uses for amazon gc.

[heisman]

A mitigating factor that no one has mentioned is how much does your cable provider charge for a second cable card. I get one free card, so I bought a Tivo HD since it only needs one card. If I went with the series 3, I would have to pay an extra $5 a month for a second cable card. No thanks! I ended up getting the Tivo HD with the tivo wireless adapter and lifetime service for less than $700 and I love it. It's my first Tivo. Still trying to figure it out, however. :)

[bkdtv]

A mitigating factor that no one has mentioned is how much does your cable provider charge for a second cable card. I get one free card, so I bought a Tivo HD since it only needs one card. If I went with the series 3, I would have to pay an extra $5 a month for a second cable card. No thanks! I ended up getting the Tivo HD with the tivo wireless adapter and lifetime service for less than $700 and I love it. It's my first Tivo. Still trying to figure it out, however. :)That's true, although he FiOS, which only offers single-stream cards at the moment.

[qz3fwd]

I pondered the same question 2 months ago and was tempted with the price of the THD, BUT the THD is butt ugly, and with the 200 rebate, the 2 S3's I now have were close enough for me to swallow the difference. I'm soo glad I opted for the S3.

[No Static At Al]

I don't remember where I saw it, but I remember reading that the THD has more RAM. This, combined with the newer components, and as mentioned earlier the ability to handle M-cards, was why I chose the THD.

I too, thought it was butt ugly - but in the rack it looks much better! It actually looks pretty cool.

Except for the need to reboot once, mine has been trouble-free, running perfectly for 2+ months.

[bkdtv]

I don't remember where I saw it, but I remember reading that the THD has more RAM. This, combined with the newer components, and as mentioned earlier the ability to handle M-cards, was why I chose the THD.The TivoHD does have twice the usable system memory, but TiVo is not taking advantage of it. The TivoHD has around 60Mb RAM free / unused at any given time.

Perhaps at some point in the future, they'll use some of it for a RAM drive or targeted caching.

[TexasGrillChef]

Some may or may not have pointed out these issues. I will combine them into one post to make it easier for you to understand the pros & cons of each.

Which unit you will choose in the end is based on YOUR values and the FEATURES that are important to you. As I am sure you are aware, whats important to one person may not be to another.

Pros of the S3 that the Tivo HD DOESN"T have. (Cons of the TivoHD)

1. Larger HD included with unit. (250gb) (TivoHD only has 160gb) Keep in mind if you UPGRADE the internal hard drive. IT COULD VOID your warranty. (I do know of several people that Tivo hasn't provided warranty replacement on units that have had their hd's upgraded)

2. eSATA support up to 1tb with "almost" any brand's eSATA drive. (TiVo HD is limited to its 500gb Tivo supported DVR Expander unless your a DIY'er)

3. OLED display on front

4. Lighted remote

5. Faster Transfer speeds for TTG & TTCB & MRV. TivoHD is much much slower then S3

6. THX Certification

Pros of the Tivo HD (Cons of the S3)

1. Lower price. ($300 vs $600)

2. True Plug N Play for eSATA drive. However, ONLY with the TiVo Approved DVR Expander which is limited to 500gb currently

3. If your a DIY'er, Max storare with internal & eSATA is 3TB, However keep in mind you could void your warranty. I know of several people whom Tivo would not honor their warranty after the HD's were upgraded.

4. Single M-Card support. You only need one M-Card to opperate both tuners. (On the S3 it will work with M-cards, but you still need 2)

There are some hardware differences between the two. Which is better is hard to say. S3 has THX certification. TiVoHD doesn't.

You do get what you pay for. Part of why the S3 is so much more expensive is the "THX Certification" Licensing fees that have to be paid to Lucas Ltd for each unit sold. Some wonder what THX Certification is needed. It garuntees that all THX certified equipment will respond a garunteed way. Thus if you have your S3 plugged into a THX certified TV, Amplifier, & Speakers you will get a quantifiable result that will also be THX Certified.

Just to let you know what I have.... I have an S3 hooked up to my 50" plasma HDTV in my living room. In my Bedroom I have a TiVo HD hooked up to a 32" LCD HDTV. And in my game/Entertainment room, I have a S3 hooked up to my 65" Plasma HDTV. In all rooms I do have a 7.1 surround sound amplifier hooked up to each HDTV/TiVo

TGC

[madscientist]

The TivoHD does have twice the usable system memory, but TiVo is not taking advantage of it. The TivoHD has around 60Mb RAM free / unused at any given time.

Perhaps at some point in the future, they'll use some of it for a RAM drive or targeted caching.This seems odd to me. Isn't the THD still based on Linux? I don't know how they could be "not using" that RAM if so. If the RAM is visible to Linux, then Linux will allocate it as needed by the applications and operating system (and if it's not visible, it wouldn't show up in any used/free list that TiVo showed you). There's nothing special that needs to be done by user-space applications such as the TiVo software to "take advantage" of extra RAM. I suppose they could write their software to use fixed memory block rather than dynamically allocating memory... if they did this in a stupid way where the size was fixed when the software was compiled instead of computed at startup based on the amount of RAM on the system.

Also Linux does extensive filesystem caching for any RAM not used by applications on the system: this happens at the block layer ABOVE the actual filesystem itself, so again there's no need for the filesystem to do anything to take advantage of it. In fact, Linux users often wonder why it seems like they have no free RAM and accuse Linux applications of being bloated, when really what's happening is the kernel is using that memory for caching to make their systems faster.

Of course it's possible that the data stored on the hard drives is not a proper filesystem and TiVo is writing to it using special drivers that don't go through the block layer at all and so can't take advantage of this. But, at least in the S1/S2 days for sure, they DID have their own, actual filesystem.

Just out of curiosity are there any descriptions of how the S3/THD work WRT Linux?

[alanpate]

Have you used the eSATA on either S3 or HD? If so, I would appreciate hearing about your experiences...

[madscientist]

Have you used the eSATA on either S3 or HD? If so, I would appreciate hearing about your experiences...Not sure if this is what you mean, but I have the eSATA official TiVo DVR expander for my THD and it was just as advertised: plug it in and it works, no problems.

[bkdtv]

Also Linux does extensive filesystem caching for any RAM not used by applications on the system: this happens at the block layer ABOVE the actual filesystem itself, so again there's no need for the filesystem to do anything to take advantage of it. In fact, Linux users often wonder why it seems like they have no free RAM and accuse Linux applications of being bloated, when really what's happening is the kernel is using that memory for caching to make their systems faster.TiVo does use Linux, and Linux does use some memory for file cache. But there is still plenty of unused memory on the TiVo.

On the Series3, only the main CPU (BCM7038 w/ integrated MPEG-2 decoder) and its 128Mb RAM are currently used. Of that 128Mb, 64Mb is reserved for the built-in MPEG-2 decoder, ~19Mb is reserved for other hardware, and ~42Mb is available to the Linux kernel. If you include the file system cache, the Series3 uses most of that 42Mb.

The TiVo has 256Mb available to its main CPU. Of that, ~130Mb is reserved for the decoders and other hardware, and ~126Mb is available to the Linux kernel. After subtracting all OS applications, modules, and the Linux system cache, about 60Mb is still left unused.

The TiVo software on both platforms takes about the same amount of memory, so more memory is allocated to the file cache on the TivoHD (10-15Mb vs 35+Mb), but almost half is still sitting idle.

[Shawn95GT]

If you plan to make regular use of MRV (transfers of recordings between rooms), then you should opt for the Tivo Series3 model.

Otherwise, I would buy TivoHDs and spend the difference on external storage or hard drive upgrades.

You should also keep an eye out for two Motorola NIM100s on ebay. This will provide a 100Mbps wired network connection to each TiVo using coax cable. Do not pay more than $50 per NIM100.
FWIW, I can barely tell the difference between MRV to/from an S3 or THD if there is a wireless link involved.

If you are all hard wired then yeah, the S3 will run circles around the THD.

I just picked up a THD and I'm loving it. It was replacing a 540 so it was a choice between a DT or the THD. I chose THD just because if I ever need to connect a box I can TSN swap one of the 540s back in service.

In the mean time I can MRV HD to all three DVRs in the house now.

[steak]

Anyone care to elaborate on the speed difference issue brought up from TexasGrillChef between the S3 and the THD?

My wife and I were always complaining about the sluggish nature of the Fios DVR (Even with the new IMG).

Is the extra $$ worth it merely for the speed?

[bizzy]

Also Linux does extensive filesystem caching for any RAM not used by applications on the system: this happens at the block layer ABOVE the actual filesystem itself, so again there's no need for the filesystem to do anything to take advantage of it. In fact, Linux users often wonder why it seems like they have no free RAM and accuse Linux applications of being bloated, when really what's happening is the kernel is using that memory for caching to make their systems faster.

Of course it's possible that the data stored on the hard drives is not a proper filesystem and TiVo is writing to it using special drivers that don't go through the block layer at all and so can't take advantage of this. But, at least in the S1/S2 days for sure, they DID have their own, actual filesystem.

Just out of curiosity are there any descriptions of how the S3/THD work WRT Linux?

Tivo does indeed use their own filesystem, so your assumptions based on the behavior of other Linux filesystems may not be correct.

That being said, I also doubt that the difference in amount of onboard ram between the THD and S3 has any real-world effect. Probably even less effect than the lack of THX "Certification".

:)