Need to take the HD plunge, need some advise

[Bryanw20]

So after being screwed by Dish for $600 I'm going back to just OTA (and some big dish channels). But I NEED a HD DVR! So I now see I have 2 choices from Tivo. S3 & THD. The obvious differences being THX and 50% more HD recording, which I belive from another posting all recordings will be 'HD' in Feb.
I plan on getting a Bose Lifestyle when I build my new house in the next couple of months, and have a 61" DLP HDTV. Will my Tivo choice affect my Bose sound for just OTA recordings? What does THX offer me?
I have a S2 DVD Tivo now, I understand MRV works for SD recordings, but not HD.
I see the prices at the Tivo store & web specials, and it also appears the MSD has changed from $7/mo to $10 now :( luckily the $13 has stayed even for now. Last time I called Tivo for a S2 replacement (like 6-9months ago) The rep was very nice, offered some special not online since I've been a long, long time customer (Since 13hr T1!). I called today, and was only offered what i see online.:( I wasn't hoping for a free Tivo, just a little break maybe. But was told no S3's available now, except for the web special on a refurb, which then does not get the MSD price of $10/mo on EITHER of my boxes. Does that sound right? I get a refurb to save $50 because they don't have new, and get to pay full price on 2 boxes for service!
I asked about any rebates as well, and he said those are only for retail purchases, Tivo's price basicly includes the rebates.
So what's the best deal for me? S3, or THD? I guess I plan on getting 2 units, one for the living room, one for the bedroom to replace the S2 since it's only good for another 11 months.
I see the link for the $199 THD, and it appears when droped into the cart I can get the MSP of $9/mo or $99/yr or $399/lifetime. I'm not sold on this lifetime stuff yet since it's still the box not the sub.

Oh and ome more question. external storage, am I right in thinking the THD only works with Tivo's External HD where the S3 will work with any esata drive?

So basicly is THX and 10hrs worth the upgrade. Any better deals on a S3. Should I nab a $199 THD, or 2, or wait till winter/spring for #2 hoping for a better deal on one?

[ewilts]

So I now see I have 2 choices from Tivo. S3 & THD. The obvious differences being THX and 50% more HD recording, which I belive from another posting all recordings will be 'HD' in Feb.
Correction - In February, OTA must be *digital*, not HD. All HD is digital but not all digital is HD. There are many standard definition digital broadcasts out there - I get a ton of them on my Comcast cable today.

[quiote]I plan on getting a Bose Lifestyle when I build my new house in the next couple of months, and have a 61" DLP HDTV. Will my Tivo choice affect my Bose sound for just OTA recordings? [/quote]

No. You'll get normal stereo on some broadcasts and 5.1 on others.

What does THX offer me?
A fancy name but likely nothing you'll notice. Do a google search for "tivo thx faq" and you'll find some opinions and perhaps a fact or 2 on this.

Oh and ome more question. external storage, am I right in thinking the THD only works with Tivo's External HD where the S3 will work with any esata drive?
Not really. For either system, the TiVo external storage solution is the only *supported* solution. There are unsupported solutions for the S3 some of which work and some of which don't. The TiVo My DVR Expander saves you the work of researching which ones work and which don't.

So basicly is THX and 10hrs worth the upgrade.

I wouldn't go for the S3 just for this. I'd buy the THD and add a 500GB external drive if I needed the extra space.

[Bryanw20]

Correction - In February, OTA must be *digital*, not HD. All HD is digital but not all digital is HD. There are many standard definition digital broadcasts out there - I get a ton of them on my Comcast cable today.

Sorry, that's what I meant with the 'HD'; Digital not all shows will be true HD; but the Tivo sees them as digital broadcast, so say even my 6'o'clock news cast will take as much space as a HD show will.


I wouldn't go for the S3 just for this. I'd buy the THD and add a 500GB external drive if I needed the extra space.

Thanks for all the answers. Now I just need a good deal on a THD. Will probably go with the $199 link posted eariler.

Now do I get 1 and wait to see what else happens/offers/new hardware for #2, or splurge for 2 now....:rolleyes:

[dwit]

Let us know the deal you chose.

On the $199 deal, I think you will have to choose one of the plans on the offer page or Lifetime for $399. I don't think you will be able to select any other msd plans when you actually proceed through completing the offer.

If you have trouble even getting Lifetime(if you so decide) with the $199 offer, post back here and I'll describe how.

Good luck. You will love the Tivo HD.

[webin]

Sorry, that's what I meant with the 'HD'; Digital not all shows will be true HD; but the Tivo sees them as digital broadcast, so say even my 6'o'clock news cast will take as much space as a HD show will.


No... the digital broadcast of your local news will still be standard definition, meaning it won't take as much space on your tivo as a hi definition broadcast.

Currently, your OTA news is broadcast as an analog signal... think sine waves. A tivo hooked up to an antenna would convert that sine wave to a digital format (bits of 1s and 0s) to store on the hard drive. After February, the news will be broadcast as a digital signal (those 1s and 0s), so the tivo will be able to write them directly to the hard drive without converting them.
(this is a rudimentary explanation, with a few technical details glossed over, but essentially what you need to know about it)

[acvthree]

One other thought, upgrading the internal drive is even easier than the old Tivo S1/S2s. If the size of the disk drive is an issue, and you don't want the second external box, just do an upgrade on the internal disk. 750/1000GB drives are just not that expensive these days.

[Bryanw20]

No... the digital broadcast of your local news will still be standard definition, meaning it won't take as much space on your tivo as a hi definition broadcast.

Currently, your OTA news is broadcast as an analog signal... think sine waves. A tivo hooked up to an antenna would convert that sine wave to a digital format (bits of 1s and 0s) to store on the hard drive. After February, the news will be broadcast as a digital signal (those 1s and 0s), so the tivo will be able to write them directly to the hard drive without converting them.
(this is a rudimentary explanation, with a few technical details glossed over, but essentially what you need to know about it)

What I'm afraid of is when it goes all digital, any show = digital recording ie HD recording since it's airing on a 'HD' channel.

Like in this post: Quote:
Originally Posted by kinggabbo
I have Tivo HD and it seems like it is recording all programs as if they are HD. I use the info button to look at how much space each recording takes up and it the same for SD and HD programs. One hour for each of them is about 6 GB. Does anyone know why it is doing this? The programs are clearly SD but take the same amount of space as HD.

SD shown on HD channels is upconverted to HD resolution, and thereby consumes about the same space as HD recordings.

With digital channels, the TiVo always records exactly (100.0%) what broadcaster or cable provider is sending.
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=379907&highlight=recording+capacity

So that's confusing. you say there is a difference to a show broadcast in SD on a digital channel and a HD show. but that quote says anything broadcast on the HD cahnnel = HD size. Are there different shows to equal different sizes?
Say shows like talk/soaps, local news, survivor will be smaller in size than say Heros, Jericho, etc broadcast in HD. :confused:

[sieglinde]

All I can answer is that I had to return the first Tivo HD I ordered but I am happy with my HD now and I purchased the add on disc storage from Tivo and am happy with that. Sometimes I get odd skips scrolling through a program to find a certain section (like trying to watch a commercialO but it works fine when I am willing to watch a bit before the section I am interested in. No big deal.

The thing I cannot say, is that I have tried it with HD yet. Nothing in my area broadcasts HD yet except an OTA Booster (I live in the boonies) I probably will end up with an HD TV before I actually receive HD into my home.

[webin]

So that's confusing. you say there is a difference to a show broadcast in SD on a digital channel and a HD show. but that quote says anything broadcast on the HD cahnnel = HD size. Are there different shows to equal different sizes?
Say shows like talk/soaps, local news, survivor will be smaller in size than say Heros, Jericho, etc broadcast in HD. :confused:


Ok... I found another point of confusion for you. There are channels that are HD (Hi Definition) and channels that are SD (Standard Definition). This applies to both over-the-air broadcasts and cable television. Sometimes, a channel such as your local CBS affiliate, will broadcast in both SD and HD... on different frequencies.

On my Verizon Fios service, CBS is channel 6 for SD, and 806 for HD. Over the air, it's channel 6 and 6.1 (I think, I don't use OTA). On the SD version, whether it's an analog or a digital, the picture is 640x480 pixels. This won't change after the February switch to digital OTA broadcasting. On the HD version of CBS, again regardless of analog or digital, the picture is 1920x1080.

So what I'm saying is that it doesn't matter what show is on, and it doesn't matter if the OTA broadcast you are watching is analog or digital. If you are recording from a standard definition channel, a 30 minute show will use X amount of hard disk. If you are recording from a high definition channel, a 30 minute show will take 5X amount of hard disk (I don't know the exact numbers).

I hope this helps.

[Eccles]

What I'm afraid of is when it goes all digital, any show = digital recording ie HD recording since it's airing on a 'HD' channel.

So that's confusing. you say there is a difference to a show broadcast in SD on a digital channel and a HD show. but that quote says anything broadcast on the HD cahnnel = HD size. Are there different shows to equal different sizes?
Say shows like talk/soaps, local news, survivor will be smaller in size than say Heros, Jericho, etc broadcast in HD. :confused:I can confirm that SD shows like repeats of old Angel episodes, on TNTHD, take up HD-size chunks of storage: 7-8GB/hr.

[webin]

I can confirm that SD shows like repeats of old Angel episodes, on TNTHD, take up HD-size chunks of storage: 7-8GB/hr.

Granted, I've had TiVoHD and HD cable channels for less than a week... but ANYTHING coming through on an HD channel will be HD in size. If TNTHD put out an hour of blank screen, it'd still be 7-8gigs on the TiVO (compression being the factor I can't account for). Whatever video TNT is using, it's scaled to HD size prior to broadcast.

[Stephen Tu]

webin, you are confused and stating half-correct information. Not helping.

No... the digital broadcast of your local news will still be standard definition, meaning it won't take as much space on your tivo as a hi definition broadcast.
On my Verizon Fios service, CBS is channel 6 for SD, and 806 for HD. Over the air, it's channel 6 and 6.1 (I think, I don't use OTA). On the SD version, whether it's an analog or a digital, the picture is 640x480 pixels. This won't change after the February switch to digital OTA broadcasting.

1. Some local news in some markets have already started true HD broadcasts, and more are going to change in the future.

2. Even though a news broadcast may not be true high-def, on the digital channel of most OTA major network affiliates, they broadcast standard definition programming upconverted to HD resolutions & bitrates. This takes up substantially more space than SD, can be as much as true HD.

3. A local broadcaster has one & only one digital channel to broadcast on. Currently, they have an additional analog channel to also broadcast the old NTSC analog signal. In February, this analog channel goes away (OR the broadcaster moves their digital signal to their old analog frequency and gives up their current digital channel). On the digital channel, broadcasters have a choice, and can broadcast either a single program, or they can "multicast" multiple programs on different "subchannels". They are constrained by the ~19 Mbps ATSC limit. Typically, a station might allocate say 14-15 Mbps for an HD main subchannel, and have a couple of side 2Mbps SD channels. These subchannels can be used for anything. Sometimes it is a SD copy of the main channel, but I think this is less common these days. Often it is a weather or news channel. PBS channels run all sorts of programming on their side SD subchannels.


So after the transition, an OTA user may not have the option of recording from "standard definition" channel. It depends if the broadcaster is multicasting w/ an SD subchannel of their content. On many channels, to get the main program one may have no choice but to record the HD main subchannel, at much higher bitrate, even if the program broadcast is just upconverted SD.

On your current Fios service, you have an SD channel which is digitized version of the analog OTA broadcast and the HD channel which is a copy of the digital OTA broadcast. You state that this won't change in February. You are mistaken, the equivalent of the analog will go away. Many cable companies will convert the digital signal to analog for legacy analog customers, but Fios, which is going all digital, probably won't in my estimation. And for an OTA user like the original poster, it definitely goes away.

[webin]

Thank you for correcting me. The details of how OTA broadcasting works is something I don't have much knowledge of, and I was hoping someone would jump in sooner to help out. I was mostly trying to sort out the "SD source = Small, HD source = Big" confusion.

[jamesweber]

I have both the series 3 in the living room and the TiVo HD in the bedroom

It is rumored the series 3 is being discontinued whether or not this is true I wouldn't know but TiVo does seem to hint they are focusing on the TIVO HD model going forward.

What you would be missing if you go with the TiVO HD

The THX on the series 3 you can easily live without.
The front control buttons on the series 3 are nice, but almost never use them.
The Front LED deisplay is the #1 feature, very nice to see whats recording without turning on the TV or going into the TiVO UI
The glo remote included is nice,but eats batteries fast and shows wear quickly.
Being able to use any brand adapter or Esata not that big of a deal for most users either.
You will however need 2 cable cards since the series 3 doesnt support Mcards yet.

Either way you go you will most likely fall in love with it. I wanted the series 3 for the living room for the sole reason of the front display and it's looks nicer in my opinion, but I am very happy with both units.

[ilh]

I just received mail from Verizon stating that here they will begin eliminating all analog channels over FiOS starting this May.

[Bryanw20]

webin, you are confused and stating half-correct information. Not helping.




1. Some local news in some markets have already started true HD broadcasts, and more are going to change in the future.

2. Even though a news broadcast may not be true high-def, on the digital channel of most OTA major network affiliates, they broadcast standard definition programming upconverted to HD resolutions & bitrates. This takes up substantially more space than SD, can be as much as true HD.

3. A local broadcaster has one & only one digital channel to broadcast on. Currently, they have an additional analog channel to also broadcast the old NTSC analog signal. In February, this analog channel goes away (OR the broadcaster moves their digital signal to their old analog frequency and gives up their current digital channel). On the digital channel, broadcasters have a choice, and can broadcast either a single program, or they can "multicast" multiple programs on different "subchannels". They are constrained by the ~19 Mbps ATSC limit. Typically, a station might allocate say 14-15 Mbps for an HD main subchannel, and have a couple of side 2Mbps SD channels. These subchannels can be used for anything. Sometimes it is a SD copy of the main channel, but I think this is less common these days. Often it is a weather or news channel. PBS channels run all sorts of programming on their side SD subchannels.


So after the transition, an OTA user may not have the option of recording from "standard definition" channel. It depends if the broadcaster is multicasting w/ an SD subchannel of their content. On many channels, to get the main program one may have no choice but to record the HD main subchannel, at much higher bitrate, even if the program broadcast is just upconverted SD.

Thanks, that is what I needed to know. My local stations don't broadcast duplicate sub channels, just weather. (at least now they don't)
So now to decide on deals, and quanity.