A couple of quick TivoHD questions

The cable company will have to be involved in getting any new cable card device going.

Do NOT just try to switch the card to a different unit yourself.

The other questions, others will have to help with those, although I do know that most cable cards out there will only enable one of your tuners where "non-in-the-clear" digital cable is concerned.

 

Note sure about the recording time or eSATA question.

As for the cable card question: if you put only one S-card into the unit it will only allow you to record one show at a time even if you hook up your cable or OTA antenna. You will need either 2 S-cards or 1 M-card for dual tuners to work. Actually, no cable cards will allow dual tuners to work with cable and/or OTA.

 

Yeah, you pretty much have to call them up. They'll send someone to install the cablecards in the tivo. Each cablecard is "paired" to only one device. Taking the card out of the cable box and putting it in the tivo won't work, because the cablecard will sense that it is no longer in the device it is paired to. You can go to Settings/Recording/Recording Quality and it will tell you how much space is available for each quality level of recording.

 

Tell them you need an M-card. If they cannot provide that, you need two S-cards. Don't tell them it is for a TiVo.

You need no cards, One M-Card or Two S-cards for dual tuner of any sort.

180Hrs is analog Basic quality. I think digital SD is something a bit less than that (160 Hrs or so).

eSATA isn't totally enabled yet. The latest update kind of enabled it, see the Series 3 section for more info on that.

 

dont confuse the smart card (plastic credit card in your 4200HD) with cable cards. no stb's from CV use cable cards, as of yet. S3 and TiVoHD both use cc's, and as others have posted, you'll have to call and get them to install them. after you get your HD, let it access your network and dl the lastest software BEFORE you attach a cable to it. i remember someone posting that you should wait til your cc's are installed to connect to your cableco.

 

When the cable cards are installed, the machine has to be connected to cable so the cards can be activated. (The cable company has to communicate with them to get them going...and they can't do that if the TiVo's not connected to cable.)

 

There have been reports of cable companies refusing to send installers to install the cars in tivos. Not many, but a few. It's illegal to do that, of course. But it might save some hassle for you if you neglect to tell them on the phone. Most cablecos are completely reasonable about it though.

 

1. Call Cable company and request 2 Cablecards or 1 M-Card. Insist that they be tested first.
2. Cable company will schedule an install.
3. Connect cable from wall to tivo's CABLE IN
4. Connect antenna from wall to tivo's ANTENNA IN (if desired)
5. Connect tivo's HDTV output to TV.
6. Turn on tivo, go through setup with no cablecards, enjoy tivo & basic cable for a while
7. Open door for installer, watch him install cablecards
8. Rerun guided setup, enjoy tivo with HDTV cable.

 

i would eliminate #3, as i've read that you might mess up your digital channels B4 the cc's are installed, and as a result, you'll end up having to rerun the complete guided setup again. i think you can hook up the antenna w/o a problem. also, show the installer the tivo installation guide that came with the box and have him follow it. its important that slot one card (if using two S-cards) be installed first (its the right side slot). after it is setup and bound, you then move on to the second card.

 

You can't "mess up" channels, and you'll have to run guided setup again anyway. It took my cable company 3 days to schedule a cablecard install, and if you're going to be waiting that long, you might as well get use out of the tivo and get to know how it works. IMHO

 

zikzak, you're correct,
my son setup his S3 before i got my TivoHD, and he was told by tivo to allow the box to get the latest software (allow it to connect to tivo for a few days) before the cc's were installed. i seem to remember something about channels and connecting the cable before the cards were installed. i should have just said to let the box connect to the tivo service for a day or two, since i didnt have any facts regarding channel issues.

 

Your Netgear might work. Check here. It's got nothing to do with being shady and everything to do with the limited resources available to write, debug, and support driver software for every adapter imaginable for the proprietary Tivo operating system.

 

eSata support is happening "Soon." yes, they're external drives you can just plug in. If you want more storage space now, you can get plug-and-play internal drives from Weaknees.com.