"Hybrid" mode for S3 possible?

1) You're not going to find 1080p TV just yet, so don't worry about that

2) There are 720p and 1080i Hybrid modes, but they involve converting HD video of one format to the other

3) If that's possible, a mode that leaves HD video untouched might be only a software update, if they decide to do it

 

No one knows if its possible on an S3, but the TiVoHD does that. I want it, and I can't see why it can't be possible on the S3.

 

These Native and Hybrid modes sound good in theory - let the TV do all the scaling as much as possible. However in practice the TV re-syncing whenever resolutions change gets very annoying in a hurry. I think Tivo made a bad choice making menus 720p - probably would be better off at 1080i or even 480i. 720p is the minority resolution among a plethora of 480i SD channels & 1080i HD channels. My TV supports all resolutions (including 1080p input), however the re-syncing as brief as it is does get pretty annoying and is frankly quite embarassing to try to explain to wife/kids/friends why the Tivo is always doing this when transitioning from menus to live TV or recordings and vice versa or channel surfing. Eventually I caved and switched from native to 1080i fixed so I don't have to worry about it - in my case the picture quality difference is hardly noticeable compared to the benefit of no re-syncing necessary.

 

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As has been said many times before, Tivo could make one change that would significantly improve usability with hybrid and native modes:

Tivo could display the menus (incl. Now Playing List) using the currently selected resolution. In other words, always downconvert or upconvert the menus.

While watching a 480i recording, it is a bit ridiculous to switch back to 720p (or 1080i) just to show the menu to select a different episode, upon which the box syncs back to 480i. That happens to me all the time.

I would guess about 75% of my display resyncs are from the menu itself resync'n to 720p after watching a recorded 480i or 1080i program. Only a few channels are 720p -- ABC, FOX, ESPN, ESPN2 -- which means there is almost always a resync when users display the Tivo menu or Now Playing list.

 

Another case of sounds easy, might be easy, might be hard.