Help me decide.... Tivo HD or S3 HD

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=350510

might help with a lot of your concerns.
easily unofficially expand with eSata with the S3, no so much with the HD, but the HD is expandable.

TiVo To Go will be enabled on the Series 3 and HD TiVos in November.

However, I'm not sure if HD transfers will be allowed or not.

Thanks. I think I'm leaning toward the S3 right now. I can get another 500GB of space for less than $200. Are you guys using the HDMI or component/optical connections on your HD boxes? I assume you're running it through some type of receiver. I've got a Harmon Kardon AVR 630 receiver that I've been pretty pleased with to this point.

I use HDMI to the TV, but run optical directly to the stereo receiver. If my TV had a digital out for the stereo reciever, I'd use it, but it doesn't.

Looking at the hardware specs of the S3 and the THD, it appears that the THD has more "legs" for future capabilities. The S3 is a classic "Release 1.0"; the THD incorporates both what was learned from the S3 and roughly two years newer technology.

I'm so confident of this that, when I realized that Best Buy had given me two S3s (at the THD price) instead of the THDs I had ordered, I went back and swapped for the cheaper units (and got some pretty strange looks from the BB clerks).

- Dennis

The TivoHD is more like a Second Generation Series 3, so I would go with the HD.

JYoung said:

TiVo To Go will be enabled on the Series 3 and HD TiVos in November.

However, I'm not sure if HD transfers will be allowed or not.

Click to expand...

According to TiVoPony's post about it, you *will* be able to MRV/TTG transfer HD material, as long as the CCI (copy control) code is for "copy freely". If you receive HD programming via OTA, that will be freely transferrable. If you receive digital/HD programming via cable, that will depend on your cable provider. Some cable providers will use the CCI information from the programming providers; some set their own values. Some are very strict - they'll set "copy once" or "copy never" on everything, or almost everything. Others only set it on (mostly) relevant programming. A few don't really know about CCI - mine sets *all* shows on every network (even HBOHD) as "copy freely". So it's going to vary pretty widely.

brothers said:

Looking at the hardware specs of the S3 and the THD, it appears that the THD has more "legs" for future capabilities. The S3 is a classic "Release 1.0"; the THD incorporates both what was learned from the S3 and roughly two years newer technology.

I'm so confident of this that, when I realized that Best Buy had given me two S3s (at the THD price) instead of the THDs I had ordered, I went back and swapped for the cheaper units (and got some pretty strange looks from the BB clerks).

- Dennis

Click to expand...

Have you successfully added any additional storage capacity to the THD? That's my biggest concern at this point because my wife likes to keep lots of programs and we handle that with TivoDesktop at this time. It looks like adding additional hard drives via eSATA is simple with the S3, but haven't seen much with the THD.

TideJoe said:

Have you successfully added any additional storage capacity to the THD? That's my biggest concern at this point because my wife likes to keep lots of programs and we handle that with TivoDesktop at this time. It looks like adding additional hard drives via eSATA is simple with the S3, but haven't seen much with the THD.

Click to expand...

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=360676 will answer that quite well.

Diane