Mcard support for S3

sonicboom said:

Do we still have to install two M-cards on this unit to get dual tuner functionality?

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Yes. You need a TiVo HD or Premier to use a single M-Card for both tuners.

Adam1115 said:

Yes. You need a TiVo HD or Premier to use a single M-Card for both tuners.

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Or a Premier Elite to use a single M-Card for all four tuners

That blows

Thanks for the quick response.

Safe to say they aren't going to fix it as this point. (I think the last thing they posted about it was some doubletalk about how they never really promised it.)

You could probably sell the original S3 and buy a Tivo HD. You would probably break even on the trade and then you could use 1 M-card.

shwru980r said:

You could probably sell the original S3 and buy a Tivo HD. You would probably break even on the trade and then you could use 1 M-card.

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However some people prefer the higher build quality and the additional features of the S3 over it's lesser TivoHD brethren, I know I do, the $3.99 for the extra CableCARD is NBD for me compared to the additional pro's on the S3.

dianebrat said:

However some people prefer the higher build quality and the additional features of the S3 over it's lesser TivoHD brethren, I know I do, the $3.99 for the extra CableCARD is NBD for me compared to the additional pro's on the S3.

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I agree that the S3 is better than the HD.
I'm going to keep it and suck-up the cost of the extra CC.

Providers used to only charge for CCs on a per digital outlet, where the Coax outlet counted as a single digital outlet (despite tivo using multiple cards). So you essentially paid for only one.

Now with the Mcard they seems to have a new loop hole to utilize.

Gotta love these blood sucking vampires.

I've gotta add the S3 really is the Cadillac, even the old Cadillac that outclasses the new models. The only downer is that it does require a card for each tuner. But the S3 is still so much faster than my Premiere; it tells me what time it is; it tells me WHAT I am recording (yes, I really do need to know this); it has a nicer design; the build quality is superior; it's still a champ. Sad the Premiere is so UNDERwhelming and the S3 is still so slick and a better experience than the Premiere.

There's no earthly reason an S3 would be faster than a Premiere, unless you're comparing SDUI on the S3 to HDUI on the Premiere. Switch your Premiere to SDUI if you want it to be faster.

wmcbrine said:

There's no earthly reason an S3 would be faster than a Premiere, unless you're comparing SDUI on the S3 to HDUI on the Premiere. Switch your Premiere to SDUI if you want it to be faster.

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Actually, yes there is. Using backported drivers and a 1G USB / Ethernet adapter, Jamie has been able to achieve transfer rates in excess of 112 Mbps. This is not possible with the Premier. Using the stock TTG / MRV mechanism, the Premier should be faster, it's true, but then for many of us, the Premier TTG and MRV protocols simply do not work, at all.

wmcbrine said:

Safe to say they aren't going to fix it as this point. (I think the last thing they posted about it was some doubletalk about how they never really promised it.)

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I thought they said something about how the s3 was released before the specs for the m-card were finalized. They had hoped to support it and If I remember correctly wasn't even mentioned in the manual? In any case, they said something about because it was released before the specs were finalized, there were some kind of technical issues that prevented it from working correctly. No idea if it was software or hardware they never really did say anything more then that.

LoREvanescence said:

I thought they said something about how the s3 was released before the specs for the m-card were finalized. They had hoped to support it and If I remember correctly wasn't even mentioned in the manual? In any case, they said something about because it was released before the specs were finalized, there were some kind of technical issues that prevented it from working correctly. No idea if it was software or hardware they never really did say anything more then that.

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If a hardware change would be required for original S3 TiVos to use M-cards, that's certainly not going to happen, and understandably so.

LoREvanescence said:

I thought they said something about how the s3 was released before the specs for the m-card were finalized. They had hoped to support it and If I remember correctly wasn't even mentioned in the manual? In any case, they said something about because it was released before the specs were finalized, there were some kind of technical issues that prevented it from working correctly. No idea if it was software or hardware they never really did say anything more then that.

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L David Matheny said:

If a hardware change would be required for original S3 TiVos to use M-cards, that's certainly not going to happen, and understandably so.

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Correct in that the S3 was released before m-cards were available.
While the hardware in the S3 doesn't support the m-card there was initially hope by Tivo that they would be able to implement the update via a software change.

Tivo has never come out and said that this was not possible, just that the amount of effort needed for this were not something they were willing to spend the resources on.

Actually, the TiVo Series3 hardware can support M-Card in M-Mode. The drivers were the problem, and allegedly TiVo encountered issues with the company. Jim Denny himself said M-Card was possible, but was waiting for a certification process from CableLabs. TiVo never submitted the Series3 to CableLabs for M-Card certification. Some TiVo S3s early on worked with M-Card in M-Mode due to a glitch. A reboot of the S3 threw the M-Card back into S-Card "fallback" mode. TiVo barely supports non-MVPD model TiVos at this point, so it's safe to say no further features will be added to non-S4 hardware.

TiVo doesn't publically comment on any hardware issues specifically. Jim Denny did however, but it's pointless now.

If just one card is put in does other tuner still have analog albeit with guide somewhat off, because of some channel numbers different on digital.

Analog would work, yes, and it wouldn't even have bad channel numbers, because analog channels don't get remapped. BUT there is no way for the S3 to recognize that it has asymmetrical tuning capabilities (unlike the 2 DT). I'm not sure if the CableCard is physically bound to a specific tuner -- so that you'd basically be able to tune digitals in one of every two tries -- or if it just gets used by the first tuner that needs it.

wmcbrine said:

Analog would work, yes, and it wouldn't even have bad channel numbers, because analog channels don't get remapped. BUT there is no way for the S3 to recognize that it has asymmetrical tuning capabilities (unlike the 2 DT). I'm not sure if the CableCard is physically bound to a specific tuner -- so that you'd basically be able to tune digitals in one of every two tries -- or if it just gets used by the first tuner that needs it.

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't having a single card in an S3 force it into single tuner mode no matter what?

dianebrat said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't having a single card in an S3 force it into single tuner mode no matter what?

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Yes, that's correct. There is no way to use the second tuner at all, even for OTA, if you only have a single CableCARD.

Oh, yeah, forgot that.

So OK, if you put ZERO cards in, you can have dual-tuner analog cable + digital OTA. I think some people are actually doing that.