My new Tivo Series 3 just arrived

Q: Will this feature work once I got the 2 units connected on my network
A: Your Tivo Series 2 unit should be able to do MRV after the November Fall Update. It's my understanding that the Series 2 would only be able to view non HD content.

Q: I read somewhere that only Series 2 units can communicate with Series 2 and Series 3 with 3
A: I know that Series 2 units can use the MRV between them. I don't think that Series 3 or Tivo HD have this capability at all to send programming between them at this time .

Q: Will the Tivo 2 units work fine without a cable box from my cable company.
A: You will be able to get all of the normal channels (typically 2-99). You won't be able to get any of the other channels without a digital cable box. The series 2 units are able to change the channels on the digital cable boxes through either an IR blaster or a Serial cable (preferred)

Think that answers your questions.

artinsocal said:

That clears up alot of questions I had. But now after reading some of these posts it brings up a few more questions. Since you wont be able to transfer HD shows over to a Series 2 unit, I'm wondering if I should just get another basic Tivo HD (non series 3) and hook it up to the bedroom so I can transfer HD shows. I originally mentioned my bedroom TV isn't HD but it is technically labeled as a "HD" by the Sony specs. It is capeable of 480p and 1080i resolution. Would this set up allow HD shows to be transferred between the 2 units and would the picture quality be good enough to tolertate for lengthy movie. Thanks.

Click to expand...

I believe that S3/HD <-> S3/HD TTG and MRV for both HD and SD was implied (of course copy-protection rules apply and would prevent any transfer if it's marked as copy once) The only reason the question comes up on the S3/HD -> S2 is that the S2's do not support HD feeds natively, it's always possible that the S3/HD downconvert to SD and provide it to the S2 (actually it does downconvert the video and puts it out the S-video jack in 480i - it would require re-encoding into mpeg 2 and being sent to the S2 or simply transcoding it from 720p/1080i to 480i but I doubt that they put the provisions in for this)

That said, is your Sony TV an 'EDTV' (i.e. it's true resolution is 480p, but it will accept a 1080i input) you could benefit from a TiVo S3/HD unit for widescreen movies as more of the native resolution is maintained.

CCourtney