[schnikies79]

I have a philips series 1 at the moment. It has been upgraded with a 120gb HDD and a 512mb loaded cachecard. It's also lifetime activated.

Anyway, I've just been reading about Tivo2Go and such and have been wondering whether I should make the jump and get a series 2. Is there any defining things besides tivo2go that would make the upgrade worthwhile? Is series 2 USB 1.0 or 2.0? That would affect my transfer speeds quite a bit. What else should I consider?

Yea, I've just been tossing this around in my head. If I did get a new one I would ebay the old one.

 

[GBL]

I'd wait for a Series 3, to be out later this year. It can do digital OTA and Cable, and, of course, HD.

 

[schnikies79]

It's going to pretty pricy though, no?

 

[ThreeSoFar]

Either way, I'd say wait. There are going to be quite a few Series 2's available second hand at that point. I'll be selling two or three, all but one lifetimed and all upgraded in size.

Apparently the S1's are faster in response to menu commands and such, so that's one down side. But folders alone make up for that, IMO. Remote scheduling is another big plus.

 

[dylanemcgregor]

Anyway, I've just been reading about Tivo2Go and such and have been wondering whether I should make the jump and get a series 2. Is there any defining things besides tivo2go that would make the upgrade worthwhile? Is series 2 USB 1.0 or 2.0? That would affect my transfer speeds quite a bit. What else should I consider?

If you get a new Series 2 you get USB 2.0, but some of the first generation of S2s only have USB 1.0 hardware, so be aware of this if you are buying off eBay. Even with USB 2.0 you will not get anywhere close to full 2.0 speeds for TiVoToGo.

Other things that make the upgrade worth it (in no particular order):
Folders
TiVoToComeback
HME apps (movietimes, weather, photos, music, and more all through your TiVo)

I was in a similar position as you about a year ago. I had an upgraded Phillips TiVo, and I wasn't in any rush to buy a S2, but a sale came along on a Humax DVD burner and I couldn't pass it up. I thought I'd sell my Phillips but I ended up hanging onto it. I don't really watch that much network TV, but both last year and this year my two favorite shows were opposite each other. Made me really glad I had two tuners.

 

[schnikies79]

Is there anyway to tell which has 2.0 and which has 1.0? I was thinking about getting one of the deals available on tivo's website but then I read that a socket has to be soldered into the with a new chip to enable any sort of upgrades which I'm not about to do.

The boxes I'm thinking of are black with a plain front, unlike what is advertised on tivo.com as series 2, the ones with the gray and silver and front. Do these boxes have usb 2.0?

I guess all in all I've decided to wait till the s3 boxes come out and then I could a buy an s2 cheaper. I don't have HD now and won't anytime soon so a s3 would be overkill but the s2 will be cheap..

 

[ThreeSoFar]

Is there anyway to tell which has 2.0 and which has 1.0? I was thinking about getting one of the deals available on tivo's website but then I read that a socket has to be soldered into the with a new chip to enable any sort of upgrades which I'm not about to do.

The boxes I'm thinking of are black with a plain front, unlike what is advertised on tivo.com as series 2, the ones with the gray and silver and front. Do these boxes have usb 2.0?

I guess all in all I've decided to wait till the s3 boxes come out and then I could a s2 cheaper. I don't have HD now and won't anytime soon so a s3 would be overkill but the s2 will be cheap..

Not sure on the USB questions, but there must be a way based on serial/model numbers.

Upgrading (meaning JUST increasing the hard drive size) is easily doable with the Series 2s.

Hacking is the term normally used for what you're calling "upgrading", namely adding capabilities (like ftp, for instance). I've never done any of the hacking, but I didn't think soldering was required, though I could be wrong.

 

[stevel]

If I recall correctly, the boxes with TiVo service numbers starting with 1xx have USB 1.1 hardware and those with 2xx have USB 2.0 hardware.

 

[megazone]

Yeah, the 110/130/140 boxes were USB1.1, all others are 2.0.

 

[classicsat]

All current S2 boxes have USB2.0

1xx boxes have dedicated USB 1.1 controllers.
2xx boxes have dedicated USB 2.0 controllers.
5xx boxes have integrated USB 2.0 controllers ( they work closer to USB 1.1 than 2xx boxes).

 

[schnikies79]

Do the usb 2.0 series get anywhere near the 100mbit speed the ethernet adapters are rated at? I know that actual throughput of a 100mbit adapter isn't 100 but is it close, or a lot slower?

 

[RickStrobel]

Just got my first Series 2 TiVo. Didn't realize that it had USB 2.0! Picked up a Linksys USB100M in a hurry and wasn't worried when I noticed it said full USB 1.0 speed I should probably take it back and get a USB200M so my transfers won't be so damn slow?

Any good charts showing the transfer times of different TiVo hardware and network adapters.

 

[megazone]

Do the usb 2.0 series get anywhere near the 100mbit speed the ethernet adapters are rated at? I know that actual throughput of a 100mbit adapter isn't 100 but is it close, or a lot slower?

The TiVo doesn't have the horsepower to push network traffic close to 100Mbits, but it is faster with USB2.0 adapters than USB1.1, and the TiVo 11g adapter is much faster than any other 11g since it offloads some of the CPU's work.

 

[ADent]

There isn't much difference in network speed when comparing a S1 with CacheCard and a USB 2 S2.

I also personally feel my S1 w/CacheCard and 200GB (about 30 pages in Now Showing) is snappier than my buddies new stock R10.

Folders would be nice. I guess HMO would be nice if I had a second unit, but since I just typ make DVDs TyTool works well. TiVoTool can transfer right to iTunes for my iPod.

 

[RickStrobel]

The TiVo doesn't have the horsepower to push network traffic close to 100Mbits, but it is faster with USB2.0 adapters than USB1.1, and the TiVo 11g adapter is much faster than any other 11g since it offloads some of the CPU's work.

Would the TiVo 802.11g adapter be faster than a wired USB 2.0 adapter at 10/100? I know 802.11g is rated for 54 Mbps. But given the lack of processing power of the USB ports as stated here, I wonder if actual throughput would be higher.

 

[classicsat]

The TiVo adapter, on a 5xx at least, operates the same, more or less, as a USB2.0 ethernet adapter.

 

[megazone]

Would the TiVo 802.11g adapter be faster than a wired USB 2.0 adapter at 10/100?

I don't think anyone has done a side-by-side yet, but since the TiVo adapter offloads some of the work from the CPU, I could see that being possible.

 

[stevel]

If you look at the thread on the TiVo Wireless G adapter, someone HAS done comparisons against wired (USB200M) and the TiVo adapter was indeed faster.

 

[RickStrobel]

Well, I guess it really doesn't matter right now as the TiVo Wireless adapters are going for upwards of $122.50 on ebay right now. TiVo store is out of stock til 3/6/06. Guess my current USB 1.0 spec wired adapter is definitely faster than the TiVo Wireless

 

[Adam1115]

I have a philips series 1 at the moment. It has been upgraded with a 120gb HDD and a 512mb loaded cachecard. It's also lifetime activated.

Anyway, I've just been reading about Tivo2Go and such and have been wondering whether I should make the jump and get a series 2. Is there any defining things besides tivo2go that would make the upgrade worthwhile? Is series 2 USB 1.0 or 2.0? That would affect my transfer speeds quite a bit. What else should I consider?

Yea, I've just been tossing this around in my head. If I did get a new one I would ebay the old one.

I would do it. You can sell your S1 with lifetime on ebay for $200-$300, so it won't cost you an arm and a leg...

You'll gain-

1) Folders
2) Tivo2Go
3) HMO
4) MRV (if you ever add a second one)