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TiVo Series3 HD Digital Video Recorder

Series3 HD Digital Video Recorder

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Most recent User Reviews for

TiVo Series3 HD Digital Video Recorder

  • Reviewed by: wakemaker

    04-16-07

    Duration of ownership: 3 Months

    Strengths: Dual tuner.

    Weaknesses:No TiVo to go.....yet. Price.

    Overall Evaluation: Long time TiVo user with multiple Series 1's & 2's. There's nothing that comes close to the abilities of controlling your viewing of TV. The series 3 definitely has a better picture even on normal viewing. As soon as I find a deal on a HD TV, I'll edit this post.

  • Reviewed by: barbja99

    03-17-07

    Duration of ownership: 6 Months

    Strengths: Dual Tuner, dual cable card ready, etherenet connectivity, HDMI output

    Weaknesses:Program search is slow, No TiVo desktop support to download recordings

    Overall Evaluation: I LOVE this machine! I currently have two series1 TiVos, one with straight cable, and one hooked to a HD digital cable box. So one can't get the digital channels, and one is occasionally spotty changing channels. I wanted it mostly to manage recording conflicts better between my shows, and to hopefully be a whole heck of a lot more reliable on changing digital cable channels. My series3 unit nailed it on both counts. I also found that the cable cards yielded a better picture on the HD channels than my Pace HD box did. That was a bonus. .Jumping from six years in the Series1 world to Series2/Series3 universe is excellent. Ethernet connectivity. Being able to program shows from the internet. Having a "Recently deleted" folder. Not having "multi-room viewing" doesn't really bother me since all my TiVos are distributed from the same location to everywhere in the house, so that would be redundant. I can see if you were used to having that in a Series2 unit though, not having that in a Series3 would be a problem. If I would have only been able to watch this unit on only one TV in my house, I wouldn't have bought it. . I could have solved the problems that I wanted to solve and do it a lot cheaper by using my cable company's DVR, but going from TiVo's interface and feature-set to their DVR would seem like such a giant step backwards. . Problems I've had?: . I have two series-1 units and I've found that the program search on this unit is annoyingly slow by comparison (the search within the menus, not the guide). . When watching live TV, pressing LiveTV button on the remote will sometimes switch between tuners and sometimes it will bring up the guide. Odd. Convenient when you use the same remote key for the guide for three tivos and you wanted to bring up the guide and don't want to remember another key, but not so good when you want to switch between the two tuners and have to figure out how to get them to both tune again. . It took four visits and a total of over four hours for my cable company to get the unit operational with all of my channels on both cable cards. It finally turned out to be a problem with my account settings at the head-end, but still. FOUR HOURS!! Everything was always still working on my HD boxes though, so who knows what they were doing there. . I have all three TiVos in the same large rack in a closet; I have it set on code #3, so it does handle multiple-TiVo coding properly. I did find that it was initially picky responding to my Niles repeaters. It was somehow over-sensitive and I had to cover all of the sensors in the house in order for it to even respond to it own remote pointed straight it when it was in the rack at all. When I turned it almost fully sideways, it started working with the remote pointed at it, then suddenly with the repeater. I don't know how it happened, but its happy now full-on frontways just like everything else. This happened over a couple of days. (If it wouldn't have started working with my repeater, I would have returned this unit. This goes back to my "If I would have only been able to watch this unit on only one TV in my house, I wouldn't have bought it." What good is all this big box of excellent-ness if you can't watch it where you want to??) . I just started using the Tivo desktop and it is mighty disappointing that you can't download recordings from this unit. I would have liked to have been able to put stuff on my ipod so that my son can watch cartoons on it in the car. Considering that people with HD DVRs from my cable company can download recordings, it seems idiotic that cableLabs would keep TiVo from allowing us to do it.

  • Reviewed by: KLancelot

    03-05-07

    Duration of ownership:

    Strengths: Retains TiVo Interface, Faster Response, Higher Capacity, Better Remote

    Weaknesses:Series 2 Retains More Features

    Overall Evaluation: The Series 3 is meant to be an upgrade and in many ways, it is. Faster processor means no waiting, higher capacity means more shows, better remote (backlit, better key placement). However, despite the recent Winter Update, the Series 2 STILL has more functionality. As of March 2007, Series 3 still has no multi-room and no download from TiVo to PC capability, both things the Series 2 has had for months, if not years. CableCard is still 1.0.It's good, not great. Definitely an improvement but until the Series 3 equals the Series 2 in functionality, think of it as a sideways upgrade.

  • Reviewed by: mekimbler

    02-24-07

    Duration of ownership: 3 Months

    Strengths: Dual Tuner, HDMI output, build-in Ethernet port, Dual CableCARD ready, smart learning universal remote.

    Weaknesses:No stop command during play-back. There is no "off" button for the unit, the unit runs 100% when pluged into AC power. No Tivo Desktop support for downloads to PC.

    Overall Evaluation: I have been using this unit since Dec, 2006. Upgraded from a series 2 Tivo box. I really like the dual tuner and that it is digital cable. The box works just like the series 2 Tivo except it is HD ready. The picture quality and sound quality are amazing. I only have a few minor complaints about the box; 1) Unlike the series 2 box I had there is no "off" switch". The unit is on always while it is plugged into AC power. 2) There is no "stop" button during playback. You have to exit playback to Tivo menu in order to delete the video. 3) Unlike the series 2 box, there is no Tivo Desktop support so that you can download video from the Tivo box to a PC via a local network.

  • Reviewed by: MrMike1876

    02-03-07

    Duration of ownership: 3 Weeks

    Strengths: Menus, Records HD, Display, Design

    Weaknesses:Too Expensive. Hard Drive Capacity for Heavy User. No Indication of how much Hard Drive Space is being used. Tivo Subscription Transfer policy. Some HD Playback choppy.

    Overall Evaluation: I had a lifetime membership with Tivo on my previous unit. I stopped using it - since I could not record shows in HD. I was using my cable company's DVR. I found out about the VIP Lifetime Transfer Promotion. I did not like my cable company's dvr - because I had no indication of how much space I had left...and I would keep running out of space - but would have no idea until I found out that my show was missing. So I bought the Tivo .. because - I knew that I could upgrade the unit in the future. I am not happy that it too does not have an indicator on how much hard drive space you are using.I do love the TiVo menus -- beats the DVR anyday....but wish it was cheaper and was not forced into buying it so quickly - because of the lifetime transfer promotion. All and all - I have what I want...hopefully they will update the software to include an indicator of hard drive space.Setup is complicated - in regards to getting the signal to work properly through the unit...I had to pretend the box was receiving an analog signaland then stick in the cable cards to get it working....then miracalously it worked.

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