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| Date Reviewed: 12/16/2006 |
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Strengths: Dual tuners, HD quality video, digital optical output with Dolby 5.1 surround sound, HDMI Output,learning remote, OLED display on front (it displays what's recording)
Weaknesses: audio/video syncing problems (sometimes), price, Tivo-To-Go features disabled for now, remote codes not working
Summary: 2006-12-18 23:24:45 Got my Tivo Series 3 about a week ago. Here's what I found:
It uses 2 cablecards for the Hi Def content. The cable installer configured them without a hitch and I was up and running within 1/2 hour.
It has dual tuners, so 2 shows can be recorded at the same time, but a third show can't be watched via Live TV unless you switch inputs out to your TV, and then you can't watch HD content unless you have a cablebox as well. You can, however, watch a third show that was recorded previously.
The learning remote was invaluable, because the Tivo remote codes for my Samsung home theater receiver didn't work. I taught it the volume up and down keys and also programmed the Mute key to operate the Power button on the theater. There doesn't seem to be a way to program the Power button to power both the TV and the receiver without the right remote codes.
There has been some audio/video syncing problems, but most of them have been solved by going back 8 seconds and somehow it works from there. If that doesn't work, I then toggle through all of the home theater sound profiles (eg. stereo, prologic, matrix, cinema, etc) until I get back to my original setting. The audio matches right up after that. Go figure.
The Tivo-To-Go features have been disabled (for now I guess). I never really used it with the Series 2, and I would be really hard pressed to want to transfer a 10 GB Hi Def show to my PC. Just too big! So, for me, it's not that important.
Overall, I love the quality of the video and the audio. Looks and sounds great and it uses the whole 16:9 ratio of the HDTV screen. And the Tivo service is so easy to use, it makes all other DVR's look bad.
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| Date Reviewed: 11/19/2006 |
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Strengths: Ease of use, seamless HD/SD transitions, improved remote
Weaknesses: Expensive, lack of the usual TiVo video-sharing features
Summary: I'm a long-time user of TiVo (this will be my fourth) and greatly enjoy the freedom that a DVR gives you. I've also been a long-standing advocate of TiVos, arguing that their innovative features (like Wishlists and Season Passes) and tremendous ease of use are a compelling competitive advantage.
But lately, TiVo has lagged behind the competition without core features such as dual-tuners and support for hi-def programming. The TiVo Series3 puts an end to that, and sets a new standard for other DVR manufacturers to aspire to.
Setup of the TiVo itself was very easy, as TiVo has this down pat. Setup of the cable service was not so easy, it took three trips from my local cable provider to get the two CableCARDs working. I strongly recommend that you very thoroughly check that you're receiving all the channels under your cable package before letting the install tech leave.
The features new to the Series3 work great. The dual-tuner functionality is well-integrated into the TiVo interface, and the new backlit remote is an improvement over the previous TiVo remotes (which I've referred to as "the best remotes I've ever used").
I was very impressed with the way the TiVo Series3 handles hi-def content. I've got a HD front projector that supports 720p resolution, and as the TV signal switches between hi-def and standard-def content (between channels, or during commercials), it's completely seamless -- I don't every have to touch anything to get the right aspect ratio or prevent stretching or squashing. As with so many things with TiVo... it just works. And even standard-def content looks better than on my older Series2 TiVo thanks to the Series3's upconverting.
At initial release, TiVo has disabled many of the video sharing features on the Series3 that I like about TiVo -- Multi-Room Viewing (so I can share shows between my TiVos), and TiVo-To-Go (so I can take my TiVo-recorded shows on the road on my iPod). Lots has ink has been spilled on this topic, suffice to say I'm really hoping TiVo can live up to the expectation that these will be enabled in the future once they get CableLABS's approval. This is the reason I've only rated the Series3 at four stars.
And of course, the elephant in the room for the Series3 is its price. For me, it was worth it -- I can't imagine television without TiVo. I've eagerly awaited the Series3's release, and have known for a while it was going to be pricey. It's such a great device, I do hope that more people will get a chance to own it as the price drops over time.
When I first got my hi-def setup, I tried the cable company's HD DVR, but I found it unusable, and sent it back. I'm thrilled I no longer have to choose between HD and TiVo, and the Series3 is the reason why.
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| Date Reviewed: 02/01/2007 |
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Strengths: Great tuner, good reception, dual tuners, Tivo interface
Weaknesses: Cost, lack of multi-room viewing and Tivo-to-go.
Summary: The unit came with all the setup material required for non-HDTV use. (For HDTV, adapters from your cable company must be installed in the Series 3.) Setup was much easier than with earlier Tivo's, because the internet connection can be used from the beginning, and there is no need for a USB to wireless or ethernet adapter. I have hardwired ethernet to the Tivo location, so installation was mostly plug in power, TV, stereo, and LAN, wait overnight, and play. The Tivo "dogbone" remote controller was easy to program to control my 20 year old stereo receiver and my existing TV, allowing all three devices to be controlled from the Tivo controller. I had to pick up an auto-sensing S-video switch to keep the DVD and Tivo connected to the TV and Stereo. (The active one is selected by the switch.)
The two TV receivers allow 2 shows to be recorded at once, or one recording while watching another. For non-HDTV, there is lots of room for recordings. Non-HDTV recordings seem to be of better quality than the old series 2 system as well. If the TV station is broadcasting in stereo, the Series 3 will pass it through and record it, another enhancement.
Tivo provides a free download of software (Tivo Desktop Server) to allow all the music and all the photos on any computer connected to the LAN to be viewed or played on the Tivo. I had previously used this feature extensively, and it works well--sort of like having a media PC available, without having a media PC or home media center. With the Series3, the in-home sharing, access to Tivo games, and Yahoo sponsored goodies still work as before. However, the ability to move recorded shows to a PC and then save them to a DVD, available in Series 2 is not available in Series 3. This is said to be because of the ongoing attempt by the Media companies to try and convict 100% of its customers as thieves. In any case, you can push your recording to a VCR, but can't put it on a DVD, possibly a serious limitation for some. This functionality is said to be available soon, pending approval by some media funded group of digital cops. An HDTV program is recorded with the multiple channel sound that is part of HDTV, and played back the same way. However, music played via the Tivo Desktop: Server is limited to Stereo.
While not strictly a Series 3 problem (Series 2 users also hit it), all the non-local functionality of the Tivo server (music stations, games, etc.) stopped working over the holidays. It took Tivo weeks to fix it--and during this time, there never was an official description of the problem or an estimated time of repair and many callers to support were told that they were the only person with the problem, so it must be their home LAN. It can be hoped that this slip in Tivo service is an isolated incident, and not a warning of things to come as Tivo competes in the intensely competitive DVR marketplace.
A Tivo DVR is a combination of hardware, great interface, and system support for "beyond the box" functionality. The hardware and interface in the Series 3 are both improved from the excellent Series 2 levels. The system functionality is the same or not yet all there. If HDTV is with you now or will be soon, this should be a very useful and satisfying product. For non-HDTV, Tivo Series 2 has very similar (or better) functionality at a much lower cost.
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| Date Reviewed: 11/25/2006 |
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Strengths: TiVo Interface, Dual Tuners, Updated Remote, HD Support, Cable Card Support, Expandablity
Weaknesses: Price, Drive Storage, Functionality Disabled, Dual Cable Card Requirement, Missing No QAM In The Clear Support, Expandability
Summary: The Series3 is the long awaited HD DVR TiVo has been promising for quite a while. The unit delivers on several fronts (Dual Tuner, HD, TiVo Interface). The early adopters paid the MSRP and now the unit and be found much cheaper and the price should continue to drop.
Surprisingly the unit ships with the same size drive that was shipped with DirecTV's HD DVR (HR10-250) that came out over a year ago. The new Series3 can receive Over The Air broadcasts (SD,ED,HD), Standard Analog Cable, QAM Unencrypted Digital Cable. To receive the encrypted cable programming, the Series3 must be equipped with cable company provided cable cards. If you are going to go the cable card route two cable cards must be installed for the dual tuners to function. The initial baseline software is lacking many of the Series2 capabilities and the external SATA is also disabled. These capabilities may be enabled in future updates, but nothing is guaranteed.
You may have noticed I referenced "Expandability" as both a strength and weakness. The truth is that TiVo's can be updated to add additional hours of recording by adding a larger hard drive. This has been true since the Series1, but it requires some research and resources to make it happen. These drives can also be purchased on the web, but at a premium.
I would prefer that TiVo modify their design to move their software off the hard drive into EEPROM or Flash memory (similar to DirecTV's new HR-20). This would allow for just swapping in a new drive and powering on the system.
As you can tell from all my digs the Series3 is not a perfect device, but it does provide what it was designed to do well.
My verdict: If you want your HD TiVo sooner than later, jump on in. If you're willing to wait for the dust (and the price) to settle, wait for a few more months. In January, TiVo will be showing what they have in plan for this next year. That might give you a better idea of where things are going.
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| Date Reviewed: 01/22/2007 |
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Strengths: Response quickly to the remote.
Weaknesses: It could use a bigger Hard Drive, I do not know how much we use, I have not seen it displayed.
Summary: Once tivo gets to know what you like it actually works. It also displays what is currently being recorded most of the time. It is hard to read the time and display from an average distance.
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| Date Reviewed: 03/17/2007 |
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Strengths: Dual Tuner, dual cable card ready, etherenet connectivity, HDMI output
Weaknesses: Program search is slow, No TiVo desktop support to download recordings
Summary: 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.
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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.
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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.
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Problems I've had?:
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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).
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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.
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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.
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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??)
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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.
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| Date Reviewed: 01/07/2007 |
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Strengths: TiVo Software, Dual HD Tuner, THX audio, controls on TiVo box not just on the remote, and the easiest setup for a Tivo ever.
Weaknesses: Transfer of recording from the Series 3 to Series 2 does not currently work.
Summary: The only problem I had was with my cable company. First they told me that their CableCARD does not work on TiVo. Next they said it did work, but was backordered. Then they scheduled a service guy to come out and install the card. The installer said this was his first TiVo box. He also told me that he had never successfully installed a CableCARD on any customer television (the CableCARD menu would never appear). The TiVo Series 3 immediately recognized the CableCARD and installed successfully. Great job TiVo.
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| Date Reviewed: 12/06/2006 |
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Strengths: Dual tuner, Good SD picture quality, Tivo user interface
Weaknesses: Hardware & Software Issues, Missing Key Features That Series 2 Offer
Summary: 2007-01-09 21:12:38 I was eager to get a Series 3 Tivo but disappointed with it. The audio sound on my Series 3 does not match up with the picture. It also has software issues. Tivo has also left out an important feature for families that have multiple Tivos. The Series 3 does not support multi room viewing to transfer shows from your series 2 to/from the your series 3.
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| Date Reviewed: 11/19/2006 |
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Strengths: Two tuners
Tivo Interface
Never misses a program
Series passes
Shows all the photos on a computer on the network
Plays music from a computer on the network
Easiest to use DVR
Weaknesses: Some Audio drops when browsing the guide
Does not have Multi Room Viewning (yet)
Summary: 2006-11-28 12:15:31 I have been using DirecTiVo units now for five years. The TiVo interface is the best there is. It just works, all the time, every time. And the Family Acceptance Factor is a huge benefit. Unlike any other recorder the interface is intuitive and there is not a very large learning curve. Learn a few buttons and you are watching TV your way. When you want. This unit has a superb dual tuner system. I am using it to record Over the air digital High Definition TV.
As soon as I am sure that this unit has no problems I will upgrade the harddrive to increase the recording space. Something you can do with a TiVo that you cannot do with most other DVRs.
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| Date Reviewed: 01/04/2007 |
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Strengths: only unit available that allows you to record 2 shows and watch another
Weaknesses: You need to get 2 cable cards from your cable company
Summary: We haven't hooked up this Tivo yet because I am waiting for the cable company to come out so I can get 2 cable cards. There is an additional monthly charge for 2 cable cards.
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| Date Reviewed: 04/16/2007 |
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Strengths: Dual tuner.
Weaknesses: No TiVo to go.....yet. Price.
Summary: 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.
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| Date Reviewed: 03/05/2007 |
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Strengths: Retains TiVo Interface, Faster Response, Higher Capacity, Better Remote
Weaknesses: Series 2 Retains More Features
Summary: 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.
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| Date Reviewed: 02/24/2007 |
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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.
Summary: 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.
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| Date Reviewed: 02/03/2007 |
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 TiVo Series 3 HD 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.
Summary: 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 signal
and then stick in the cable cards to get it working....then miracalously it worked.
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| Date Reviewed: 01/23/2007 |
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Strengths: HDTV via tuner or CableCard; two tuners; ample storage; Tivo interface!
Weaknesses: ...
Summary: Its not an HD-capable Tivo. Read that again. That would imply that it is everything that Tivo is and does everything that Tivo does, but adds HD.
That is incorrect, and that is the problem that many people have with this box. They want a Series2 Tivo with all of its capabilities -- they just want HD, too.
This box does HD and it does what Tivo does best: time-shifting. The strengths of the Tivo platform (Season Passes, suggestions, intuitive design) are all present, and are all flawless. No, it doesn't have some of the features that the Series2 boxes have, such as TivoToGo and MRV. But then, my Series2 didn't have TivoToGo when I bought it, either. And MRV will be added in the next several weeks (irrelevant to me).
I don't have CableCard, so I can't comment on that functionality. But the ATSC tuner is very sensitive and very good (and delivers a better picture than your cable company is capable of). I have experienced ZERO problems with this Tivo -- no audio, video or other problems not attributable to spotty antenna reception (I'm in an apartment).
Overall, this is the best-in-class HD DVR. You can't go wrong with it.
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