TiVo Series 3 S3 Review
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The world's first THX-certified, dual CableCARD DVR has finally arrived in the form of TiVo's Series3, and it's a fine cable company DVR replacement if your budget allows it.
The S3 is TiVo's best looking DVR to date. The solid unit has a gleaming black top with a stylish black and silver front bezel. From a couch, the front-panel OLED display serves little practical purpose without Chuck Yeager vision (or better), though we've really enjoyed studying it up close. TiVo's trademark peanut remote is glossy, well balanced, and features pleasantly glowing buttons.
The TiVo interface is exactly what you'd expect: after all these years, the competition still hasn't been able to match the intuitiveness, ease, and power of the original DVR. Familiar features such as Wishlists, Suggestions, and Season Passes are present. Music and photo streaming from Mac or PC also work as expected.
Toggling between tuners can be performed via the programming info menu or by pressing the LiveTV button on the remote. Any two incoming signals can be recorded simultaneously with the option of watching a third signal of recorded content.
The Series3 is designed to replace a cable box, not control it. The S3 supports OTA broadcasts (both ATSC and NTSC) in addition to analog cable, but to fully appreciate the unit a pair of CableCARDs are needed. If our experience is representative, getting them installed will test your patience. The S3 supports CableCARD 1.0, and it's our understanding a single M-Card (CC 1.0+) will replace 2 CableCARDs once they become available.
Obviously, the primary selling point of this unit is its ability to handle HD. Not only does the S2 handle OTA and digital NTSC, it includes a variety of settings to optimize incoming content for specific screen types. Unlike analog recordings, digital content is directly recorded bit for bit without any degradation of quality. The trade-off is that the unit only stores about 30 hours of HD programming (or up to 300 hours of SD). Tribune guide data now includes information source video resolution in case your eyes still can't tell the difference between a nice cable signal and a fat HD pipe. The Now Playing list includes a dedicated HD folder.
While the TiVo Series3 provides only two inputs (antenna and cable), the THX-certified unit finally provides numerous outputs including HDMI and optical audio. The S3 contains a 250GB Western Digital Caviar hard drive plus an eSATA port, which paves the way for future storage options. While we weren't able to receive confirmation from TiVo, we feel it's likely the internal hard drive can be upgraded. Connectivity to the mother ship is (still) handled via phone, Ethernet, or supported USB network adapters. The hardware supports AVC (aka H.264) though it hasn't been enabled in the software yet, which leaves us wondering what TiVoCast might have in store for us down the road.
Service fees remain $12.95 a month, or $6.95/month for those who currently have a non-bundled pricing unit subscription. TiVo also offers pre-paid pricing at the rate of $155.40 for one year or $299 for two years. TiVo is offering two promotions in conjunction with the release of the S3. First, you can prepay three years of service for the price of two ($299). Second, as we revealed last week, $199 lets you move Lifetime Service from a S1 or S2 unit to the new S3.
Click here to order your Tivo Series 3 Now!
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