Rarely do we use the our DirectTV HD-DVR without complaining about it and reminiscing about the old Tivo. Even the remote control bugs. I think Gopsdragon and justagirl hate their DirectTV unit even more. In fact, I think they're on their second unit and still having problems.

But do we hate it enough to spend $800 on Tivo's HD Series III unit? No way.

But now there's an option as Tivo has come out with a $300 HD unit. No Tivo-To-Go but I never used it anyway. Also 10 hours less HD recording time than the more expensive unit...
Full Review.

The only problem is if you are getting HD from Cable, you may need to rent a cable card from your cable company. I think mine rents them for $4 a month + $45 for install each. The HD Tivo takes two each. Plus you have to pay Tivo for the monthly service. I might be able to get by without the card since the only HD I record is on the locals which should be broadcast in unencrypted QAM. I don't think this box supports satelite.

Tivo has also disabled the sharing between Tivo's on the series 3. This was a feature I really liked on my ReplayTV.

I just bought a new 42" plasma for the bedroom, so I looked at the Tivo Series 3 but didn't want to spend the $600. But for $300 this may be worthwhile. The HD DVR the cable company provides is crap hardware and user interface. The benefit is it is only $16 a month and no upfront purchase.

Thanks for the info.

JBMoney wrote:


try our FIFTH one. and the last time it fried, it took the satellite dish with it by backfeeding. AUGH!!!!!!!!

justagirl wrote:


No wonder you have so many kids! You're DVR is always broke.

I better get another DVR for the bedroom soon, two kids is enough for me.

robb wrote:


LMAO. Yup. Get bottled water soon too.

Heck, I'd be happy with a good DirecTv HD receiver - DVR would be great but our receiver has been a piece since we got it.

So JB, did you buy one?

On Satellite. Need to wait for a workaround.

I just ordered one from Circuit City. On sale for $260.

So I have had this thing for a couple of weeks and it works pretty good. A couple of notes.

Pros

• Interface and recording capabilities are light years ahead of the HD DVR I have from my cable company. So many ways to search and find programs.
• It automatically records stuff it thinks you will like. These recordings never interrupt or take the space of programs you programmed to record. You can help it choose by using a thumbs up/down when watching programs. I probably have about 100 hours of suggestions on the box now.
• It is very quiet. It is in my bedroom and I can only hear it when I really listen for it.

Cons

• It is an expense of about $300 for the box plus the service. I spent another $299 for the 3 year prepaid
• The cable companies screw you on the cable cards. It was $90 for the cable card install plus $4 a month. Basically they just slid the card in and called in the numbers that popped up on the screen.
• It does have some occasional artifacting. Hopefully the next version of software will fix it.
• It does not support on-demand. I have never used this though

I think eventually I will replace the Cable Company DVR I have in my living room with another one of these. I will probably do so when they enable the sharing feature between boxes. I loved this feature on my replayTV.