TiVo Series3 HD DVR (32-HD hours)

• Average user rating: 3.0 stars out of 76 reviews Back to product review
• My rating: 0 stars

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• 11 out of 24 people found this review helpful

  1.0 stars

  "A year late and four-hundred dollars short"

  by sanenazok on September 12, 2006

  Pros: Dual Tuner, HD, 2 years too late

  Cons: The price is higher than a pc

  Summary: I once swore by Tivo. Have a lifetime membership on the first model. Then I saw a demonstration for a PC based TV control program. For $80 (software + PCI card) I've been able to record HDTV signals with minimum effort. The interface on the program is as good or better than Tivo. I can take the files anywhere I want, even my PDA since the recorded files are transcoded to standard WMV (I can also use divx).
  
  So question is, should I dump my previous one just to get this functionality in a closed box? For $800 I can get a new PC with 19" LCD monitor, slap in four tuners in it and go crazy. Let's leave this for people with too much money and too little access to drugs.

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• 5 replies to this review

• reply by: mfreifeld on May 9, 2007

  C-net should not post opinions such as this one where the writer has never even tried the product.

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• reply by: jester2010 on February 9, 2007

  I'm sorry, I really am for the subject line, but there is nothing more irritating than someone giving a "review" of a product that is really a diatribe about why they bought something else.
  
  If you don't have it, and therefore cannot give us an in depth review, please don't taint the opinion average.
  
  Oh, and unless you have cable cards in that home made PVR just-as-good-as-tivo-for-$80-computer of yours, you can't do everything that the HD TIVO can do - FAR from it.

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• reply by: Eric in Augusta on September 15, 2006

  I thought this section was labeled ?User Opinions?. How do you qualify as a TiVo Series 3 user? For you to rate this product poorly because you choose to customize your PC is like someone who perfers to buy kit and modify their Honda Civic criticizing someone else for buying a Porsche. If you would rather watch TV on your PC that?s fine. I just can?t see my family curled up in front of a 19 inch monitor to watch CSI.

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• reply by: poordirtfarmer on September 14, 2006

  I like the idea of multiple tuners simultaneously recording selected programs to the hard drives for later playback or recording. A thought ? couldn?t the replay be sent directly out to a large screen TV just as easily as watching it on a 19? monitor? A computer especially setup for & dedicated to the family room TV seems like a good option already.
  
  Put a few of those big hard drives from the Sunday ads into a Raid 5 configuration and a living room dual core PC could be worked into a dynamite entertainment system.
  
  And next year quad CPU will be available, and even bigger hard drives - for about the same price. Life is looking good!

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• reply by: trininuyawka on September 13, 2006

  Granted the Series 3 is expensive, why would I force myself to watch video on a 19" screen when there's a perfectly good 42" widescreen in the living room with a nice comfy sofa and Dolby Digital surround sound? I think you're comparing apples to oranges.

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