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180 Hours is in Standard Def. Only records 20 hours in HD. My HTPC can record about 120 hours in HD right now (equates to 1000+ hours in SD) and I don't pay a monthly fee. When are these people going to stick at least a 400 or 500 GB drive into these?

#2, How does your HTPC record encrypted HD? Any special hack or card

Digital cable service (requires up to 2 CableCARD™¹ decoders from your cable provider )

On the issue of capacity, the Series 3 has an eSATA connection on the back that can be accessed with a simple command using the remote. If capacity is an issue, buy an external case and 500G drive on your own to add. The instructions are in a sticky at the top of the tivo community forums (sorry, I don't have time to paste a link now).

#3, using digital cable cards can actually LOWER YOUR CABLE BILL. My provider charges $1.50 per month for each cable card but I don't have to pay $12.95 per month for a digital cable box.

Also, since all cable cards support HD content, you will also receive many HD channels without the "HD Package" that most cable providers charge.

My cable bill actually went down by about $20/month after installing my Series 3 INCLUDING THE TIVO SERVICE CHARGE- Big YMMV on this because it depends on the pricing stucture of your cable provider. I suggest you shop around. I use Grande Communications in Austin TX.

I have 3 HD tuner cards to record over the air HD and a 4th card to record HD and digital QAM channels from Comcast (TNT HD and Discovery HD). Only thing I miss is ESPN HD and HBO HD. But these two channels aren't worth $75 a month.

great info everyone

Boycott HBO and other premium channels. The movie selections there blow bigtime. TNT and PBS have better movies albeit the commercials. Now Sopranos is over, there is nothing much good to see in HBO anyways.

these cable cards can be a pain though. I design and instal custom hometheaters and I've had to deal with more than one cable card that stopped getting certain channels or just plain stopped working (normally due to "security updates" that get sent to your system from your cable provider), and because they aren't two-way-communicable, they always want/need to send out a tech to your house.

also, no OnDemand features (that matters to some).

Other than that junk, these things are pretty sweet.

kels83- I have a Series 3, and I was just about to write a note saying "yeah, but eSATA doesn't work yet because of Cablelabs" until I just saw the sticky on tivocommunity. SWEET!

The FAQ says it doesn't work on TivoHD yet, but that Cablelabs is allowing it to go forward, so I presume it will be on the new TivoHD boxes soon.

Cablecards suck. The technology was intentionally crippled by the cable industry. Now they have to live with it, because everything has to support removable/portable Conditional Access. Shot themselves in the foot there didn't they. Couldn't have happened to a better group of companies IMHO. As for saying you don't need one, you will find more and more content using CA- even non premium content.

I used to work for a DVR manufacturer that competes with Tivo (well, if they ship a consumer product it will compete with Tivo). I've looked at lots of PVR/DVR's. The Tivo series three is superior to anything I've seen, and superior to any DVR/PVR products I've seen in the pipeline. It hurts to see it now cost 4-500 less than I paid for a similar product, but hey, I've had mine for quite a while now and that makes me happy.

If you currently have a cable box, beware that you will be giving up VOD. Part of intentionally crippling cablecard was to not support upstream/QPSK- no VOD. Yes, cablecard 2 is on its way. Maybe cable companies will roll them out quickly, maybe they won't.

It has not been in cable companies interest for you to buy your own cable box, so they have done everything they can to make it more convenient and functional to use theres. Hopefully they are/will see the light on this, but it's going to take a while.

Dealing with mythtv or a mediapc and encoding multiple cable boxes component output is not competitive- I wish it were, because I would do it.

Rant off. If you want a PVR, this is the way to go.

#10, Yes, Tivo got around the Cablelabs problem by encrypting the entire external drive. This keeps you from using it for anything other than the TiVo. Also, I think the size limit on external drives is 1 terabyte. Here's a link to the instructions:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=350510

What nobody seems to be pointing out is that this isn't the Series 3 that started out at $800, this is the Tivo HD that was announced yesterday, and $299 is the list price.

Ergo, this is not a deal in the least.

(And this is made all the more misleading with the little picture in the corner, which IS the full-blown Series 3.)

Fair enough. I was not commenting on the deal itself, which to me _seems_ like a deal since I paid $800 precious dollars

Then again, I get to lord my VCD front panel, THX, and lighted remote over the lesser Tivo havers. I think I'd rather have the $500. But I am happy with having the box, and my SATA drive and enclosure are on the way.

#12 is right. This deal is for the TivoHD. TivoHD is not exactly a Series3. Quoting from here: (http://www.tivolovers.com/a-review-of-the-tivo-hd-digital-media-recorder/) - "The TiVo HD is a member of the Series3 family, but it differs in several ways from the original unit."

Please also note that per #11's link, regarding eSATA expansion: "Does this work on the TivoHD? No. At this time, eSATA drive expansion is only possible with the Tivo Series3.". Therefore I don't think it would be a good idea to purchase this expecting that you will be able to expand the storage capacity, although I'd love to hear/read information to the contrary.

Last note: At time of writing, CircuitCity has this exact model for $258.99.