# Tivo Series 3 recording capacity?



## TiVoEvan74 (Sep 11, 2004)

We have two Series 2 Tivo where you can record in Basic (which we do), and save a couple of hundred hours of recording.

Is recording in Basic still an option? I see that, for Series 3 HD units, Tivo mentions only high definition and standard recording. For example, "Save up to 20 hours of HD programming (or 180 hours of standard definition) at one time" on the Tivo HD DVR.

Is there a basic option? How many hours would that provide?

Now, if our cable company switches to digital, does that change this calculation? How many hours would we get then? I've been rummaging the boards and it sounds that, in that situation, there would be NO recording options.

If only 20 hours tops, then I think I better look to some other solution for a future TV recording device!


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

Tivo Series 3 HD recorders can only change the recording quality on analog recordings, this is because they pull the digital stream down directly, there's no encoding to do, thus no way to change the settings.

This is not a bad thing, even HD programs come in at lower disk usage then a lot of analog recordings. Add in that you can easily expand the units, and it's even less of an issue. My S3 is expanded to 1.5TB and my HD is at 750GB.

Diane


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## WhiskeyTango (Sep 20, 2006)

If you are not going to be recording HD, but do have digital cable, you'll get 180 hours. If you are going to record in HD you might want to get the HDXL or just buy a larger hard drive to swap out.


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## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

TiVoEvan74 said:


> If only 20 hours tops, then I think I better look to some other solution for a future TV recording device!


You have three basic options with the high-definition TiVo:


Buy the TivoHD and add the 1TB My DVR Expander (external drive) for 165 HD hours total;

 Buy the TivoHD XL with its built-in 1TB drive for 157 HD hours, and optionally add the 1TB My DVR Expander (external drive) for 300 HD hours total; or

 Buy the TivoHD and upgrade the internal drive to 1TB for $90-100 to get 157 HD hours.

More information on all three options can be found in the *Drive Expansion and Drive Upgrade FAQ* sticky.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

dianebrat said:


> even HD programs come in at lower disk usage then a lot of analog recordings. Add in that you can easily expand the units, and it's even less of an issue.


That's absolutely false. Tivo basic takes *around* 1 gig/hour. Some *digital* recordings take about that.. Based upon my own anecdotal evidence, most seem to be twice that..
HD recordings are WAY WAY WAY more than that.

BTW, you say you have a 1.5 TB drive in a S3.. But according to other threads, a S3 won't use all of a 1.5 TB drive... It will use IIRC 1.25 TB max.. Unless you mean you have multiple drives.


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

mattack said:


> That's absolutely false. Tivo basic takes *around* 1 gig/hour. Some *digital* recordings take about that.. Based upon my own anecdotal evidence, most seem to be twice that..
> HD recordings are WAY WAY WAY more than that.


My bad then, I was pretty sure the mediocre HD was the same size as analog.



mattack said:


> BTW, you say you have a 1.5 TB drive in a S3.. But according to other threads, a S3 won't use all of a 1.5 TB drive... It will use IIRC 1.25 TB max.. Unless you mean you have multiple drives.


I didn't say it was a single drive, I said "expanded to" it's 2x750GB one internal, one external.

Diane


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## Ed Siegler (Nov 8, 2003)

mattack said:


> That's absolutely false. Tivo basic takes *around* 1 gig/hour. Some *digital* recordings take about that.. Based upon my own anecdotal evidence, most seem to be twice that..
> HD recordings are WAY WAY WAY more than that.
> 
> BTW, you say you have a 1.5 TB drive in a S3.. But according to other threads, a S3 won't use all of a 1.5 TB drive... It will use IIRC 1.25 TB max.. Unless you mean you have multiple drives.


I have been putting Segate Barracuda 1.5TB drives in my S3 units. I did notice one difference that kind of supports what you are saying.

If you immage the new 1.5TB from your origional 250GB drive, yes, you wind up being limited to 1.25TB, or 215 hours of HD/1890 SD hours of recording.

If a fresh S3 immage is put on the drive, you utilize the entire 1.5TB drive and get 237 hours of HD or 2210 SD hours.

I made the mistake of immaging my old 250 and limiting the capacity. Ultimately it was removed, and freshly formatted with the S3 software, and now it has 237 hours of HD capacity.


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## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

From the *Drive Expansion & Drive Upgrade FAQ*:



> *What is the maximum capacity supported?*
> 
> _Credit to spike -- the author of WinMFS -- for clarifying this subject._
> 
> ...


Using more than 1.35TB on a TiVo Series3 image from v9.4 (or later) will result in instability / reboots. The latest version of WinMFS is able to limit a 1.5TB drive to 1.35TB usable. This information is direct from the author of the WinMFS and MFSLive Tools.

I know you could use more than 1.35TB under TiVo software versions prior to 9.4, but it was my understanding that the same capacity limitations applied after a TiVo was upgraded to 11.x. I was under the impression that instability resulted when used capacity exceeded 1.35TB on a TiVo running the 11.x software. I'm will inquire about this with spike to find out for certain.


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## Ed Siegler (Nov 8, 2003)

To be honest, I have yet to experience a reboot of the system. The only thing I noticed was the reduction in recording space from the immage as opposed to the fresh immage. As far as limited drive capacity, I do not know about that.

I do buy my drives from a very reliabele guy in Va. who also sells a 2TB internal drive for use in the HD and S3. That gives the unit 318 HD hours and 2777 SD hours. Used this guy for years for my TiVo repairs.

Here is a link to his specifics for the 2TB drive

http://cgi.ebay.com/TiVo-Drive-Upgr...QQptZLHQ5fDefaultDomainQ5f0QQsalenotsupported


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## TiVoEvan74 (Sep 11, 2004)

OP here! 

Helpful posts (until I got in over my head with all the 1.5TB expansion, upgrade biz! ) 

So, it sounds as if my cable company goes all digital, that I'd still get 157 hours with the HD XL. (We have old analog sets, have never been fussy about video, screen quality, so it'll be ages before we move into the HD world!)

Hmmm... that puts me in a quandary. We have a Series Toshiba unit with the DVD burner... which has 201 hours of space at Basic. We accumulate many DVDs of series we record.

That makes me wonder if we might not be better off picking up another Series 2 DVD burning unit (Weaknees has a sale right now). That might fit our Tivo lifestyle better (our 2nd unit is Humax DVD burning/playing unit).

Will those units work if the cable company goes all-digital? I presume we'd get a digital set box from the company, but would our old Tivos (or a refurbished one from WK) handle that?

We're thinking of pairing the 3rd Tivo with an over-the-air antenna to pick up the subsidiary channels (e.g., 46-2, 46-3, etc.). There are shows there that we don't get via the "lifeline" low-end 5 channel cable we get. Having it be MRV or sneaker net with DVDs would be cool.


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## tewcewl (Dec 18, 2004)

TiVoEvan74 said:


> So, it sounds as if my cable company goes all digital, that I'd still get 157 hours with the HD XL. (We have old analog sets, have never been fussy about video, screen quality, so it'll be ages before we move into the HD world!)
> 
> Will those units work if the cable company goes all-digital? I presume we'd get a digital set box from the company, but would our old Tivos (or a refurbished one from WK) handle that?


Right now I use DISH Network and their signals is ALL digital. It doesn't affect me as a S2 owner because I have a set top box where the signals come from the dish and are changed into analog signals and it is this signal that I plug in my TiVo.

If your cable company gives you a set top box, then there's no change that you will need to do. The TiVos you own will still work. You may just have to re-do guided set-up but that'll be it.


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## timckelley (Oct 15, 2002)

I'm just now starting to recording in HD (starting today), so it'll be interesting to see how well my space holds out. I've never upgraded the HD or added any external unit, but OTOH, I never seem to have much backlog in my NP either, so I might do okay with the factory supplied space.


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

mattack said:


> That's absolutely false. Tivo basic takes *around* 1 gig/hour. Some *digital* recordings take about that.. Based upon my own anecdotal evidence, most seem to be twice that..
> HD recordings are WAY WAY WAY more than that.


My anecdotal evidence is:
1 hour of SD Digital recording can be anywhere from 900 MB to 1.9 GB.
1 hour of HD Recording can be anywhere from 4 GB to 8 GB.


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## bizzy (Jan 20, 2004)

Ed Siegler said:


> To be honest, I have yet to experience a reboot of the system. The only thing I noticed was the reduction in recording space from the immage as opposed to the fresh immage. As far as limited drive capacity, I do not know about that.
> 
> I do buy my drives from a very reliabele guy in Va. who also sells a 2TB internal drive for use in the HD and S3. That gives the unit 318 HD hours and 2777 SD hours. Used this guy for years for my TiVo repairs.


Interesting. I am noodling around with the idea of replacing the disk in my S3; and had just resigned myself to losing .3tb using a 1.5tb disk. This seems to suggest that starting from an InstantCake type image; you can use the entire space of a 1.5tb or 2tb disk; whereas using MFStools you'd be stuck with the 1.1tb plus existing space limitation.

Honestly; I'm probably going to pay the .3tb price; mostly to avoid going through the CableCard pairing headache with Comcast again.


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## drey (Jul 21, 2008)

I have several TiVo HD and S3 drives available (single 2TB drive, 318 hours) if anyone is interested. PM me for more details.


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## TiVoEvan74 (Sep 11, 2004)

Good stuff, gang! Thanks a bunch. We're sitting tight for a while, having discovered the joys of OTA recording onto one of the Tivos--it's expanded the shows we can capture, especially some old sitcoms we've missed-- and an exercise show. Given that our Tivos are DVD burning units, we just offload the stuff and have it for future viewing. Not as convenient as buying a Series 3 with lots of space, that's for sure, but also much cheaper!


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

Huh? DVD burning Tivos only do analog OTA, and there is no analog OTA anymore.

I hope you are using rewritable DVDs, and aren't wasting DVDs for things you are going to watch once! (I don't care about the cost, it's throwing away all that plastic that bugs me..)


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

OTA capable Series 2s can work woth some of the converter boxes


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## dugbug (Dec 29, 2003)

mattack said:


> Huh? DVD burning Tivos only do analog OTA, and there is no analog OTA anymore.
> 
> I hope you are using rewritable DVDs, and aren't wasting DVDs for things you are going to watch once! (I don't care about the cost, it's throwing away all that plastic that bugs me..)


DVD burning tivos are analog cable, not OTA, and work fine. Maybe I misunderstand your comments, but as long as you can get analog cable (which is still very popular) things are just like they alwas were.

-d


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## TiVoEvan74 (Sep 11, 2004)

Absolutely--DVD-RWs. That's really crucial, especially there are occasional shows that refuse to be burned to DVD and with regular -R, you lose the entire disc. We've also discovered that really cheap generic DVD-RWs should be avoided-- they scratched easily rendering burned DVDs unusable (skips, freezes, etc.). Ridata has been good.

We're using a converter box to get OTA transmissions--and they feed just fine into the DVD-burning units. So, one doesn't need cable with the Human/Toshiba units.

We do get occasional sound pops, however. Also, the novelty of those old sitcoms is wearing off (we're drowning in DVDs and filling up the Tivo), so we're probably going back to cable.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

dugbug said:


> DVD burning tivos are analog cable, not OTA, and work fine. Maybe I misunderstand your comments, but as long as you can get analog cable (which is still very popular) things are just like they alwas were.
> 
> -d


DVD burner TiVos can control a cable box - there are converter boxes to use a digital antenna that series 2 can control same as cable box.

DVD burner TiVos can do OTA - indeed I have 2 such boxes and 1 is on TiVo basic - which means I have a digital OTA recorder with DVD player recorder and no sub :up:


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