# Alternative uses for a Series 3



## Anotherpyr (May 6, 2015)

Given the recent decision to not support MPEG-4 on them, I was wondering what other uses one could be put to given the limited legal options and hardware constraints.


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## justen_m (Jan 15, 2004)

My PLS TivoHD is relegated to recording OTA, mostly football at this point.

[edit] I don't think Boise OTA is changing any time soon. So sell your PLS TiVo to someone in Idaho? Not many of us. Sorry, no looking.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

Space heater?


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## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

I didn't think it was a recent decision. 

If yours has lifetime you can sell it. There are plenty of providers that haven't transitioned yet to MPEG-4.


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## bradleys (Oct 31, 2007)

And it still works great as an OTA device. That is how I would market it...


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## kpeters59 (Jun 19, 2007)

So, I know this thread is getting old, but I've got several S3 units and was holding on to them to make use of.

Now that they can't be Activated, they're seeming like anchors.

If I COULD get them briefly activated, I'd put in the largest drive they'd hold and push all my ripped DVD's and whatnot to them and use them as a sort of Movie NAS.

Or something like that.

Any way to do that now?

-KP


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## enthalpy (Oct 11, 2006)

I'm using mine as a standard def cable box in the basement. It's had a good long useful life. It can't display mpeg4 but it's still going strong as a dvr.


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## Jackiemac22 (Jan 12, 2018)

seeing they wont activate the series 3 hd anymore does anyone have an image for one i have a dead TCD652160 with lifetime that needs reviving Thanks

[QUOTE,="Anotherpyr, post: 10669532, member: 301179"]Given the recent decision to not support MPEG-4 on them, I was wondering what other uses one could be put to given the limited legal options and hardware constraints.[/QUOTE]


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## rdrrepair (Nov 24, 2006)

enthalpy said:


> I'm using mine as a standard def cable box in the basement. It's had a good long useful life. It can't display mpeg4 but it's still going strong as a dvr.


 I was under the impression that MPEG4 is working on these boxes.

11.0n should work with MPEG4, doesn't?


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

rdrrepair said:


> I was under the impression that MPEG4 is working on these boxes.
> 
> 11.0n should work with MPEG4, doesn't?


Not on the OLED model (what most people mean by "Series 3"), AFAIK.

They _could_ make that model work with h.264 (it supports it with streaming). But they haven't, last I checked.


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

Jackiemac22 said:


> seeing they wont activate the series 3 hd anymore does anyone have an image for one i have a dead TCD652160 with lifetime that needs reviving Thanks


PM sent.

Scott


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## rdrrepair (Nov 24, 2006)

I have 2 of the OLED 648 S3 units still in service with lifetime on them.

Did they ever support MPEG4 in a channel recording capacity and TiVo broke it on an update? Besides not working, how would I know what channels were MPEG4 by looking at my system?

So I can transfer a recorded show in MPEG4 and watch it on my S3? 

I contacted TiVo back in 2015-16 about having an issue and was told my TiVo had a bad tuner. I placed the unit in a seldom used room and left only one card in it. It's still working but I'm wondering if it was defective or it had something to do with MPEG4. When hooked to OTA I have no problems with using both tuners.


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

rdrrepair said:


> I have 2 of the OLED 648 S3 units still in service with lifetime on them.
> 
> Did they ever support MPEG4 in a channel recording capacity and TiVo broke it on an update? Besides not working, how would I know what channels were MPEG4 by looking at my system?
> 
> ...


No, the original S3 OLED never supported recording MPEG4 content although the decoders support the format. I believe I had read that you could transfer a properly formatted MPEG4 show to it for playback (pyTiVo?) but I've never done it. The HD did eventually get an update that supported MPEG4 (although they originally indicated it was not going to be updated) but that was presumably because they already had code that supported MPEG4 recording for the Australian TiVo's which were based on the HD.

Are you on Comcast? If so then your issue very well could have been due to their move to MPEG4 for all non-broadcast channels. We upgraded from 2 S3 OLED to a Roamio Pro in October 2015 since we knew the upgrade was coming and TiVo offered a great long-term TiVo user discount on the Roamio Pro with lifetime (oh and TiVo had raised the cost of lifetime as well).

Scott


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## rdrrepair (Nov 24, 2006)

I've been absent from this forum for a bit & didn't know anything about the issues with the S3 OLED models until I stumbled onto this post. I had no idea that this could have been why I was having a problem. I even contacted weaknees to see if they were able to replace one of the tuners and was told no.

Seeing that the two kids had a tube tv, and streaming wasn't that big a deal for us, I just ignored it. Too bad as I would have taken that offer too.


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## videobruce (Nov 30, 2012)

rdrrepair said:


> I have 2 of the OLED 648 S3 units still in service with lifetime on them.


Out of curiosity, where did you get that count from? I saw another post somewhere that had counts of another model that supposedly were still in service.


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## rdrrepair (Nov 24, 2006)

videobruce said:


> Out of curiosity, where did you get that count from? I saw another post somewhere that had counts of another model that supposedly were still in service.


 I'm unsure what you're asking. I've got 2 of the original S3 TiVo's and that model number is known as TCD648250B.

Here's a comparison chart for the three different models of the S3
TiVo® HD DVR Comparison Chart - compare Series3 and Series4 models

.


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## videobruce (Nov 30, 2012)

The "648" I took as the number of active units per that other post talked abou, not the model number. I misread your post.


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