I could not get it past the "Powering Up" screen. Another round of customer service and I got approval to mail back the replacement box. I refused to pay another $869 because I hadn't (and still haven't) received a refund for the previous payment.

The CableCard technology in the Tivo Series 3 still have a lot of bugs - I ended up needing to return mine because my cable company was unable to get the cable card slots to pick up anything except analog channels (no digital, no premium, and no HD). Without this capability, what's the point of upgrading from my Series 2? There are tons of posts in Tivo support forums about the lack of compatibility between the Series 3 and major cable providers (like Time Warner, Comcast, etc).

The TiVo Series 3 is a complete and total waste of money. I have spent more time and effort fighting with the cable company and the worthless machine to get it working....all without prevail. It really sucks because I love TiVo and the service, but I think they got a little ahead of themselves with the Series 3.

After waiting for cards we realized that it was not the cards, but the tivo that was defective. Now it has been 3 months since I purchased the tivo and I have finally figured out it does not work. Amazon will not exchange it for me.

However, the QAM tuner doesn't work unless you purchase a cablecard from your cable company (each one costs the same as renting a cable box from my cable provider and the Tivo needs 2 in order to handle dual-tuner functions). This is aggravating because most digital tv's these days will tune in the non-encryptyed digital stations on cable, but the Tivo doesn't. Tivo says it does in their FAQ, but it doesn't.

I did this for a few weeks, but then it started to fail more frequently. After several days on the phone with the Tivo customer service (after long waits on hold ... and very boring music by the way), they agreed to replace my box.

I think that there should be more time aloud to return this product since it does not function without cards that you have to obtain from another source. And you may find, as I did, that most cable companies will do anything for you to not have a tivo. After Amazon.com was no help at all on this matter I am taking my business elsewhere.

Then the nightmare began. First of all, I had no idea about the fact that this unit required cable cards because Amazon's ad did not state so at the time. I called to get cable cards from my cable provider, Suddenlink, and was told that they would not give them to me.

Sometimes, just taking out the card and replacing it fixes it (even though Tivo tells you not to do this, sometimes it's the only thing that works). But SO many times program recordings are truncated or don't happen at all because the cards went out during the recording. Face it, an unreliable Tivo, which the Series 3 most definitely is, is almost worse than no Tivo at all.

I was beginning to think I was going to be stuck with that piece of junk Motorolla DVR forever.

I no longer resent interruptions during movies since I know I can just rewind and pick up from where I left off. And I no longer waste time watching shows I hate to kill the extra minutes while I wait for a movie to start or a political speech to end.

(And for some, a nightmare!) Caution to future buyers: if you are hoping you can enjoy the unit right out of the box take heed. That is not going to happen unless you work for a cable company, have access to ample cable cards (many seem flawed), and know what you are doing with them.

Only beware that currently it cannot fully support the cable MCards as dual tuners so you will need two of them for the dual tuning. They say they are working on it. But I, nor Comcast, knew this and they only brought out one MCard on install.

There was very heavy static on all of the digital cable channels, and the tech told me it was a result of old, outdated cards. The tech then told me he had no idea when they would get new cards that work.

I have a wireless network that handles traffic everyday, but a TIVO will not connect. Tivo second level support says even if I get it to once it will fail and fail often, I need to purchase the Tivo wireless device, for more money. This is blatant false advertisement, Tivo knows there series 3 will not work on wireless home networks but does not say so.

Option 1: $8.00/month for a serviceable (although certainly not elegant or sexy) dual-tuner HD DVR from the Cable or Satellite Company. You pay only $8.00/month and the Cable company is on the hook to deliver you a working box. If it doesn't work, they'll typically credit you for the time that it was down.

Just a heads up to clear some confusion--this product does not work with Directv or Dish--only works with cable. Great product, but this cuts out on half the potential customers out there.

Tivo has a new feature called Amazon Unbox and it's a nice concept, sort of like pay per view. The lame thing is none of the content out there is HD or surround sound content and also you only get a 24 hour viewing period. So I guess I won't be using that service.

They originally were trying to use one dual channel card, but they were unable to get it to work. If you run into the same problem, ask your cable company to use two single channel cards. According to Tivo, the multi channel cards will work with their latest software release.

I recently bought a Tivo Series 3 on Amazon and could not epxress my joy enough! I was forced to use a cable company DVR for 6 months after I upgraded to HD. It was horrible!!

I was beginning to think I was going to be stuck with that piece of junk Motorolla dvr forever.

Option 1: $8.00/month for a serviceable (although certainly not elegant or sexy) dual-tuner HD dvr from the Cable or Satellite Company. You pay only $8.00/month and the Cable company is on the hook to deliver you a working box. If it doesn't work, they'll typically credit you for the time that it was down.

I recently bought a Tivo Series 3 on Amazon and could not epxress my joy enough! I was forced to use a cable company dvr for 6 months after I upgraded to HD. It was horrible!!

Tivo says you can manually change to those channels but there is no decimal point on the TV remote to do so. The FAQ states it cannot record those channels on the dvr because it won't know what TV Guide listings to match to those channels because cable providers pick the frequency/channel to broadcast those on and don't tell TV Guide. This is a lame excuse Tivo because you could easily have people map the channels to the TV Guide listing of their choice.

The Tivo, however, has many more features than the cable company box. I have been a Tivo user for a long time and I was waiting for the price to drop before buying the series 3. I have had a cable company High Definition dvr for several years and have been disappointed by the lack of features (except for On Demand) on the that dvr.

We had an original Tivo that gave up the ghost after 5 years, requiring us to go with the DirecTV dvr. The interface for that device lacked the ease of use we had associated with Tivo, so we decided to go back. Unfortunately, we had to switch to Comcast cable service because Tivo HD Series 3 doesn't work with the satellite service.

Literally, I can now lay down and rest, and watch tv, instead of fight with a bug proned, slow, hang-up, doesn't record my shows half the time, piece of junk dvr.

It is designed far more sensibly, with buttons that are easy to reach and easy to distinguish in the dark, and a separate on/off button for the TV. (The Motorola remote has a single on/off button, requiring the user to activate the TV function before pressing the off button, lest he accidentally turn off the dvr.)The TiVo remote is much better at communicating with the TV; the Motorola remote often failed to work unless it was aimed at a precise spot (even with new batteries).

I bought a 3-year service agreement from TiVo which worked out to be about $4 a month less than Comcast's dvr rental. Of course that won't pay for having to buy the TiVo, but it's still been worth it to me. Disadvantages/hopeful upgrades:

The Scientific Atlanta one I most recently had from Cox was by far the worst dvr I have ever owned. I therefore decided to make the move back to Tivo since their prices were coming down (especially with the rebate). Let me tell you, it's like getting back together with an old friend.

The CableCard technology in the Tivo Series 3 still have a lot of bugs - I ended up needing to return mine because my cable company was unable to get the cable card slots to pick up anything except analog channels (no digital, no premium, and no HD). Without this capability, what's the point of upgrading from my Series 2? There are tons of posts in Tivo support forums about the lack of compatibility between the Series 3 and major cable providers (like Time Warner, Comcast, etc).

The TiVo Series 3 is a complete and total waste of money. I have spent more time and effort fighting with the cable company and the worthless machine to get it working....all without prevail. It really sucks because I love TiVo and the service, but I think they got a little ahead of themselves with the Series 3.

However, the QAM tuner doesn't work unless you purchase a cablecard from your cable company (each one costs the same as renting a cable box from my cable provider and the Tivo needs 2 in order to handle dual-tuner functions). This is aggravating because most digital tv's these days will tune in the non-encryptyed digital stations on cable, but the Tivo doesn't. Tivo says it does in their FAQ, but it doesn't.

(And for some, a nightmare!) Caution to future buyers: if you are hoping you can enjoy the unit right out of the box take heed. That is not going to happen unless you work for a cable company, have access to ample cable cards (many seem flawed), and know what you are doing with them.

Option 1: $8.00/month for a serviceable (although certainly not elegant or sexy) dual-tuner HD DVR from the Cable or Satellite Company. You pay only $8.00/month and the cable company is on the hook to deliver you a working box. If it doesn't work, they'll typically credit you for the time that it was down.

They originally were trying to use one dual channel card, but they were unable to get it to work. If you run into the same problem, ask your cable company to use two single channel cards. According to Tivo, the multi channel cards will work with their latest software release.

I recently bought a Tivo Series 3 on Amazon and could not epxress my joy enough! I was forced to use a cable company DVR for 6 months after I upgraded to HD. It was horrible!!

I was able to get normal cable channels without activating the unit. I called the local cable company and a technician was sent out a few days later to install 2 cable cards. The technician tried a multistream card but it would only work as a single stream card.

The Tivo, however, has many more features than the cable company box. I have been a Tivo user for a long time and I was waiting for the price to drop before buying the series 3. I have had a cable company High Definition DVR for several years and have been disappointed by the lack of features (except for On Demand) on the that DVR.

All of the bugs mentioned in other reviews have been fixed, including TiVo To Go and all the other features you don't get with your cable company. However, I should qualify this by saying that, with digital programming, sometimes the company puts "blocks" that prevent you from transferring the recording; that's an anti pirating problem sweeping throughout the entertainment industry, and not a TiVo problem. When TiVo obeys the law by stopping you from transferring something to your hard drive, it clearly states why.

The CableCard technology in the Tivo series 3 still have a lot of bugs - I ended up needing to return mine because my cable company was unable to get the cable card slots to pick up anything except analog channels (no digital, no premium, and no HD). Without this capability, what's the point of upgrading from my series 2? There are tons of posts in Tivo support forums about the lack of compatibility between the series 3 and major cable providers (like Time Warner, Comcast, etc).

The TiVo series 3 is a complete and total waste of money. I have spent more time and effort fighting with the cable company and the worthless machine to get it working....all without prevail. It really sucks because I love TiVo and the service, but I think they got a little ahead of themselves with the series 3.

Sometimes, just taking out the card and replacing it fixes it (even though Tivo tells you not to do this, sometimes it's the only thing that works). But SO many times program recordings are truncated or don't happen at all because the cards went out during the recording. Face it, an unreliable Tivo, which the series 3 most definitely is, is almost worse than no Tivo at all.

I have a wireless network that handles traffic everyday, but a TIVO will not connect. Tivo second level support says even if I get it to once it will fail and fail often, I need to purchase the Tivo wireless device, for more money. This is blatant false advertisement, Tivo knows there series 3 will not work on wireless home networks but does not say so.

I recently bought a Tivo series 3 on Amazon and could not epxress my joy enough! I was forced to use a cable company DVR for 6 months after I upgraded to HD. It was horrible!!

The Tivo, however, has many more features than the cable company box. I have been a Tivo user for a long time and I was waiting for the price to drop before buying the series 3. I have had a cable company High Definition DVR for several years and have been disappointed by the lack of features (except for On Demand) on the that DVR.

We had an original Tivo that gave up the ghost after 5 years, requiring us to go with the DirecTV DVR. The interface for that device lacked the ease of use we had associated with Tivo, so we decided to go back. Unfortunately, we had to switch to Comcast cable service because Tivo HD series 3 doesn't work with the satellite service.

My series 3 worked fine for about 8 months. Then it started to lock up and could only be restarted by pulling the power cord and restarting.

Anyway, my family and I all revolted against the inferior TiVo wannabe imitation. So, I gladly succumbed to my family's wishes and replaced it. The series 3 is EXCELLENT.

I wouldn't pay full price to take the series three over the new, less expensive HD series 2 (there aren't that many differences between them that an external hard disk can't solve), but with the huge Amazon discount in conjunction with the TiVo rebate, the difference in price is not that much and is worth it. Now, if only TiVo would make a unit with three or more tuners...

I could not get it past the "Powering Up" screen. Another round of customer service and I got approval to mail back the replacement box. I refused to pay another $869 because I hadn't (and still haven't) received a refund for the previous payment.

The TiVo Series 3 is a complete and total waste of money. I have spent more time and effort fighting with the cable company and the worthless machine to get it working....all without prevail. It really sucks because I love TiVo and the service, but I think they got a little ahead of themselves with the Series 3.

I did this for a few weeks, but then it started to fail more frequently. After several days on the phone with the Tivo customer service (after long waits on hold ... and very boring music by the way), they agreed to replace my box.

Tivo has a new feature called Amazon Unbox and it's a nice concept, sort of like pay per view. The lame thing is none of the content out there is HD or surround sound content and also you only get a 24 hour viewing period. So I guess I won't be using that service.

This step is critical in order for the box to work or else you are wasting your time. Insist on having a knowledgeable person on the phone. Comcast will try to force you to have a in-home service tech come out (which you get charged for), but it is totally unnecessary.

We had an original Tivo that gave up the ghost after 5 years, requiring us to go with the DirecTV DVR. The interface for that device lacked the ease of use we had associated with Tivo, so we decided to go back. Unfortunately, we had to switch to Comcast cable service because Tivo HD Series 3 doesn't work with the satellite service.

I am hoping that TiVo will do the right thing and fix all the units that are floating out there with sub par service. Currently my unit will lock up after a few hours of viewing. This requires a system reset, in the mean time, you have missed any shows that were scheduled to record.

I bought a 3-year service agreement from TiVo which worked out to be about $4 a month less than Comcast's DVR rental. Of course that won't pay for having to buy the TiVo, but it's still been worth it to me. Disadvantages/hopeful upgrades:

They claim that by default I agreed to terms listed at the time on their web site, although they can not provide a copy of the terms, because,"they were part of a limited time promotion". They allege that I agreed to continue monthly service on my old unit after the end of one year of free service on my old unit. I made the transaction by phone, and DID NOT agree to maintain service on my old unit.

I have a basic cable service with no premium channels, not even HBO.

After waiting for cards we realized that it was not the cards, but the tivo that was defective. Now it has been 3 months since I purchased the tivo and I have finally figured out it does not work. Amazon will not exchange it for me.

I think that there should be more time aloud to return this product since it does not function without cards that you have to obtain from another source. And you may find, as I did, that most cable companies will do anything for you to not have a tivo. After Amazon.com was no help at all on this matter I am taking my business elsewhere.

Then the nightmare began. First of all, I had no idea about the fact that this unit required cable cards because Amazon's ad did not state so at the time. I called to get cable cards from my cable provider, Suddenlink, and was told that they would not give them to me.

Sometimes, just taking out the card and replacing it fixes it (even though Tivo tells you not to do this, sometimes it's the only thing that works). But SO many times program recordings are truncated or don't happen at all because the cards went out during the recording. Face it, an unreliable Tivo, which the Series 3 most definitely is, is almost worse than no Tivo at all.

(And for some, a nightmare!) Caution to future buyers: if you are hoping you can enjoy the unit right out of the box take heed. That is not going to happen unless you work for a cable company, have access to ample cable cards (many seem flawed), and know what you are doing with them.

There was very heavy static on all of the digital cable channels, and the tech told me it was a result of old, outdated cards. The tech then told me he had no idea when they would get new cards that work.

They originally were trying to use one dual channel card, but they were unable to get it to work. If you run into the same problem, ask your cable company to use two single channel cards. According to Tivo, the multi channel cards will work with their latest software release.

I was able to get normal cable channels without activating the unit. I called the local cable company and a technician was sent out a few days later to install 2 cable cards. The technician tried a multistream card but it would only work as a single stream card.

We are on Software version 9.2 and the problem keeps re-occuring. We lose signals to some but not all channels, and when we go to watch our show we get one hour of gray screen. The cable company tells me it is not their problem, having replaced cable cards twice.

The back lit remote is really cool. Nicer button layout than the standard remote. Downsides, it does not yet support M-cards, and the unit seems to have trouble syncing the audio with my TV when using the HDMI cable.

The CableCard technology in the Tivo Series 3 still have a lot of bugs - I ended up needing to return mine because my cable company was unable to get the cable card slots to pick up anything except analog channels (no digital, no premium, and no HD). Without this capability, what's the point of upgrading from my Series 2? There are tons of posts in Tivo support forums about the lack of compatibility between the Series 3 and major cable providers (like Time Warner, Comcast, etc).

There was very heavy static on all of the digital cable channels, and the tech told me it was a result of old, outdated cards. The tech then told me he had no idea when they would get new cards that work.

Tivo says you can manually change to those channels but there is no decimal point on the TV remote to do so. The FAQ states it cannot record those channels on the DVR because it won't know what TV Guide listings to match to those channels because cable providers pick the frequency/channel to broadcast those on and don't tell TV Guide. This is a lame excuse Tivo because you could easily have people map the channels to the TV Guide listing of their choice.

I was able to get normal cable channels without activating the unit. I called the local cable company and a technician was sent out a few days later to install 2 cable cards. The technician tried a multistream card but it would only work as a single stream card.

Switching between SD channels and HD doesn't have this issue, so I'm not sure why it is an issue for Tivo's native resolution. Interface not as Grail-like as I'd hoped. Perhaps I'm just used to the ReplayTV interface, but certain things like Season Pass are sometimes unintuitive.

We are on Software version 9.2 and the problem keeps re-occuring. We lose signals to some but not all channels, and when we go to watch our show we get one hour of gray screen. The cable company tells me it is not their problem, having replaced cable cards twice.

You can select only the digital broadcasts from the antenna and a few select cable channels and it will record the programs. This unit is perfect for anybody with a HDTV display that doesn't want to pay each month for an overpriced satellite or cable program package. Only drawback is lack of a commercial 30 second skip button.

I have a basic cable service with no premium channels, not even HBO.

The HD channels are even more so. You will have to rent cablecards (2, dual tuner) from your cable company. Unfortunately they will have to install them to get them turned on.

The CableCard technology in the Tivo Series 3 still have a lot of bugs - I ended up needing to return mine because my cable company was unable to get the cable card slots to pick up anything except analog channels (no digital, no premium, and no HD). Without this capability, what's the point of upgrading from my Series 2? There are tons of posts in Tivo support forums about the lack of compatibility between the Series 3 and major cable providers (like Time Warner, comcast, etc).

Only beware that currently it cannot fully support the cable MCards as dual tuners so you will need two of them for the dual tuning. They say they are working on it. But I, nor comcast, knew this and they only brought out one MCard on install.

This step is critical in order for the box to work or else you are wasting your time. Insist on having a knowledgeable person on the phone. comcast will try to force you to have a in-home service tech come out (which you get charged for), but it is totally unnecessary.

We had an original Tivo that gave up the ghost after 5 years, requiring us to go with the DirecTV DVR. The interface for that device lacked the ease of use we had associated with Tivo, so we decided to go back. Unfortunately, we had to switch to comcast cable service because Tivo HD Series 3 doesn't work with the satellite service.

I bought a 3-year service agreement from TiVo which worked out to be about $4 a month less than comcast's DVR rental. Of course that won't pay for having to buy the TiVo, but it's still been worth it to me. Disadvantages/hopeful upgrades:

The comcast unit would back up, jump ahead, or make a dead stop. This was random, and if you really wanted to watch the beginning of a scene you could go back and forth a few times to hit it. 2.

comcast will try to make you upgrade to a their digital package, but don't be fooled, its not required.

We bought our TiVo Series 3 to replace a Motorola DCT6412 issued by comcast. Both devices handle their basic functions competently, but the TiVo has the advantage of having been designed by someone who devoted more than a half-second of thought to the user interface. Thus, the TiVo is loaded with simple but invaluable features such as the ability to remember your previous menu selections so that frequently-repeated commands require a minimum of navigation, or the fast-forward feature that anticipates how far a user is likely to skip past the desired point and restarts play-back a few seconds earlier than the point where the user stopped fast-forwarding.

1. TiVo doesn't allow you to record a series on only one channel at one time. comcast used to have that functionality until they "upgraded" their system, so that's now a wash.

When we got our first HD TV, TiVo Series 3 did not exist. We leased a HD DVR from comcast. When compared with TiVo, the comcast HD DVR fails miserably.

Then the nightmare began. First of all, I had no idea about the fact that this unit required cable cards because Amazon's ad did not state so at the time. I called to get cable cards from my cable provider, Suddenlink, and was told that they would not give them to me.

(And for some, a nightmare!) Caution to future buyers: if you are hoping you can enjoy the unit right out of the box take heed. That is not going to happen unless you work for a cable company, have access to ample cable cards (many seem flawed), and know what you are doing with them.

I was able to get normal cable channels without activating the unit. I called the local cable company and a technician was sent out a few days later to install 2 cable cards. The technician tried a multistream card but it would only work as a single stream card.

We are on Software version 9.2 and the problem keeps re-occuring. We lose signals to some but not all channels, and when we go to watch our show we get one hour of gray screen. The cable company tells me it is not their problem, having replaced cable cards twice.