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TiVo Unveils Series3 HDTV DVR
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Jan 06, 2006 09:16 AM
from the more-acronyms-than-you-can-shake-a-stick-at dept.
from the more-acronyms-than-you-can-shake-a-stick-at dept.
MegaZone writes "TiVo unveiled their new Series3 unit at CES yesterday. The Series3 is a digital cable ready box, capable of recording two programs simultaneously. It supports cable and antenna input, and it can handle digital or analog cable, digital ATSC, or analog NTSC broadcasts. CableCARD is used for digital cable, and it can utilize a single multi-stream card, or two single-stream cards. The system also sports 2 USB ports, 10/100baseT Ethernet, and an E-SATA port for external storage expansion. Video output is HDMI, component, S-Video, and composite, and audio is optical digital or RCA stereo."
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Hardware: TiVo Announces High-Def Series3 DVR 225 comments
prostoalex writes "Catching up with the competition, TiVo is set to unveil a high-definition digital video recorder. The unit will feature dual tuners, 250 GB, and a hefty price sticker: 'The long-awaited product will be $800 and available in mid-September, the company said. Subscription fees for the TiVo service are separate ... TiVo officials attributed its long development time in part to waiting for certain technologies to mature and the lengthy process of getting industry-related approvals, such as for the set-top-box's two built-in CableCARD slots. CableCARD slots allow users to access digital programming from a cable TV provider without the need for a separate receiver. The Series3 HD box also represents TiVo's first major product upgrade since it released its networked Series2 DVR in 2002.'"
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Woo Hoo! (Score:2, Interesting)
(http://accessdenied.org/)
I love my series 2 and all, but honestly i've really been itching for the cable card based series 3 units since i've heard about them.
Hooray for dual tuners in a non-dtivo! hooray for easy expantion too! i just hope these badboys don't cost as much as the hd dtivos...
Ethernet! Finally, for the love of the almighty! (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.gamerspre...tasy_XII_Walkthrough)
The other thing I'm very pleased about is the inclusion of the Cablecard option - this gives Tivo a chance to complete with cable boxes - though local Cox has let people know that while you can use the cablecard, it won't be able to get movies on demand.
Ah, and I was so hoping to see "Deuce Bigalow: European Gigalo". Somehow, I think I'll survive. WIth the ability to plug in external drives, this has seriously upset my plans to convert my spare PC into a Tivo replacement once the service on the current box runs out in October.
Of course, there's always the possibility Apple will introduce something - but if they do introduce a PVR/Media device, I'm going to expect it to have the same capabilities down to the cablecard that this new Tivo does before I consider it.
Eh - I'm patient. I have 10 months to wait and see.
Re:Ethernet! Finally, for the love of the almighty (Score:4, Insightful)
Incidentally - why does everybody feel the need to list the TV programmes they like to record? It's like music stories - with those people always seem to like to post the "artists" they like. Why? It's a waste of space.
Re:Ethernet! Finally, for the love of the almighty (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ethernet! Finally, for the love of the almighty (Score:5, Insightful)
I have the same setup, but enough of the "no problems" already. For your average non-techie consumer wanting Ethernet there ARE problems galore with the SA1: willingness to void warranty by opening the unit, obtaining the right size Torx screw driver (which not exactly a common household item like a Philips driver), cutting the right-sized hole into the back of the unit to snap in an RJ45 socket and obtaining said socket and wiring it to a patch cable stub (or just drilling a hole into the back and running a patch cable straight from the card to the outside and having it all look like shite and be prone to having the cable pulled too hard and unplugged or unseating the card), obtaining and installing the necessary Linux software to serve up shows from the box, editing the init script to start it all up, and hoping that after all this the box still works right.
Yeah, no problems at all for your average Best Buy customer.
It's about time! (Score:5, Insightful)
Obviously, the current model looks leaps and bounds ahead of what they originally put forth. I love the display on the front that shows what both tuners are recording. (Although no more sneaking recordings of shows my wife doesn't know I watch, and doesn't think I have time for.) However, I can't help but think that they missed out on a significant piece of the market as people have resigned themselves to using cable company provided DVRs for HDTV. It doesn't help that cablecard implementation at most cable companies is still pretty buggy, and not used widely enough to get debugged thoroughly too quickly.
My bet is that this unit will succeed or fail (and the company with it) depending on how much marketing muscle Comcast puts behind it as part of their alliance with Tivo. Of course, I'm still likely to buy one, as the HD-DVR Time Warner provides for me is horribly buggy...
-JMP
Re:It's about time! (Score:5, Informative)
(http://blog.megazone.org/ | Last Journal: Wednesday March 07 2007, @04:11AM)
Ethernet? USB? (Score:5, Insightful)
What about the data on the USB disk--is it encrypted or is it readable and usable MPEG files?
Re:Ethernet? USB? (Score:5, Informative)
(http://slashdot.org/)
With current S2 TiVos you can do quite a bit with the ethernet -- play MP3s, slideshows, get weather/traffic/movie times and tickets/etc (the interface is open and extensible), transfer recordings to a PC and back (PC includes Windows, Mac, and Linux; although for the latter two you probably need to run Galleon [galleon.tv]), transfer MPEG2 video to the TiVo (and maybe MPEG4/H.264 w/ the Series3? It's not clear yet), and various other stuff.
As far as the video that's exported goes -- it's in a ".tivo" format which is a loosely containered MPEG2 video. It's completely trivial to strip off the outer layer and get to the real data beneath it. And it looks like the new TiVo Desktop software will even offer transcoding to a number of alternate (DRM'd) formats as well. But really, it's a joke to take off the TiVo DRM, or to just play it from a standard MPEG2 capable video player (it's designed to allow you to do that). Yes, you can play it in mplayer.
What about the data on the USB disk--is it encrypted or is it readable and usable MPEG files?
It's SATA, not USB, but that's a minor nit. The data is not in straight MPEG files -- it's on TiVo's proprietary FS. That was figured out [dealdatabase.com] long ago. But if you can simply download the stream to your PC, there's little reason to futz around with the drive -- especially since you cannot be assured that the entire video is stored on the external drive (it may be, but it may also cross drives; the article states this).
$150 Rebate (Score:1)
(http://www.jumbocaveman.com/)
Unfortunately I decided to take advantage of the savings and try out a new Tivo system for the first time. A new product such as this though will most likely grow their userbase even more because of the ease of use created by the added features.
Does this mean a new Tivo Home Media Engine? (Score:4, Interesting)
Now, with the new Series 3 Tivo, what will developers really be able to do with a new HME...or does Tivo have little interest in opening up more to the developer community?
Broadcast flag? (Score:3, Insightful)
Does this allow you to record two HD shows at once, only to have to delete them after 90 minutes?
Re:Broadcast flag? (Score:4, Informative)
(http://felter.org/wesley/)
TiVo no longer fits my needs (Score:2, Troll)
Trade-in program (Score:4, Interesting)
That's what I hope to see...a trade-in program. I'd happily turn in my 2 Series 2 DVRs for a discount on 2 Series 3. Sure, TiVo can't reuse the parts but maybe they can sell them in 3rd world countries where even cable TV is a gift from the gods. Or since the TiVo is just a Linux box they can change the software a little to make them educational and donate them as a tax write off. Who wants a $100 laptop when you can get a TiVo plus "Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing" (though it may be difficult to master with the peanut shaped remote)?
Great! (Score:2, Interesting)
I guess its just living in Canada, which sometimes sits in the stoneage when it comes to certain technology. TIVO has never been available up here, only what the monopolies Rogers (Cable) and Bell(Phone/Satellite) see fit to offer us Canucks.
While Rogers PVR features 2 input recording and is mostly a decent device (the Acientific Atlanta Explorer 8300), I really wish for more competition in the PVR/Digital Cable box market, allowing me to select more robust solutions like DVD/HDD recorders with support for digital cable and HDTV content.
Sony was, I believe, the first to offer CableCard support in their televisions, but I think that Rogers or Bell are so far way from releasing their tight grip of control of digital cable that Canada won't see a cable card solution for at least another decade. In the meantime, some dumb Canadian is paying $1000 more for a Sony TV with a feature they will never use. We are still waiting for even a TIVO like solution where we can subscribe to a third party service for cable recording.
I hope this new Tivo product is hugely successful in the US (as I am sure it will be). Given how much US technology and television market influences Canadians, perhaps if the CRTC (Central Repression of Technology for Canadians) starts getting more complaints about the anti-competitive behaviour of Rogers and Bell and the fact TIVO has never gotten a foothold in Canada, I am sure huge success of a CableCard supported device like this new TIVO will drive Canada to adopt the technology and open up the market sooner rather then later.
In the meantime, after paing $400 for a featurless Rogers PVR and $5/mth to support PVR capabilities on the device, I guess I have to be a good Canadian and ignore my repression and apologize for my bitching.
DirecTV putting out cablecards? (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://slashsearch.org/)
My HR10-250 is getting installed tomorrow. But I hate how DirecTV is stripping all the cool HME options from their Tivo-powered boxes. So to me this upcoming series 3 Tivo powered by DirecTV would be a killer TV product.
By the way, $600 is NOT the going price for the DirecTV HDTivo if you are a good DirecTV customer, see this thread [tivocommunity.com] for details on getting that price down. My cost was more like $200 after rebates and service credits. I'm fully expecting this device to be obsolete within a year, but to me it is worth it for $200.
Are people so addicted to media? (Score:3, Funny)
I don't see it. Of course the geek factor is high, so it will likely be talked up much on Slashdot and in some circles, and eventually, Joe Walmart will buy them when they have to upgrade their TVs else they fall behind, but is there really a compelling reason for this? We're SWIMMING in media these days, barraged by content, and look at the results - dumbing down of everything, even the Discovery Channel, kids with no reading or writing skills, no attention span, etc. etc.
Re:Are people so addicted to media? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's why some people love TiVo. Most of that media flood is crap. TiVo allows them to select what they want to see and view it when they want instead of being some kind of slave to the TV. This doesn't make TiVo the best solution.
Personally, I think people should drop cable altogether. All the local channels are broadcast in digital, and each cable company carries a different subset of them. The arguement that all the good stuff is on cable is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you'd drop cable and make the broadcasters compete (and increase their market share) they'd start picking up good shows and the quality would increase quite a bit. TiVo would not be needed to sift through it all. Best of all, people wouldn't be paying monthly for any of it.
I don't need cable to watch Desperate Housewives or the Super Bowl - both of which will be in HDTV across the nation over the air. You want to record? Get an HD3000 or Air2PC card and dump to hard drive, convert to DVD (reduced quality), use across your network, whatever. It's amazing to me that the public has decided it's normal to pay to watch TV programs that have already been paid for by advertisers.
OTOH, People pay for bottled water and complain about the price of gas. WTF?
Clown alert... (Score:2)
(http://www.roboguys.com/ | Last Journal: Sunday February 19 2006, @01:15AM)
Here's to hoping that isn't the final color scheme...
Yeah but when can we buy it? (Score:2)
Series 1 (Score:1)
My only complaint with TiVO (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://infaux.net/ | Last Journal: Thursday September 01 2005, @02:08PM)
I was lucky enough to be given a TiVO(forgot the series), hacked to 80 gigs, and Ethernet,etc. While it is nice to be able to pause live tv, the only thing I didn't like was the latency with pressing buttons on the cable box.
You try to punch in 040 and you get 0 4 2 seconds later showing up on the TV. I would say 60% of my channel changes were unsuccesful due to the cable box's timeouts. I thought the batteries were bad in my remote control. So I bypassed the tivo entirely, and it switched channels just fine, nice & fast.
Is there a way to turn off "pausable tv" and just push the video straight through? I can live without it. I just wish when I did a plain(ie not scheduled) recording it didn't stop after a half hour. BTW I have no tiVo service. Just using it as a VCR.
My new HDTV (Score:5, Interesting)
I subscribe to basic extended analog cable. I get locals plus standard cable content (Comedy central, lifetime, etc). No premium channels. I have this cable feed running through my Series 1 Tivo and from the Tivo, into my A/V receiver - which outputs the picture only to my TV. In this mode, the TV is essentially a monitor.
I also have a PC w/ Meedio hooked up to this. I used to use the S-video to an old analog TV and that worked ok. Once I hooked it up to my HDTV (TV has PC/VGA in), words can not describe how much of an improvement that makes. The PC has a Soundblaster Live! on it and digital optical out to the A/V receiver....more on that piece later.
The 3rd device I have is a DVD player (Philips DVP-642). Audio is coax digital. Video is components. Both Audio and video feed into my A/V receiver. My receiver has components in and out to the HDTV.
Now that you have an idea of the setup I use, let me lay out some issues I have run into that the Tivo3 may simplify.
1. Of all the devices I have hooked up, my PC w/ Meedio looks the best. And so do all of my downloaded movies and shows. Most of the rips I have are in HDTV and that seems to be the standard nowadays. Why is this important? Because the old "downloaded videos sacrifice quality" no longer holds true. It may not be as good as upscaled DVD's but it is MORE than reasonable.
2. My soundcard sucks. The optical out only outputs stereo sound. I think it will pass through Dolby and DTS but who cares -- that's what my DVD is for. THIS IS A VERY BIG DEAL IF YOU WANT SURROUND SOUND out of your PC. Get a card that can output 5.1 on the fly. As I understand it, most Creative products ONLY output stereo through the digital out. (note: they may "pass thru" DTS/DD but that is different). I wound up ordering a Turtle Beach Montego. Haven't set it up yet.
3. There is very limited HDTV content available. Over-the-Air (antennas), I can pick up all the major networks. Another alternative is to go w/ DirecTV -- but if you subscribe to them, you only get about 2-3 extra channels (I don't count preview channels, etc) more than an antenna. For Dish, its a little bit better -- you get about 4-5 extra channels. Same with Cable. The Point: Each of the above costs an extra $10-$15/mo. And for that, you get at most, 4-5 extra "real" channels that you couldn't get by just sticking an antenna behind your TV.
4. I just ordered a CableCard from my provider (Cox). This allows me to keep my standard "analog" cable that feeds my Tivo while at the same time, allowing me to view the 5-8 HDTV channels that are available. If I had a Tivo3, I could just slap that card into my Tivo3 instead of using my Tivo 1 (for analog) + HDTV tuner on TV set. The Tivo 3 will record whatever you throw at it (HDTV, standard digital, analog, etc) in one nice, neat, little box.
I hope this is helpful to people. There is a lot to think about on how to set things up and these are the major issues that I ran into. I think the biggest disappointment I see is the lack of HDTV content. Just go look at the HD offerings from Dish or DirecTV and you will see that it is very minimal. Perhaps that will change with time but I definitely have that "pay more for less" feeling with respect to my cable/sat bill.
So, if you want to record HDTV, you have the following options:
a) Build a PC w/ HDTV card and use an antenna (unless your HDTV capture card supports CableCard)
b) Build a PC w/ HDTV capture card and use the cable company's Cable box to tune. Note: consider the remote control implications if you choose this. Changing channels = change channels on Cable box.
c) Use the cable co
Requirements and accoutrements (Score:2, Interesting)
(1) Does it still require a landline telephone connection? I have a cable modem for Net access, useful for remote programming, but like many others have dropped the (otherwise) unnecessary landline.
(2) Does it offer, either plainly or through a simple hack, the 30-second commercial skip? The DVR from my cable company allows dual recording while I'm watching another recording, so foregoing the 30-second commercial skip seemed a small cost.
But if the Series 3 drops the landline requirement and offers the commercial skip, as well as records two programs as noted in the posting, it might make sense to get when I upgrade to HDTV.
Re:Requirements and accoutrements (Score:4, Informative)
(http://slashdot.org/)
And to head off the question, yes, even the initial setup on a Series 2 can be done via broadband, but only with *supported* USB ethernet adapters. Wireless can't be enabled until after setup, at least with v3.2. I think v4.0 of the software supports more adapters out-of-the-box, so it depends a little bit on which version you get in the package.
GB-PVR (Score:1)
(Last Journal: Tuesday May 24 2005, @09:11AM)
I would of expected only the lazyiest slashdotter to have not built their own PVR!
I can't wait for those to be available (Score:2, Informative)
My dream setup: two CableCARDs into a Series 3 Tivo, and one simple non-DVR box from Time Warner. That way I can keep my OnDemand stuff and I can record two channels at the same time on Tivo. I wonder, though, how much I will pay TWC for triplicating the service for me. The CableCARDs are $1.75/piece/month (here in NYC).
Sounds great, but is it too late? (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.pobox.com/~ylee/)
Ahem. I bought a Series 1 TiVo box in June 2000, later upgraded it myself to 200GB (the absolute most space available at the time), and happily bought a lifetime subscription. (The sort of idiots here who whine and complain about the horrible, awful TiVo subscription fee has always been around and always will; please ignore them.) However, five years later my box sits in the closet. In part it's because a drive died, but it's mostly because, yes, I built a MythTV box.
I *didn't* built a MythTV box because of:
* The subscription fee. See above. I always felt I got way more than my money's worth from TiVo; heck, were I to sell my box on eBay it'd still be worth a few hundred dollars due to the lifetime subscription.
* A desire to export TiVo recordings to elsewhere. I never quite understood the fascination people had and have with decrypting TiVo's file system and exporting programs to elsewhere. If anything I wanted my TiVo to act as the portal through which I could view my video library.
I built a MythTV box because I wanted to:
* Bring programs *into* the box, not out of it. MythTV lets me view all my videos and DVD images in a nice, neat, format that resembles the directory hierarchy they are stored in.
* Record HDTV programs. Thanks to two cable boxes and two FireWire cables, I can today record two HD programs simultaneously.
* Have plenty of storage space. MPEG-2 HD programs take 7GB/hour. about 10 times more than TiVo's about 700MB/GB on the lowest-quality standard. With MythTV I can use NFS (or, in my case due to mysterious performance issues [gossamer-threads.com], Samba) to put all the recordings I want on my 2.8TB RAID 5 array [google.ca]. From the description it sounds like the Series 3 TiVo will have an Ethernet jack, but a) it's likely to be 100Mbps--likely to be problematic in real-life conditions when recording two HD programs and watching a third at the same time--and b) who knows what type of external storage the box will ever support in practice.
That's it. No, I really don't care about MythTV's themability (Why, oh why, do people focus on themes in free software so much? Don't they realize that 99% of them look eye-meltingly awful--Kids, raytracing is, like, *so* 1995--and don't do a thing to fix any underlying usability issues with the application?), MythWeather, MythGame, MythPhone, etc., etc. Hey, they're nice, but I'd give them up in a flash to fix the last niggling bugs in mythfrontend (Geez, folks, what *is* up with the "displaying OSD in some recordings consistently crashes mythfrontend" bug in 0.18.1? Linus used to call such issues "brown bag" bugs, as in bugs in Linux kernel releases so showstoppingly bad he wanted to wear a brown bag for letting it loose into the world.) and the annoyances (some pretty colossal) in MythVideo's Video Manager module. If TiVo Series 3 manages to robustly support external filesystems (I have *no* problems with some sort of encryption scheme here) *and* let me view my preexisting videos through the elegant TiVo interface, I'm there. (Especially if TiVo kindly offers us longtime lifetime-subscription owners free upgrades.) I am, however, not waiting for these things to occur; there's TV to watch, and record, today.
Where are the ReplayTV users? (Score:1)
Also, Tivo from what I read, is hurting financally. ReplayTV got acquired by Denon's parent company, and therefore has better backing to make it through tough times, plus maybe just better management in general.
I want my ReplayTV HD so I can take the HD plunge (I really enjoy my buddies 56" Samsung DLP
TiVo is dead (Score:2, Interesting)
Maybe if they started shipping these units today they would have a chance at saving themselves. But they're not going to have them ready for another 6 months at least?
They announced HDTV support for early 2006 at last years CES, and that was insanity. How can it take one year, much less two, to develop HD TiVo when the capability is (was) already available through DirecTV. By the time this box ships, the DVR market is already going to be firmly in the hands of the cable companies. Most of the market is going to accept a lesser box for $5.95 a month rather than wait around for the privilege of owning an HD TiVo for $12.95 a month. And thats assuming you believe the TiVo will actually be available this year. Last time we heard from TiVo (they haven't said a word about HD for a year), the HD box was supposed to be available *now*.
I bought TiVo when they first came out, and I've given half a dozen as gifts. At this point I won't waste another dime on them.
My 2006 prediction, TiVo will be bought at an extreme discount by a CATV company, the technology cherry picked for their own products and the TiVo name taken, but otherwise the TiVo will be gone.
Re:TiVo is dead (Score:4, Informative)
(http://slashdot.org/)
That said, it still seems like "mid to late 2006" is a tad late for something like this, although I believe most of their delay trouble has been wrestling with the cablecard standard.
This box also includes MPEG-4 and WMV support, probably for both downloadable content and futureproofing in case cable companies change codecs away from MPEG-2 as DirecTV has done. That change by DirecTV has obsoleted the HD DirecTivo-- isn't it worth a little extra wait to have one that won't become useless the second your cableco goes MPEG-4?
This box, and their Comcast partnership, should keep them afloat. (crosses fingers)
Tivo in the UK (Score:2)
However the problem comes with a PVR, you either get Tivo and do some jiggery pokery to get it to manage the changing of the channels on the digibox - which is not only a huge hack but means you can only tape one channel at a time and can't change from it during recording.
Or you pick up a box from Digifusion, Humax or two other companies I've forgotten which has twin tuners and a huge hard-drive but has a UI which isn't quite so slick. Oh, and not forgetting that absolutely none of them have season pass/series link so you cannot just push a button and record the entire series. They're nice ... but they just don't quite cut it.
Tivo could make a killing if they came up with a twin-tuner freeview box.
(side note: I know that part of the reason on no season pass is because freeview doesn't broadcast the season and episode numbers in its scheduling. However it doesn't take a genius to come up with a simple algorithm that looks for a similar title at around the same time each day and records it if it is on. Not the best solution - but better than having no one-click season pass at all)
[grumble]
Pretty soon you will have everything (Score:2)
Either that or TV will soon become fully 'on demand' and Tivo will become just another alternative for individual viewing preferences.
DirecTV & cablecard (Score:2)
WPA Support (Score:2)
HDCP vs HDMI? (Score:1)
I wonder if they will do so prior to shipping.
It is about time we get HD in a PVR!
Satellite customers not invited? (Score:2)
(http://robert.aitchison.org/ | Last Journal: Tuesday October 19 2004, @09:20AM)
Not that being a satellite user (Dish Network) I could use the dual tuner features (would need two satellite recievers) or of coruse the CableCARD but it would be nice to buy a Series3 because it would be more future proof, like maybe if Dish miraculously became CableCARD compible in a few years) or I switched to a different provider (less likely)
One of the things I REALLY love about my Stand Alone Series2 is that it's provider independent, and that it works with satellite, analog or digital cable, whatever I've got.
so what (Score:1)
I a little behind the times on Tivo - fill me in.. (Score:1)
So someone fill me in. Isn't this just a digital VCR that you have to pay a subscription fee to use, with the axe of immenent DRM hanging over your necks?
I'm missing the appeal. Why do I have to pay a subscription to use a recording device and deal with "broadcast flags"?
Steve
I can't wait! (Score:2)
(http://www.byopvr.com/)
e.
No DVI? (Score:1)
(http://geeksplosion.blogspot.com/)
Homebrew tivo maybe, but NOT cheaper. (Score:1, Interesting)
If we cannot extract recorded programs (Score:2)
CANADA PLEASE! (Score:2)
(http://print-bingo.com/ | Last Journal: Monday August 04 2003, @12:43AM)
Nice but.. (Score:1)
Can you use in UK? (Score:1)
(http://www.errantys.com/)
ready to sign up today (Score:1)
I have 2 series 1 boxes with dbl drives, but on the big screen it's a comcast dvr. The tivos almost never miss the beginning or end of shows, but the comcast box doesn't seem to keep time correctly, lags on my commands, and just doesn't give me the happy experience that my tivos do.
Tivo changed my life. I find new products in the store because I don't see their ads. And when some chick exposes her chest on the superbowl, I can rewind to my heart's content.
Re:Complete with (Score:4, Informative)
(http://www.eternalemperor.com/)
Re:Complete with (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://www.tringali.org/ | Last Journal: Thursday July 12, @03:10PM)
After 4 or 5 restarts we wanted to smash the thing into little bits and pieces, Office Space style.
Re:Complete with (Score:5, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Tuesday September 13 2005, @03:45PM)
Unfortunatly for TiVo this doesn't nessesarily mean more money as they sell their boxes fo little profit and make the money on subscription fees, meaning existing loyalties won't make them much money. On the other hand existing tivo users might be inclinded to give their tivos to friends and family and possibly pay for a few months of service long enough to get them hooked.
Re:Complete with (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.worldwidewillie.com/)
I do have a mythtv box that I love to death. The price is right, and it's not larded with DRM, etc. That suits my needs.
For other people who are not so concerned, why would I go to the expense of purchasing this + subscription fee when the cable company will give me one that (as far as Joe User knows / cares) does the same thing for $3.50 per month. Tivo can not compete, they are as good as dead.
Had a TiVo. Hated paying the monthly fee (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Complete with (Score:5, Informative)
(http://hecgeek.blogspot.com/)
First, TiVo *just works*, and it works well for everything it is supposed to do. No tweaking required.
Second, the cable-company DVRs don't support home networking (while MythTV would, of course), and it is very nice to have TiVos in multiple rooms, or be able to play MP3s on TiVo, transfer stuff around, or use other value-added Internet-enabled "stuff" they're constantly adding.
Third, other options only record "exactly what you tell them to", and nothing more. While this may seem ok, one gets very easily addicted to TiVo's tendency to also record things it thinks you might want to watch (and sometimes do), but havn't explicitly told it to record.
Oh, and you can also do nifty things like schedule recordings over the internet, and even check the available recording list on your TiVo remotely.
(Ok, MythTV can do some of these things, but from the demos I saw, it required far too much "tweaking" for me to feel comfortable "trusting" it to always get my shows reliably recorded, and recorded without reruns and such. I actually do also have a MythTV box, but I use it for playing computer-stored video files and running game emulators.)
Re:Tivo? (Score:2)
(http://www.lazylightning.org/)
I had a standalone unit and due to the possiblity of commercials during fast-forward and their poor customer service (plus the fact that I got a free DirecTivo with a free year of receiver charges) I switched.
Re:Complete with (Score:4, Informative)
Comcast and TiVo has a deal that starts mid-2006 to market TiVo DVRs to Comcast customers.
http://news.com.com/TiVo,+Comcast+reach+DVR+deal/2 100-1041_3-5616961.html [com.com]
Re:But does it have commercial skip? (Score:1)
(http://blog.megazone.org/ | Last Journal: Wednesday March 07 2007, @04:11AM)
You are talking BS. (Score:2)
And how often does your power blip out? Just punch in the code and your back with your commercial skip.
Re:But does it have commercial skip? (Score:2)
(http://slashdot.org/)
TiVo protected itself by playing ball, which is why it's still around. Too bad about the broadcast flags, though...
Re:But does it have commercial skip? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:But does it have commercial skip? (Score:2, Informative)
You do have to hit Select-Play-Select-3-0-Select after your TiVo reboots due to a service update. This happens to us about 2-4 times a YEAR so it is no problem.
If you are having issues with power you should really get a UPS for your Tivo (and likely the rest of your AV equiptment). It will save you a lot of money in the long term as power dips, drops, and spikes will fry a computer rather quickly.
-D
Re:You SUCK!!!! (Score:1)
(http://morelweb.com/)
Not Kidding [tivo.com]
-dm
Re:Sounds great, but... (Score:2, Interesting)
(http://slashdot.org/)
> 1. You still have a subscription fee (not a concern for some / major >concern for others)
Gosh...you mean you have to actually PAY for a service? Cable is free after all. So is internet access and phone service too for that matter.
I know there are free options out there (Myth etc) but Tivo doesn't exactly hide the fact from users that in order to use their product you need to buy the service. As a bonus, I found in the past that the updated schedules Tivo gets are more often even more correct than the program guide on my digital cable receiver.
> 2. You still have Tivo the company in the mix, which in the past has:
> * Erased user-recorded content
I had Tivo service for 4 years and never once had a problem with this. Maybe there have been a few fluke situations where this happens, but every deletion I ever saw on my box followed the rules I set up when recording the program (Delete after X days, when I run out of space, options like that)
> * Recorded programs that Tivo wanted you to see, without >asking your permission (which in addition to being very annoying, also >used your precious disk space)
There's a simple little option to turn off the suggestions, even my parents could figure out how to turn this feature off on their own. And for what it's worth, the software is designed such that any suggested programs are the first programs deleted when disk space starts to become an issue. So unless having empty drive space sitting there unused makes you feel better this isn't really a problem. If it is, then turn off suggestions.
> * Limited the duration you have for watching recorded content
I can't really argue with this other than mentioning that the only shows I'm aware of this actually coming up on after the initial bugs are PPV shows and other content that if you REALLY want to keep it, you could find another way to record. See the other threads about stripping the DRM off of the
> * Not guaranteed any of Tivos features - They can remove them >as they see fit (conversely, they can also add features, but who's going >to complain about that?)
Again, not going to argue with you about the loss of features, but I don't really recall anything like that having happened. And like you said, you certainly don't complain when they give you bonus features you never thought you'd see like file transfer and network connectivity.
> * Made very questionable deals about subscriber privacy >(selling demographical information, regional data, etc)
Every user of Tivo agrees to have non-identifiable information shared when they sign up for the service. There's no privacy issue here as it's specifically mentioned that there is no tie between the information shared and the specific machine it comes from. Put your tinfoil hat back on.
> 3. And this Tivo box, as with all other Tivo models, is still limited >in what it can do, NOT in terms of hardware and potential, but in what >Tivo will let you do with the hardware you're purchasing.
I'm sorry, but if you compare Tivo to any other commercial DVR out there, it's the most hacker friendly unit out there. While they may shake their fingers and warn that you will void your warranty, it's not like they're Microsoft barring you from XBox Live as soon as they see a modified system connecting to their network.
All this from someone who dumped their Tivo for the Comcast DVR because I wanted HD recording. If/when the series 3 hits the shelves I may just be one of the first in line to get my quality service back.
Re:Sounds great, but... (Score:1)
You still have Tivo the company in the mix, which in the past has:
Erased user-recorded content
Yup, due to broadcast flags being set incorrectly by the originating broadcaster. All mistakes have been quickly reported and resolved. Note the fate of ReplayTV, which was sued and sold into oblivion due to their ignoring obvious DRM issues.
Recorded programs that Tivo wanted you to see, without asking your permission (which in addition to being very annoying, also used your precious disk space)
Yup, this can be turned off very easily. Also, a portion of the disk is dedicated to system-level functions, and suggestions are one of those functions. Note that disk space is no longer precious.
Limited the duration you have for watching recorded content
Um, see #1 above. This has not yet happened on a widescale basis.
Not guaranteed any of Tivos features - They can remove them as they see fit (conversely, they can also add features, but who's going to complain about that?)
And who today guarantees any features?
Made very questionable deals about subscriber privacy (selling demographical information, regional data, etc)
Sigh. Subscriber data is aggregated and sold. Read here for more information. http://www.tivo.com/5.11.3.asp [tivo.com]
And this Tivo box, as with all other Tivo models, is still limited in what it can do, NOT in terms of hardware and potential, but in what Tivo will let you do with the hardware you're purchasing.
This is a general use consumer device. If you want full control and customization, roll your own.
Re:On Demand with Cable Card? (Score:2)
(http://nsblog.org/)
When I called my cable company about getting digital cable -- something I resisted until I got a new TV with CableCARD, they told me that they didn't support CableCARD. Then I said that the FCC mandates that they do. Utterly nonplussed, the cable lady told me that I couldn't get VOD or PPV without a box. I said, "I know; that's part of the attraction." Then she told me it would be three weeks before they could install it. I'm not sure what kind of "installation" is needed beyond installing the card and activating it, but she insisted that a real human being had to come to my house between the hours of 9 and 2. But anyway, I've never had to wait longer than a week for an appointment. I said, "do you want my money or not?" And suddenly, magically, an appointment just happened to open up within the next week. So I guess the moral of the story is don't expect the cable company to be polite when you ask for a CableCARD instead of their crappy set-top boxes. And I guess don't expect them to be honest, either.
By the way, don't connect a cable box to a TiVo. You have to set up an IR blaster to change the channel, and someone can easily come along and screw it all up by changing the channel on the TV, totally unaware that the TiVo is recording from the cable box.
Re:On Demand with Cable Card? (Score:2)