TiVo Announces High-Def Series3 DVR 225
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 $800 and available in mid-September, the company said. Subscription fees for the TiVo service are separate ... TiVo officials attributed its long development time in part to waiting for certain technologies to mature and the lengthy process of getting industry-related approvals, such as for the set-top-box's two built-in CableCARD slots. CableCARD slots allow users to access digital programming from a cable TV provider without the need for a separate receiver. The Series3 HD box also represents TiVo's first major product upgrade since it released its networked Series2 DVR in 2002.'"
800$ plus subscription?? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:800$ plus subscription?? (Score:5, Informative)
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However, I only watch one at a time. How many do you watch at once on cable?
Last time I had cable was when I was a college student, but from what I've seen at other people's homes, it's gone from "50 channels and noting on" to "400 channels and nothing on" in the last thirty years.
The consistant truth is that there are usually only a half dozen shows on TV in any given year worth even considering worth your time. T
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Just got email from Tivo saying if I buy a new HD Tivo, for $199 they'll transfer my lifetime sub to the new HD unit. Offer appears to be good for purchases of new HD unit through 12/31/2006, and you must activate new service by 01/31/2006.
They will also allow your older Tivo to work no charge for service for 12 mos, after which you can deactivate it, or pay monthly on it.
I might do this....just to have HD content going while the issues
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Not quite (Score:2)
So you can record the HD version of Sopranos on HBO? Or the movie of the week on TNT-HD? Or the latest game on ESPN-HD?
The answer is: no. You can't do that with your Apple. Why? Because you can't put a CableCard in your apple (or your PC, for that matter).
Read and understand this ppl: To record (most) HD programming over your cable system, you NEED a cablecard. OTA channels are nice (A
Re:Not quite (Score:4, Informative)
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The few cable shows I give a shit about I can watch via NetFlix and/or torrent files.
A big honkin' $50 UHF antenna, and I'm watching Lost, House, and all the "event" sports matches in HD for free. Fuck the cable companies!
Put DirecTV on notice. (Score:5, Interesting)
You are on notice, DirecTV. I chose you over cable because (Adelphia) cable is (more) evil and I like my TiVo, and the multitude of hacks available. Now that you are charging me more, taking away my TiVo, and your TiVo has less funcationality than a real one, cable just may win out.
$800 is a chunk of change, but the price will come down eventually. I'd be happy in the $400 range if I ended up with real value in the end.
Re:Put DirecTV on notice. (Score:4, Interesting)
Same here. I have a DirecTiVo and it was very quickly clear to me that as much as I like DirecTV, I like my TiVo more. When my TiVo ceases to function (due to death, new channels I want to watch, whatever) I'm cancelling your service unless you offer a new Genuine TiVo I can purchase and use by then.
Dish Network: I've been getting mail from you every once and a while trying to get me to switch. Same thing applies. Give me a Genuine TiVo and when the time comes I'll go to you (since my local cable is horrid).
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MBCook: If your DirecTivo does die you can buy one on ebay for less than $50.
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Not sure how I'll handle any HDTV issues - probably won't be able to utilize it at all. I sure won't deal with any of the DRM crap. My hope is that in a few years I'll
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I see a common theme here - the cable/dish company giving or renting you a Tivo, but not your actually paying $800 for one. I love TV, but TIVO wants me to have a cable subscription ($60-100/m with HD) pay $800 for a Tivo box, PLUS pay a monthly subscription fee to Tivo?
Please - if Comcast offers the Tivo box for rental -
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DirecTV has actually beaten TiVo to market with a pretty competitive feature set; yeah, it's not TiVo, but the $500 you won't be spending on the box, plus the $265 yearly you won't be spending on TiVo subscription fees ($13/mo) and cablecard rental fees ($10/mo ea.) will make a nice pillow.
- Dual tuners? Check.
- Dual ATSC tuners? Check. (they're not enabled yet, but
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They are not even is the same ballpark usability wise.
Not one person who got suckered into buying DirectTV DVR that has tried even my feature-crippled HD TiVo from you guys has said "eh, this is just as good" it was more along the lines of "wow, I got ripped off"
It is like comparing a honda civic to a BMW... sure they both have four seats, and engine and wheels... but which one drives smoother? Which one has more
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I wouldn't expect less
- Dual ATSC tuners? Check. (they're not enabled yet, but the hardware's there)
Excellent. I hope the software upgrade to enable them get's more funding that the TiVo software did. I still don't have folders on my HR10-250. Or T2Go. Or Networking. Or TiVoWeb. Or MP3s. Or...
- 300GB SATA HD? check.
And this is better than a 250GB stock, or the ability to hack in a 500GB drive easily?
- External SATA jack for external storage space? check.
Is it active out of the box?
- Eth
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Content export / import, Properly transcoded and upsampled content looks great on output and export HD looks great as well.
Sugestions, My tivo figures out most new shows that I might like and records them, it's good enough that I stopped looking for content to record.
Tivo extra's, I love being able to review email, weather rss feeds etc on my HDVR2 with 6.2 code on it. Pictures and MP3's are also quite usefull. Please don
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Screw that... if I can get HD channels recorded digitally via a real TiVo through cable sign me up. I hate the cable companies but not enough to give up my TiVo to stay with a satellite provider who obviously does not care about my business.
The funny thing is the piece of junk they try to sell you in p
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Hopefully DTV will wake up and realize the customers they will lose is going to far offset the licensing fees they saved.
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I called and actually eventually talked to a VP at DirectTV and at this time they have no intention of ever working with Tivo again.
Now, an interesting part was how difficult it was for me to actually cancel my account. It took 20 minutes on the phone to do it.
Here is how it went down:
Me: Um yes I need to cancel my account.
DTV: Ok, we are sorry to hear that, and are glad to help, may I ask why?
Me: Well, this is a long s
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Satellite? (Score:2)
I have DirecTV (which frankly because they stopped supporting my TiVo I will dump when the time comes). Now I know the Series 3 supports CableCARD but does not support satellite inputs. Does anyone know if it would be possible for DirecTV to make a "DirecTV CableCARD", possibly with some little external box to transform the signals from the DirecTV frequencies to cable frequencies?
In other words, is there some reasonable way where if they were interested DirecTV (or even Dish) could make a CableCARD compat
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But it's not out yet (just recently announced)...
E.
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Which is espeically pathetic because I would still pay the DVR fee if they TRIPLED it to the $15 a month that TiVo charges. That way, I could still have a TiVo and DirecTV would get an extra $10 a month. Even if they only doubled it. Heck, they could have raised the price to $6 a month.
But instead they lost me as a future customer (and many others) because they were greedy over $1 and decided to give people sub-standard equiptment (non-TiVos) to save $$$.
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I have no idea if hacks for DirecTivos are available in the same way that hacks for regular Tivos are but that could certainly have been a factor.
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I'm sure it's possible. But, it's not likely -- satellite companies are not required by the FCC (since they're not regulated by the FCC) to use them, so why would they implement a technology that would take away their hardware lock-in?
BTW, the cable companies fought the concept of the cable card for years, but finally lost out to the
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Any idea why satellite is not regulated by FCC and cable companies are? Seems strange, especially since it to my mind, should be the other way around since satellites are using radio spectrum, and cable is not...
Compatibility (Score:2)
Will it work with any variety of Satellite?
The thing about HD is that it REQUIRES a digital feed. Will the new Tivo act as a secure recipient of HDMI content or does it even have HDMI in? Is the output DRM encumbered HDMI or straight DVI / component?
At 800 bucks plus subscription, this thing better work with everything or Tivo will loose their shirts.
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And at $800 they are going to lose their shirt.
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What about HDMI out?? I thought I'd heard that soon if you aren't using this, that your tv would not play the HD content at full res....
To be used for...? (Score:2)
Tivo can't compete any more.. (Score:4, Insightful)
You must be very happy... (Score:2)
Don't feel bad, lots of people are perfectly happy with the base model.
Some of us just want more. This just the thing for those who do.
(Kind of odd really, me being a real fanboi over a CE item. I guess this must be what it feels like for Mac zealots.)
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I've got a series2 with lifetime, and think I will do the 'upgrade'. They say your old tivo will be subb'ed for 12 mos. after the transfer...and go to monthly after that.
I refuse to pay a monthly fee for anything like that, so, I'm wondering, what can you do with an old Tivo series2 with no subscription? Are there any good hacks for it?
Like the Homermobile (Score:5, Insightful)
I haven't bothered with a MythTV/MCE because TiVo was cheap (free after rebate for the 40GB model, quickly hacked with bigger HD) and was easy to use and good at what it does. Now if I want to upgrade it's priced right in line with these other technologies that offer more features. Tivo just isn't competitive anymore, especially once MCE supports CableCard.
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Hey, there's a market for these things. People have money to spend. Lots of people have _lots_ of money to spend. You can make a good living catering to them.
I would buy this if.... (Score:2)
Other than that, Tivo is smoking something really stong to think $800 is a good price.
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The "real" box will have a great deal more functionality than the stripped down DTV version (which _still_ doesn't even have folders).
$800 is steep. Expect that to be $500 with a year's programming by next summer.
Looks about right... (Score:4, Informative)
And for all of the posts bitching about "$800 PLUS subscription!??!?!?", remember that this is a set-top box replacement. You already pay Comcast or [insert other cable behemoth here] $10/month for that POS DVR that they provide with a clunky unreliable interface. $2 more gets you a better interface, suggestions, downloadable content, more guide data, the ability to program over the internet, the ability to download shows to your laptop or other device, the ability to display slide shows, mp3 playback, mp3 streaming, podcast streaming, and so on and so on and so on. And that's not even including the features in the pipeline, like (official) storage upgrades and a ton of other unannounced projects.
For $3 more a month, bring me my TiVo. And as far as the $800 initial fee, if you can't afford it - just wait for the first round of rebates. Or do what I always do, upgrade when they offer unbelievably cheap factory refurb units. Every TiVo I've ever owned has been a refurb - and with proper cable surge protection and a Smart-UPS, my units have never failed me.
Re:Looks about right... (Score:4, Insightful)
Um, I pay $5 for HD service and another $5 for the DVR. But even if I'm paying $10/month for the DVR, I *don't* have to pay for the hardware up front and if something better comes along in a couple of years, I can jump ship. Plus, another poster stated just renting the cable card may cost $5-10 from your cable provider.
Let's look at this over 5 years:
Comcast cost = 5*12*$10 or $600.
TiVo cost: $800 + 5*12*$5 (cable card) + 5*12*$13 (TiVo service) or $800 + $300 + $780 or $1880
It seems to me that TiVo is three times more expensive over the reasonable life of the box. That may be worth it to some, but not to me.
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With the Tivo service charge on top of that, the cable company DVR begins to look attractive again.
Luckily, Tivo announced that they would allow those of us that spent $300 on a lifetime service subscription to transfer it over to the new Tivo for *only* $200!!
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Well, in my case...I might just go for it. I have a series2 box with lifetime subscription. I rescued it from my house in New Orleans after Katrina. I was on the top floor of the house, so the 7ft of water in my neighborhood didn't reach my stuff, but, I have not idea how bad power surges were or what....so, I'm not sure if the damned thing will even work again if I plug it in. So, I think I may just indee
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OTOH, it might just be my lousy local cable company that always buys the absolute cheapest box possible, eve
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Is it worth the extra cost? (Score:2)
Now with the series 3 you have a monthly fee and a
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Already for sale on Tivo.com (Score:4, Informative)
According to TivoBlog, some Best Buy stores are taking preorders showing a delivery date of 9/17/06. There have also been rumors over the past few weeks that Best Buy and CircuitCity will have the Series3 Tivo in stock on the 17th or 19th.
Despite the heavy price tag, the need to rent 2 CableCARDs from my local Cable Company, and the expensive $12.95 Tivo monthly fee, I placed my order within a few minutes of Tivo making the change to their website. I bought one of the first 14-hour Tivos when they went on sale in 1999, and in all that time I have not seen another DVR that has a UI as good as the Tivo one. I finally abandoned Tivo in favor of a Cable Company DVR in 2004 when my local Cable Company started to offer HD programming. Finally Tivo is catching up 2 years later.
By the way, you can thank design firm IDEO [ideo.com] for many of the UI innovations of the Tivo (and early Macs as well).
How many dish network patents did they violate? (Score:2)
Only difference being, that the 622 has 2 Dish tuners, plus an off-air HD tuner.
You can record from both tuners, and watch either recorded content or off air on both outputs, totalling 4 concurrent i/o streams.
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You spelled "need" wrong.
TiVo, Ditch the hardware (Score:2)
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Some cable and satalite companies do and/or have licensed the TiVo software for thier service. If your cable company doesn't then complain to them. TiVo makes it available to them.
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TiVo's Blind Spot (Score:2)
IBM learned long ago that when you build a PC with off-the-shelf components that it's only a matter of time before a cheaper competitor comes along.
TiVo doesn't seem to get it yet. Especially because every new model and software update seems to offer less than the previous one. TiVo needs to realize that their customer is the home consumer, and not the movie studios.
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They know that they aren't going to interest the folks that build MythTVs, they know that they Series 2s will work just fine with people who don't have or want HDTV and they know that the people who've already spent $2000+ on a HDTV and $60+ a month for HDTV service (and $700+ more on a premium sound system) aren't going to be particularly averse to dropping another $800 for a Series 3.
I won't pay for TV again until... (Score:2)
I don't want commercials, I don't want re-runs (mostly) and I don't want to have to use a delivery system other that the gool ol' fashioned interweb. I don't want to just record the airwaves (or cable, etc) becuase I don'
Cablecard is moot (Score:2)
The only thing this new Tivo offers over a home-grown DVR is that it's got an HD dual-tuner. Is that really worth $800 plus a monthly subscription? I guess we'll see soon enough.
Review, FAQ, and photos (Score:2, Informative)
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That's what you get when there is a monopoly on the CableCARDs. If there were commercially available consumer versions of these then the price would be more reasonable from the outset. Unlike other posters seem to think, there will be no real reason for these to ever decrease in price, since there is essentially a cartel of suppliers who can set the price at whatever level they please.
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The CableCARDs are rented from the local cable company at something like $5 - $15/month.
The Tivo is essentially commodity hardware stitched together with solid software and a fantastic UI. As the cost of those commodity parts drop, so will the retail price of the Series3 Tivo.
In the past, Tivo has been willing to sell the hardware at a loss hoping to make up the cost with their $12.95/month service fee. It hasn't really worked out that well for them, so they are not willing
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I'm assuming you consider more as not being able to record about 75% of the HD content out there.
Re:That DIY HTPC just became economical! (Score:5, Informative)
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My question to manufacturers is why hasn't someone made a component in HD card?
That would cause quite a stir and be a boon for the DIYers. I think that is when I jump in on the MythTV bandwagon.
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Cost. A component in is already analog, you need a *lot* of horsepower to digitize it and encode it in real time. From what I've understood the OTA cards just decode the signal to a compressed MPEG2 transport stream...
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sure you can!
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Re:That DIY HTPC just became economical! (Score:4, Informative)
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That's a feature, not a bug.
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I don't know exactly what cablecard is, I presume it's just a CAM. In which case, mythtv supports DVB cards with CAM slots in them, so yes, encrypted broadcasts can be legally received on a homebrew HTPC.
Of course, one provider is refusing to provide a CAM for their encryption format, but many other providers have easily available CAMs.
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Time Warner in Houston offers all of it's programming over CableCARD. The technology isn't quite ready to support bi-directional features like on-demand, but it's coming.
We le
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more than adequate and won't require a separate card that has it's own
noisy fan.
Be mindful of things like vga ports when you buy your HDTV and you
won't even need HDMI or DVI outputs on your GPU.
Although even things like the pundit bookpc barebones systems have
that sort of thing built in too.
The whole "DRM" thing still give Tivo an edge at least for a little while.
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A.Lets one recieve and record digital cable (including all the encrypted channels and pay-per-view content etc)
B.Lets one copy the recorded content to a computer on my network or to some kind of removable storage e.g. DVD (without DRM or restrictions on further copying)
and C.Is legal (so it wont get shut down by the cable companies)
then I will be interested in a HTPC as a DVR.
Of course, no such box exists. If you have A, the cable companies and content providers wont let you have B so you
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actually worth something than the cost of an OEM license for
Windows MCE is TRIVIAL.
Otherwise, you've got time to burn and you can just install MythTV.
That whole "my time is worth something, really it is" is really
completely self defeating.
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taking a regular old PC and adding a few extra components
and some specialized software. The only tricky bits will
be the add-ons. Even with MythTV, those are well spelled
out as to what you should buy.
You can "cheat" even further and peruse the HTPC stores
for suitable components (or just have them build you
one).
You can even start out "nice and easy" and just install
the software by itself on whatever hardware you happen
to have lying around (including you
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Which is precisely the reason why the Series 3 has built-in tuners and CableCard support. The Series 3 is your cable box.
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err.....DVR
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Most of the digital cable boxes I've come into contact with (they've all been Motorolas, I believe) have a serial port on the back of the cable box that the Tivo can change channel through. It's a bit quicker and far more reliable than the infrared dealy-bob in my experience.
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Agreed - although $2k was fine for the TV ;)
Free? When? Where? The best I can come up with is my Samsung Tivo/DVD player with a lifetime Tivo Basic subscription for free - which is basically just the programming guide. A cheap lease ($3-5/month) is more common. $800 is absurd.
Just figuring that ou
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Last week (or was it the week before?) they announced they'll be supporting WPA, finally, but only on their special adapter. Needless to say, I am not a happy customer.
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