Retailers Leak New TiVo HD Specs and Price 163
Brent writes "Retailers goofed and posted most of the specs of the forthcoming TiVo Series 3 Lite, which Ars says may be called 'TiVo HD' at launch. A comparison with the standard Series 3 shows that for a savings of $300, you only lose the OLED screen (do you need a screen on your TiVo?), the glowing remote (which you can pickup for $50 anyway), THX certification (worthless) and 90GB of storage. Looks like it may be a TiVo hacker's dream."
Hackers dream? (Score:3, Insightful)
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I'm a little amazed that this isn't more hackable; more DVD writers, more memory, more tuners. WTF?
After all this time, I expected much more. Maybe I should just try to build a PVR. God knows that with the low price of memory, the new multi-core processors, the low cost of disk storage and the new GPUs with vector processors, I should be able to get something worthwhile going. Too bad I don't watch more TV.
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I'm not gonna buy a unit...and then have to pay a monthly 'fee' to use it for the rest of its useful life.
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Re:Hackers dream? (Score:5, Informative)
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For new subscribers, they only need be competitive with what cable companies charge, and the monthly fee for Tivo is $2-3 less per month than what most cable companies charge for DVR service.
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Yes. It comes with Saw 3 pre-loaded. (Score:2, Funny)
[Sorry. Now I'm going AC for sure.]
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What? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What? (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, but... (Score:2)
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Well, hackers are poor and... well... That's Slashdot, you and your reasoning.
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So what you lose here that cannot be replaced is THX-certification which doesn't mean anything because who has a THX professionally installed, setup, and configured home sound system? The OLED display is no big loss.
The losses that people would miss are the glow in the dark
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Re:What? (Score:4, Informative)
There's also no IR or serial control by which to use a down-converting cable box on the Series3 platform. For cable programming, you either can record analog and unencrypted digital channels, or you use CableCards.
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It's cheap, for a HD PVR.
*sigh* no satillite connectivity... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Satellite TV boxes put out analog (component) and/or digital (DVI/HDMI) uncompressed hi-def video. To record that, you need A. a component capture device (relatively cheap/easy) or DVI/HDMI input hardware (also relatively cheap/easy), and B. real-time hi-def compression hardware (expensive/hard). That last one pretty much puts the skids on any attempt to do an HD PVR for satellite without building it into the satellite receiver.
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comcast's HD DVR is worse (Score:2)
Part of it is plain ol' network issues - blocking, freezing and the like whenever we get a new neighbor who installs their cable.
But the actual DVR unit will lag occasionally, or get stuck in rewind/ff, and just skip to the end on occasion. I would never buy such a unit and think it's pretty much awful. I probably won't spring fo
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I have a Comcast rented Motorola DVR6412-III, and completely agree with you. I'm on my 4th unit with them in only 3 months already,
but
Comcast is supposed to start making TiVo software DVR models available as their DVR rental unit in just the next couple of months. While it will take a while to filter through their system, I'm doing my best to be first in line when these arrive.
The user interface is so bad (Score:2)
Forgot about things like "suggestions" and the web-based connectivity that I'd come to expect.
Finally! (Score:3, Interesting)
--mike
Why Spend so much? (Score:2)
http://www.mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html [mysettopbox.tv] if you like linux. Cheap pci cards/usbpvr2 work great.
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oo! (Score:2)
Still doesn't change a big price difference (Score:5, Interesting)
That said, if I'm going to get a new Tivo, I have to deal with a lot of new issues:
So in addition to the upgrade to HDTV, I will have to shell out probably another $30-$50 a month, which I really don't see as being necessary, and for what? HDTV? Forget it.
On the other hand, this news [arstechnica.com]seems promising, if Comcast doesn't f$ck it all to hell.
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For your other points, my experience doesn't match that at all. There's no "cost for upgraded cable services" - HD is included as standard with digital cable in my region (Cablevision) and I think in most others too. If you don't have digital and don't wan
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I'll see ho
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(stay with me now!)
not buy one?
Call me crazy.
Nope, nothing would change for you... (Score:2)
Or, you could decide that you _wanted_ stuff in the digital realm, then you could "step up" to paying for digital cable rates, and the cablecard(s) and the cc rental (which is supposed to be nominal).
You still wouldn't need an HD set, unless you wanted to step up to HD. OF course - again - if you get an HDTV and your cable provider is send
Not surprising (Score:2)
I loved the Tivo interface and all the neat extra features it came with. But I didn't love it THAT much. Even the Tivo rep couldn't bring herself to argue against it wh
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Not while the TiVo is dependent upon CableCards to record some channels. That DVD drive becomes a potential way for you to make perfect copies of cable programming on removable media. They can't risk some bug or exploit that could reclassify all-digital recordings from digitized analog recordings allowing unauthorized copying.
Keep in mind that the Series3 TiVo still doesn't have the TiVoToGo function
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A perfect digital copy of cable shows? Are you serious?
Yes, the Series3 TiVo records the digital stream of digital shows. It's just as perfect as what they provide (barring signal loss along the way), and if they were able to sell you access to that stream, they'd rather be able to sell access to another person themselves than have you provide free access on portable media to the same quality signal. (And, unlike re-encoded analog signals, digitally recorded data streams still have 5.1 sound.)
Besides, my cable company has been too cheap to provide analog ch
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Actually, it looks like the Slashdot summary got it wrong; if you read the Ars article referenced in the summary, this new Series 3 Lite is actually $300, not $500 (as implied by the summary). It's not $300 cheaper, it's $300, period. This has been echoed at other websites, although I'm still waiting on official announcement of the product before I'll believe any pricing information.
I think the confusion stems from the comparison table in Ars' ar
It's a done deal for me. (Score:2)
I had the original Tivo the week it came out, and I do miss it. TWF (The Wife Factor) is a big one, and she misses the Tivo also. Just to keep her happy I'd pay $30 a month if I had to for Tivo (2 phone calls from her a month about a broken TV is pricier than it sou
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What is the purpose of the monthy charges? (Score:2)
So how hard is it to hack it with a bigger drive? (Score:2)
And is it pin-controlled, software set, or hard-wired?
Gotta have some place to put my Red Dwarf and Darkworld episodes
OT Recommendations (Score:3, Informative)
Each has their caveats. Knoppmyth works better once you get it rolling, but there's lots of fiddly work to get it going. Lots of fiddly work. Once it's up its rock steady. It manages powering down/sleeping between scheduled shows much better than win32.
MediaPortal is easier to set up. Buggy interface though. Not show-stoppers but whacky things that make it hard to use. For reasons I haven't investigated it uses some kind of proprietary file type to store the shows. If someone knows how to set it up to make an mpeg that would be great. http://www.team-mediaportal.com/ [team-mediaportal.com]
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If something goes wrong making a computer unbootable, I usually boot up Knoppix and check to see if anything is recoverable. If you can read the hard disk, but it is really messed up, then your best bet is probably copying off any meaningful settings or data and wiping the disk. If you cannot even get that far, TestDisk [cgsecurity.org] is pretty good at recovering partitions which are not too far gone. That is as far as I have gone in recovering hard drives.
That said, no device will fare well with bad RAM. Check reviews,
a viable ATSC OTA option (Score:2)
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Don't worry, the MythTV people are working on a fix for this. Check out this link [easytvdata.org] .
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Huh? MythTV had guide data before Zap2It Labs came along, what makes you think it'll suddenly die when it disappears?
Standard not worth the extra $500 ... (Score:2, Insightful)
The smaller HD is a bummer, but if the units are as easy to upgrade as the older units were, it's easy to image/re-image onto a larger HD.
So, upgrade the HD in the Lite and the only "functionality" you give up over the Sta
My Tivo Series 3 Perspective (Score:5, Informative)
1. Cablecard installation sucks. Make sure when you talk to the provider that they ALWAYS bring 2 Cablecards. It just took for times for TimeWarner to actually get cable going. None of this is Tivo's fault as much as its lack of understanding on the cable company side. The problems are in two places: one - firmware upgrades can take FOREVER, it literally took my 3 days to update the Cablecards, two: provisioning the TWC head-end folks have not quited figured this out yet and it took the guy talking to a friend to get the cards provisioned correctly. So when they come out make sure they try to flash the cards before they leave HQ and know someone on the other side that knows how to provision.
2. The lost 90 GB is not much of a problem. Tivo Series 3 have an eSATA connection that can be enabled through a backdoor code (see http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.p
3. I wish the OLED wasn't even there and I had $50 back. You can't see it half the time and its so small its tough to read from across the room.
4. THX: I don't have a home theater (working on that but gotta be a little more frugal now) so I wouldn't worry about it.
The $300 price point is the magic number and when it comes in watch out because these will start flying on the shelves.
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Re:My Tivo Series 3 Perspective (Score:4, Interesting)
2. eSATA port is unconfirmed. (BTW, I hate that people selling cables try to sell "internal eSATA cables". I almost bought the wrong kind because they haven't learned that the "e" stands for "external".)
3. Even if you can't read the OLED display from across the room, you can still tell from a glance (on a unit not in Standby mode) whether what's recording on a tuner is a scheduled recording of yours or not (Suggestions are not named on the OLED; scheduled recordings are).
4. I wish earlier models included an Emmy symbol the year TiVo was awarded one.
I'm waiting for my $300 rebate, but I won't use it to buy another one. Eight TiVos are enough for me right now. (Heh, my first two 14hr Series1 TiVos also had $300 in rebates, making them cost -$0.01 after rebate, not considering taxes on pre-rebate price.)
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I was upgrading from a cable company supplied DVR (Sci Atlanta 8300HD) and for me, the cost of the Tivo is VERY much worth it. The thing is faster, everything works better from an interface perspective,
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That sounds like a good way to quickly encounter and iron out the bugs in the system. Those who sign up a couple months later might have no trouble at all.
THX worthless... hahahahha so true. (Score:2)
THX only matters if they're sending an engineer to your home studio, to custom craft an audio solution for your home studio's room size, shape, materials, and how it all effects the acoustics.
but yeah they dont.. So its just a dam sticker on a box.
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My teacher in school was the inventor [wikipedia.org] of THX, the theatrical motion picture system. He was eventually forced out of Lucasfilm in the early 90s, and every now and then we would mention the newest "THX" product we saw, like around the time were in school, car audio systems were starting to get "THX" certifications. He'd just roll his eyes and laugh, and mutter "ridiculous."
The original tech, a THX movie theater, is still worth seeking out, since they still enforce the quality control standards in those (a
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So, go teach.
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I dunno, Dolby has done a lot to assert that THEY = surround, which though flawed is a bit more accurate, and when people walk into a movie theater, they simply expect that the speakers on the walls will emit sound giving the impression of sound in depth, without asking "who" or "how". When people ask me what kind of audio gear they should buy, I tell them to just get stereo speakers, maybe a center channel, and to buy movie tickets if they want to hear a film
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$0 is still cheaper (Score:2)
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Pay for a DVR, or have teeth extracted without anesthesia^H^H^H^H^H^H deal with DishTV
not a hard choice
hawk
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So not "for free" then.
Rich
Why does Tivo get so much publicity? (Score:2)
Ontop of that, they're testing popup ads.....baaaaaaahhhh. Nice of mods to give some free ads.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TiVo [wikipedia.org]
Alternatives. http://www.dvrplayground.com/ [dvrplayground.com]
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Second, TiVo is the best known DVR out there and the most successful purchasable one there is. When Comcast starts selling their own HD DVR that's as good as Ti
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Bug or goof or what?
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Re:Neato keen and all but meh (Score:5, Funny)
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Seems like all of the good shows can be purchased by-the-season these days. If you don't mind being the last guy around to see "Lost", then this is a big money and time saver.
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if "there is nothing worth watching" then why are you posting?
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Me, I'd like to see a 500GB or larger drive (if that "hack" is possible, I'd be game). 160GB or even 250GB is meager in my opinion.
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And TiVo "jumped on the HD bandwagon" several months ago, when the Series 3 first came out.
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It loses 90 GB of storage.
As to how much HD content it can store, RTFA. (31 hrs for the expensive one, 20 hrs for the new one)
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Re:90 freaking GB? 160GB, and here's why... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Losers! (Score:5, Insightful)
*the OLED screen (do you need a screen on your TiVo?)
*the glowing remote (which you can pick up for $50 anyway)
*THX certification (worthless)
*90GB of storage
Now, why didn't 'you' parse the submission right?
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On most cabletv plants lack of a cablecard make a HD recorder pretty much useless. you do not have component in or hdmi in record ports and most unscrambled QAM content on cableTV lines is pretty paltry. Some places even have the OTA HD channels scrambled which is a violation of FCC law but the cable operator doesn't give a flying fart.
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They told me it was coming soon (Score:2)
TivoToGo is the killer feature for me. I honestly don't care if it's only SD quality, i just can't justify "upgrading" to something that's missing features.
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It's unbelievable how successful the cable companies were at brainwashing people into believing that 2-way cable cards are required for on-demand content.
Cable cards are supposed to decrypt media streams if you've paid for them. They only need to be one-way to do that, whether you've requested the content dynamically or not. Putting the request functionality into the cable card instead of allowing the cable card compliant device to m
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They have purposefully confounded the process, and have further fucked the system by requiring compliant boxes to submit the software for testing approval _for every version_. It will hamstring the indutry for another decade. And the FCC will stand by with a towel for you to clean youself