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Tivo Announces Dual Tuner Upgrade

ethaz writes "Tivo has announced dual tuner support in version 2.5 of it's software for DirecTV-capable Tivos (DTivos). So much for Ultimate TV's advantage." Too bad it's only DIRECTV TiVos - with the larger hard drive, better output, my TiVo pales in comparasion.

3 of 132 comments (clear)

  1. no new hard drive by tweedle · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually, the hard drive is the same size. The increased space is due to the fact that it takes the actual mpeg2 stream straight from directv, so it's a lot more efficient than the SA tivos, since it doesn't have to be reencoded. the increased quality is due to this as well, since DTV uses hugely sophisticated encoders to get the best mix of quality and size, the tivo doesn't have to use it's $5 encoding chip to do the work.

  2. TV good, TiVo better? by alewando · · Score: 5, Funny

    According to Reuters, India plans to subsidize television sets so couples can sit back and watch television instead of having sex and contributing to India's burgeoning population.

    That's the kind of news I'd expect to hear from adequacy.org, but it's gotten me thinking: if mere television can be successful, then how much better would India's public funds be spent on TiVo instead? Television can be watched at length, but there's a limit to the amount of interactivity. With TiVo, couples would not only be watching more television than they'd previously wanted to (because of the convenience TiVo offers in recording shows otherwise missed); they'd spend additional numbers of hours every year fiddling with options and programming their device.

    If there are any Indians in the audience, I encourage you to write your representative in parliament and encourage him or her to consider TiVo instead of television. Thousands of geeks use it, and they're having less sex than perhaps any other segment of our population. The choice is clear.

  3. What I want to see... by cr0sh · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I want everything the Tivo offers, plus:

    1. The ability to add drive storage as I see fit.
    2. The ability to record and play back MP3s from any source (TV, radio, CD, etc), as well as load MP3s from a network or CD-ROM.
    3. The ability to record into the system from any video medium (tape, DVD, VCD, mpegs off the net, etc).
    4. Other file storage for regular data files, etc.
    5. Network support using standard protocols.
    6. Open spec system, to allow OS choice!

    In other words, a very damn nice file server, with special hardware for sound and video recording, ala Tivo. I want this to act as a central home server (there could be other possibilities as well - x-10 control, video security, web admin, etc), that was nice and expandable, easily - like a PC.

    It damn near can be done today with commodity hardware, but the video record/simultaneous playback/channel guide stuff isn't there yet - we need a fast filesystem for that stuff (the simultaneuous record/playback so you can "pause" TV). Does anyone know of such a filesystem being worked on?

    I am planning on building a largish networked fileserver, but it won't be anything like I described - at best it would be able to play back MP3, maybe record to it, but it wouldn't be an all-in-one solution. Is there anything like this at all - even ultra-expensive solutions used by TV studios for quick DVR editing?

    I doubt we'll ever see such a thing (short of a major hacking effort - though I bet the antcomputing guys could pull it off) - it would allow the user too much control...

    --
    Reason is the Path to God - Anon