TiVo to support HDTV by "Year-End"

JMorgan in Seattle writes "TiVo has (finally!) announced support for HDTV. It's a ways off (end of the year), but at least we know that HD TiVo is on the horizon. In two separate press releases, we learn that TiVo will support both standalone and DirecTV hi-def PVRs. TiVo is really on a roll--first Rendezvous support, and now this. Now if only DirecTV would add more HDTV channels..." I've been waiting to get an HDTV receiver for this. Joy.

Comments

The never ending story

[sporty]

TiVo to support HDTV by 'Year-End'

Which year is the question :)

Re:The never ending story

[Lt Razak]

True.

It's hard to believe that a company with bad stocks, and people are crying doom & gloom can make this kind of announcment. Do you think they'll deal with the DRM bit? Will the telivision stations start suing them again?

Re:The never ending story

[sporty]

Honestly? I see TiVo as an apple-like company. They make a good product, with a lot of good features. They are integrating with the right people.

As for trouble, there's prolly gonna be trouble until there's a solution that's been tried and convicted or vindicated. Look at napster. Napster "failed" and look at kazaa, they had to go further offshore. Look at DeCSS. And even then, there might still be trouble, though significantly less.

will require larger Hard Drives....

[stonebeat.org]

to store HDTV programming????

Re:will require larger Hard Drives....

[Anonymous Custard]

It will still depend on the resolution at which TiVo stores the video, no matter what the original quality was for the master transmission.

Using the same compression algorithm to get the same file size, the better video quality you start with, the better the compressed version will be.

If TiVo stored the HDTV stream uncompressed, then that would take a heck of a lot more storage space, even more than DVD video takes on a 4.7 gb DVD (about 3 DVD hours=4.7 gb?).

Re:will require larger Hard Drives....

[Anonymous Coward]

By uncompressed, you mean compressed, right? HDTV is quite compressed at 19.2 Mbps. It would be essentially impossible to store HDTV uncompressed. You'd run out of space in no time at all.

And 19.2 Mb/s really isn't too bad. That's around 8.5 GB/h. If you compressed it further, the quality would just go downhill. Then, what's the point of HD?

Re:will require larger Hard Drives....

[McSpew]

HDTV already includes compression--quite a bit of it. I can think of no reason why TiVo would bother to uncompress the signal before storage. TiVo already directly stores compressed digital bitstreams with its DirecTV-integrated receivers. Receiving a broadcast digital TV signal should be no different. The only time TiVo should need to separately compress a signal is when it's receiving plain old analog TV, just as current standalone TiVos already do.

In other words, the storage space required for a program will most likely depend on the format in which it was originally broadcast. TiVo will most likely not muck with the original formatting.

Re:will require larger Hard Drives....

[c.derby]

so just under 300gb for the current storage of about 35 hours. that sounds rather realistic. even more so when you consider that not all programming would be available or recorded in HD.

i can't wait for these new boxes to come out. i've had a 65in widescreen hd capable tv for about 2 years now, but was never willing to give up the flexibility that TiVo offers me to sit down and watch HD programming.

Re:will require larger Hard Drives....

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Let me throw some facts into this mix. Your analysis is right on, but you need more info.

Uncompressed HDTV requires about 1.3 Gbps of bandwidth to transmit. That's the SMPTE 292M standard for serial digital 4:2:2 YUV 1080i HD. Nobody outside of the TV studio ever sees uncompressed HD.

When a network sends its broadcasts to an affiliate, it's not unusual for that signal to come down at about 45 Mbps over an OC-3. So the signal has already been compressed one time before it ever gets to your local TV station.

The 8VSB transmission standard for broadcast HDTV calls for an effective bandwidth of about 19.3 Mbps between the TV transmitter and your house. So before the signal hits the airwaves, it gets compressed a second time.

So the most your TiVo will ever need to store for over-the-air (OTA) HD is about 19.3 Mbps. That includes the 1080i signal and the Dolby Digital 5.1 audio.

For satellites and (eventually) land-based cable, the facts are a little different, but the gist is the same. I believe DirecTV is currently broadcasting at about 15 Mbps on its various HD transponders.

So all HDTV programming is compressed at least once and down to at least a ratio of about 70:1 before it ever gets to your house. This can be made to work for two reasons. First, your HDTV can't resolve all of the detail in an uncompressed HD frame. The set just isn't capable of it. Second, a good HD encoder can produce a 19 Mbps signal from a 1.3 Gbps signal that is free of visible artifacts. Note that I said a good encoder. Last week's broadcast of "Any Given Sunday" on ABC looked like hammered shit because it had been run through a poor encoder. Macroblocking everywhere. Virtually unwatchable.

So let's say your TiVo stores the incoming signal without additional compression. OTA HD (19 Mbps) requires about 2.5 MB/s of storage space, or about 8.25 GB/h. So a TiVo with an 80 GB hard drive could store nearly 10 hours of HD content, and considerably more SD content. Given that 320 GB hard drives are available, it's easy to imagine a high-end or upgraded TiVo that has room for as much as 70 or 80 hours of HD content. Not half bad.

So to sum up: "uncompressed" HD (meaning HD that is not compressed further once it gets to your house) requires slightly more than 8 GB per hour. Additional compression applied to the OTA or satellite signal is likely to result in very objectionable artifacts, unless TiVo spends a lot of money on their encoder hardware. Since people who buy HD equipment are currently on the high end of the market, it will make more sense for TiVo to spend the money on additional storage and simply omit an HD encoder from the device completely.

A 10-hour TiVo (note that these are 19 Mbps HD numbers only; SD capacities will be four to six times higher) will require one 80 GB HD or two 40 GB HD's. The upgrade path could possibly include adding 80, 160, or 320 GB hard drives to get to a final capacity of up to 80 hours (rounded up) for a few hundred dollars over the base price. Not too bad.

Re:will require larger Hard Drives....

[coyotl]

Actually, for the DirecTivo unit, it will depend on the stream sent over the DirecTV satellite. The TiVo portion of the unit stores this (MPEG) stream without further manipulation.

This is why the DirecTivo unit is far superior to the Tivo stand-alone unit. In the stand-alone version, the signal is uncompressed to analog, then recompressed, resulting in a double lossage.

Re:will require larger Hard Drives....

[Miguelito]

i can't wait for these new boxes to come out. i've had a 65in widescreen hd capable tv for about 2 years now, but was never willing to give up the flexibility that TiVo offers me to sit down and watch HD programming.

Can I get an amen?

I'm in the exact same boat... 65in 16x9 TV for almost 2 years now, and I've yet to use HD on it. Don't get me wrong, I don't regret the purchase at all as DVDs are so damn clear on it that I hardly goto the theater anymore (why when a DVD is the same cost, or less if rented, I'm in control, and it's far more comfortable?).

I've looked into Digital cable... Far more money for 1 HBO, 1 Showtime, and something like 4 other channels, only 1 or 2 local ones... pass.

DirectTV.. similar to above, but just not worth it to ditch my Tivo. When I can have what I've got now, and HD programming on the Tivo to boot.. that's when I'll upgrade.

Re:will require larger Hard Drives....

[jedidiah]

I can attest to this. I recently moved from one side of a fairway to the other. On the "poor' side, the cable quality is really crappy. Even without being filtered through the TiVo, most programs have disappointing picture quality.

Bad signal quickly accelerates the quality degredation of Tivo recordings.

On the "rich" side of the fairway, cable picture quality is remarkably better. My resulting basic quality recordings are BETTER than most of the high quality recordings I was making before.

TiVo's seem to really love a clean signal. That aspect of HDTV alone may make it worthwhile.

For all you existing customers out there...

[wumarkus420]

Just a heads-up, if you are currently a DirecTV subscriber, you will need to get the triple-LNB dish to receive all the HDTV signals.

Re:For all you existing customers out there...

[Anonymous Coward]

and a new DirectTV receiver...

90 Minute Delay? What about outputs?

[eudaemon]

More like -- is it going to support the 90 minute delay
proposal before the FCC?

I.E. Some content can only be viewed no later than 90 minutes after it was recorded, or
not at all.

Is it going to have DVI or Firewire connectors with forced-down low-res on the firewire
is another important one.

Re:90 Minute Delay? What about outputs?

[twofidyKidd]

90 minute delay?
Who's bright idea was that? If I'm not mistaken, you buy a TiVo (or similar device) so that you can view programming at your leisure and schedule. With something like that, you'd have to wait an hour to watch a 30 minute show you missed by 30 minutes. You might as well just tried to be in front of the TV 30 minutes earlier in the first place.
Do you know why someone is trying to put this into effect? (not a gripe @ you.)

Re:90 Minute Delay? What about outputs?

[mac123]

Looking through the Tivo Community forum:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/forumdisplay. php?s=f867ee8b74033b3ee90a5c787563b51c&forumid =3

it looks like for Par Per View, a 90 minute timeshift window would be enforced.

All other TV sounds like it wont have the same restrictions.

It sucks.

Re:90 Minute Delay? What about outputs?

[PinkStainlessTail]

90 minute delay was specifically for Pay-per-view events. Regular programming can still be shifted like the dickens.

Re:90 Minute Delay? What about outputs?

[Pii]

Actually, the HD DirecTV receiver's missing Firewire support to this date was a decision of DirecTV. There's been a great deal of discussion over on the AVS Forum, and the Tivo Community Forum about this. (Samsung, as an example, makes a new OTA HD set-top box that has Firewire, but the corresponding new HD DirecTV box lacks the Firewire port.)

It appears that DirecTV has finally decided to relax the Firewire restriction, and you'll be able to see HD DirecTV receviers with Firewire support. (Which will kick ass... My TV has Firewire.)

No clue what connections will come on the HD DirecTivo, but I sure hope to see them with Component Out, DVI, and Firewire, supporting both early adopters (Component In only), and both digital interfaces.

(I'd like DVI to die a horrible death, but I recognize that most HDTV buyers can olny get one, or the other, and there's no reason they (the people with DVI) should be left out on the cold.)

Re:90 Minute Delay? What about outputs?

[Sauron23]

All other TV sounds like it wont have the same restrictions.

for now.

Re:90 Minute Delay? What about outputs?

[buckminster]

Brilliant. Do they realize that you actually *PAY* for Pay Per View? Seems like that payment should give me the right to watch the show a week later if I don't get around to it sooner.

I know we're talking about a different industry here, but this sounds suspiciously like something Hillary Rosen would dream up. 'I know, let's kill off our business by screwing our paying customers.'

Re:90 Minute Delay? What about outputs?

[anotherone]

You don't have to pay for it if you don't want to. With the current model, the idea is you pay for it and you watch it once. If you want to watch it again, you have to pay again- it's the exact same thing now, only you can start it up to 90 minutes later.

Re:90 Minute Delay? What about outputs?

[CharlieHedlin]

90 minute delay is the wrong term, it should be 90 minute expiration. The pay per view content is only allowed to be delayed up to 90 minutes, then expired.

Re:90 Minute Delay? What about outputs?

[jedidiah]

That's fine if what you plan to watch is going to be rebroadcast. Most of the really interesting events on pay-per-view are not replayed all day like last year's movies.

Re:90 Minute Delay? What about outputs?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been reading that the DVI interfaces actually give better picture quality - specifically the Sony HS-10 front projector.... keeping it in the digital realm stops the analogue transmission lossess on the way to the display device.....

Re:90 Minute Delay? What about outputs?

[Pii]

That's an arguement that can be made in favor of DVI over Component Video, perhaps, but it doesn't work too well for DVI v. Firewire.

DVI's advantage over Firewire is that when an HD Receiver sends the video signal over DVI, it is an uncompressed signal.

With Firewire, there is a degree of compression, but it's largely a strawman arguement, as the compression/decompression is built into the Firewire controller.

Firewire is a far more versitle, in that it allows for data other than the video signal itself to traverse the wire, such as HAVi protocol, which Mitsubishi hopes will catch on. Devices on the Firewire chain announce themselves, and a common control protocol allows the Master device to control all of the others. (For instance, the TV can tell the VCR, or DVD player, to start the movie, or issue a pause, power on/off, etc. This allows for a better integrated universal remote control.)

Another reason to support Firewire over DVI is the whole DRM Holy War, although, Firewire has it's own Copy protection scheme (5C). It's simply not as draconian as the DVI proposal.

Which ones?

[TooTechy]

Which of the multitudinous World Wide HDTV standards are they going to support?

Re:Which ones?

[Pii]

They will most likely support all 18 of the ATSC formats, of which 480p, 720p, and 1080i are the most utilized.

Most HD receviers are capable of receiving any of these formats. HD Monitors/HDTVs on the other hand, they are usually limited in which formats they can natively display.

My Mitsubishi, as an example, displays 480p and 1080i natively. A 720p signal is upconverted to 1080i by the recevier, prior to being tossed at the display.

Hmm

[ShooterNeo]

Be interesting to know how much faster the hardware has to be to record the full 1080i HDTV stream (or will Tivo cheat and downsample?). Its 20megabits a second I believe, and already comes compressed so the requirements may not be that high. Probably just need a much bigger hard disk.

Re:Hmm

[Tyler Eaves]

That's 2.5MB/sec.

You'd need ~9GB per hour. So the largest harddrive available currently would give a whopping 20 hours of recording.

Re:Hmm

[Neon Spiral Injector]

I'm hoping the DirecTiVo will continue in the same fashion as the current model and just record the encrypted off the air broadcast to the harddrive so there is no loss in quality at all.

Re:Hmm

[c.derby]

that is based on the largest currently available drives AND that would be 20 hours of HD recording. not all programming is available in HD, so you would more than likely be able to record more than 20 hours on a single drive.

btw, current DirecTV+TiVo combo boxes have a capacity of "about 35 hours". i would guess that reasonable recording of HD+SD material with your drive example would yield >35 hours of recording.

Re:Hmm

[JakeS]

My Tivo held 20 hours of programming at the lowest quality setting when I bought it. It was enough to hold my family's favorite shows, as long as we viewed them around a week after recording.

Just last week, I added a hard drive to it and increased the capacity to 120 hours. Now we hardly know how to take advantage of that much space.

Re:Hmm

[-tji]

All HDTV is pre-compressed as an MPEG2 data stream. The "Off The Air" HDTV broadcasts are 19.3Mbps, and the satellites are usually in the same ballpark (they can do higher bit rates, but from what I have heard it is often ~15Mbps).

The Tivo will just copy the transport stream to the hard drive, the same way a DirecTivo does today. No loss in quality, and very low CPU requirements.

Re:Hmm

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Doesn't this limit how long you can keep a recording? I mean, in a few months the video decrypt keys have been rotated, and no longer exist in the stream for the old programming. Or am I missing something?

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

The first TiVos that came out, in 1999, only had 14 hours (unless you wanted to spend over a grand, to get the 30 hour).

Twenty hours is plenty, esp. considerly the limited amount of HDTV content out there. Most of the shows and channels I watch won't be available in digital, much less HD, for many, many years from now.

Re:Hmm

[jedidiah]

Twenty hours is fine if you can keep on top of things and want to record everything that Tivo brings back for you. OTOH, you can store a lot of movies if you have a bigger unit. You can also be pickier about what you finally do watch. You can record 10 or 20 episodes of your favorite shows and only watch the ones you really want to.

A larger TiVO also makes it easier to accomodate a household with wildly divergent tastes. A larger Tivo can also store things more indefinitely if your freetime is less predicatble.

Re:Hmm

[quecojones]

Maybe it'll have RAID w/multiple drives...

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, no. Uncompressed 1080i is 1.5GB/s. Networks then use lossless compression to get it down to about 45MB/s and send it over C or Ku band to the affiliates. The affiliates then use lossy compression to get it down to about 19.5MB/s which then goes over the air.

Is this really good though

[Jack Wagner]

I think the specs for HDTV call for about three times the RAM usage for storing data as opposed to their analog counterparts. I think you'll need to probably update your entire motherboard in that case because the current TiVo's memory bus speed isn't upgradable to the new FSB specs.

Bascially this means that all the current Tivo users will be forced to upgrade or either throw away the unit they already bought because it will be essentially useless.

Warmest regards,
--Jack

Re:Is this really good though

[Neon Spiral Injector]

Yeah...and... The TiVo that they have now, doesn't have an HD tuner, or any way to connect it to an external tuner. So you'd be limited to the analog out of an external tuner, which isn't HD, and doesn't require more bandwidth and storage.

So, yes, of course you'll have to buy an HD enabled TiVo if you want to record HDTV.

Re:Is this really good though

[Hirofyre]

And with that upgrade, you lose your "life-time" subscription, since it will be tied to your old box. Basically, the break-even point on the lifetime subscription versus the pay-as-you-go is about two years, if I remember correctly. I'm not sure that many people on this upgrade path will make the break-even point.

Re:Is this really good though

[miltimj]

No kidding, not mention there's no component/progressive out or HD tuner..

Re:Is this really good though

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not entirely true. There are a few people (like me) who got the lifetime subscription during a time when it wasn't entirely clear - lifetime of the box vs. my lifetime. As a result, we have the option of a single-time transfer to another system.

This only applies to systems that were activated quite a ways back - I think before some magic date in January 2000. Mine was activated just before that, and it's still going, so it's been costing them money for quite some time now.

It's exciting news - I'm already planning to put up an antenna for my ATSC locals and the third (110) LNB for the rest of the satellite programming.

Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been waiting to get an HDTV receiver for this. Joy.

Why have you been waiting to get and HDTV receiver for HDTV enabled TiVO? Tivo exists to support your viewing experience, not the other way around.

Re:Why?

[jedidiah]

Once a PVR has liberated your viewing habits, you simply don't have any interest in going back to the old kind of TV.

Tivo ruins you for regular TV.

Interested

[Aknaton]

I am interested in Tivo but I really do not like the fact the Tivo requires a subscription. Will the Tivo operate with no subscription?

Re:Interested

[avalys]

The subscription is only for the program guide data. You can still pause/rewind/fast forward live TV, and schedule recordings manually, without a subscription.

There are ways to get the guide data into the Tivo without a subscription, from third-party sources, though I've never tried to on my unit.

Re:Interested

[Samurai Cat!]

Yes, it will, but it's a mere shadow of it's normal self. The schedule listings (what you get with the subscription) are, IMHO, one of the core goodies. You can still manually schedule recordings and watch them, but they all show up as (this isn't verbatim) "Manual Recording (date/time)" in the recorded program listing, as opposed to what the show name is. Makes finding the one show out of however many you've got sitting a real pain.

On the HDTV thing... I wonder if they'll make this available to the old Series 1 units. I kind of doubt it... I imagine there's hardware issues involved. *sigh* Hopefully they'll offer some sort of half-decent trade-up program though.

Re:Interested

[Neon Spiral Injector]

All recent TiVo software releases require a subscription.

But with DirecTiVo if you pick up the larger DirecTV channel packages you get the TiVo service included.

Re:Interested

[Anonymous Coward]

Just buy a life time subscription and pretend it is part of the price of the box. I don't know why people get so bent out of shape over the subscription. When I buy these items, I just count the life time subscription as part of the cost, then evaluate if I want to pay that much. Saying the subscription cost too much seems silly to me. It's only the total cost that matters. It should make no difference what the company pretends it's paying for.

Re:Interested

[splink splink]

If you have a direct TiVo, the subscription cost is only $4.95 a month. And I think it's worth every penny. It gives you the ability to see show listings and descriptions up to two weeks in advance and see what's happening at the top of the hour or next/any hour across all channels when you're actually watching live TV. The directory is the second most important feature I miss when I travel (the first being all the standard TiVo pause, fast forward, etc. features). TiVo really isn't TiVo without the directory information and it's a small price to pay for great convenience.

Re:Interested

[Ciannait]

Only with certain versions of the software, and with certain hardware.

With newer versions, and units such as the Series2, the unit will go into "boat-anchor mode" (their terminology) if the unit has not been able to make a call for about a month. At that point, you can watch what you've already got recorded, but not much else.

Re:Interested

[Arthur Dent]

Not any more. The latest Tivos (series II) do not work without a subscription.

Re:Interested

[McSpew]

The subscription is only for the program guide data. You can still pause/rewind/fast forward live TV, and schedule recordings manually, without a subscription.

This is no longer true. DirecTV models have always required a subscription (ridiculously cheap at $4.99 per month for up to 8 TiVo units or free with some DirecTV programming packages) and standalone units have required a subscription since they began shipping with the 2.0 software. All Series 2 TiVos require subscriptions.

Anybody who complains about the TiVo subscription might as well cancel their cable or satellite subscriptions because they pay more for cable or satellite subscriptions and those alone won't bring someone the immense functionality and satisfaction a TiVo will.

Re:Interested

[Tim Macinta]

The subscription is only for the program guide data.

It will also get you more recent versions of the software than runs your TiVo, so you'll get new features and bug fixes with the subscription as well.

Re:Interested

[martyn s]

Two weeks? I have Tivo with digital cable and I can only see up to 10 days in advance. Does the DirecTivo service let you see more? Or are you just calling 10 days "two weeks".

Re:Interested

[jerrytcow]

You can still pause/rewind/fast forward live TV

Wow, it can fast forward live TV? Does it create some sort of wormhole to grab TV signals out of the future?

I might get one just so I'll know the outcome of football games before they're over. I might be able to finally pay off my student loan.

Re:Interested

[Viewsonic]

Yup. Just hit pause.. let it buffer the live tv signal .. then fastforward to the current time.

Jackass.

Re:Interested

[Moofie]

Unfortunately, most of those "new features" seem to be restrictions of unsubscribed functionality.

So that's not a good thing.

I now have a pet peeve. I am tired of paying $MONEY for a product (Tivo, Everquest, whatever) and then paying $money every month to keep it working. Make up your mind...want to sell a subscription service? Do it. Want to sell a product? Great. I am not willing to let you (the vendor) have it both ways.

I really love the idea of TiVo...I just don't love the idea of paying $12/mo for it.

Re:Interested

[Tattva]

Two weeks? I have Tivo with digital cable and I can only see up to 10 days in advance. Does the DirecTivo service let you see more? Or are you just calling 10 days "two weeks".

Yup. It appears the data is downloaded from the satellite rather than through the phone line, so it is a different system than the dial-up guide. Probably explains why they were able to lower the subscription price: fewer phone calls. I have noticed a couple of deficiencies, though: It doesn't list the directors of movies in the movie description text (although the data is in some hidden field because you can still do a director search with wishlists) and the descriptions are sometimes written as if an Attention Deficit Disorder crack addict watched 10 seconds of the movie and extrapolated the plot from that.

Re:Interested

[good-n-nappy]

I've been on a quest since two days ago to find an answer to a related question. What I wondered is "How cheap can I get a device with Tivo like functionality with no future costs?"

Option 1:
Baseline Tivo/ReplayTV: $200
Lifetime subscription: $250 (also note that the lifetime subscription only applies to this device - if you buy a new Tivo you need a new subscription)
Total: $450

Option 2:
Build your own. Assuming you don't care about size and form factor (which you probably do) you can just get a bargain basement PC. There are some 700-800MHz jobbies starting at $200 but these are pretty marginal in terms of being able to encode video to disk. So you probably want to step up to one of the slightly better $300 base PCs. Then you have to get a video capture card and remote control card. If you go really cheap, you can get both for about $100. Assuming you use free software, you can get a working system for $400. But this is on the extremely low end with no thought to asthetics or quality parts. I'd say you can get a nice looking, reasonable quality system for $650.
Total: $400-$650+

Option 3:
A Panasonic DVD recorder. You really need the one with a harddrive to do Tivo well but you also get a nice side benefit that you can record to removable media.
Total: $1000

Option 4:
Buy one of the many Media centers. The alienware shuttle is a nice one. Anyway, they all start in the same ballpark as far as cost.
Total: $1700

Given my analysis, a standard Tivo/ReplayTV is still hard to beat at $450 if you are strictly interested in the Tivo functions. If you build your own, you can get a lot more functions like MP3 jukebox, recording to removable media, etc...

Does anybody know of any other options?

Re:Interested

[jroysdon]

The DirecTV TiVos have no subscription fee as of a few months ago. You pay the standard $5/month receiver fee that you'd pay for any other DirecTV receiver on an account.

Life-Time subscriptions are no longer available for the DirecTV TiVos, but if you have one you never have to pay the $5/month receiver fee for that unit.

Re:Interested

[jandrese]

If it has reviews for most things, then you're doing better than Tivo dialup, espeically for TV episodes. There are three different description types on Tivo:

1. No/useless description. Often times a single word like "comedy"
2. Stock description. Southpark: the adventures of 4 boys in South Park Colorado
3. Or the written description, sometimes of dubious accuracy. In particular, Samurai Jack never seems to have the correct description for the episode.

I blame this more on the people who supply Tivo with their guide data though.

Re:Interested

[Bradley Batt]

You don't have to pay monthly there is a $250 "lifetime" (for the life of the TiVo) subscription. This is a great option if you want to avoid the monthly bills (and you break even after only two years).

For DirecTiVo, as pointed out, you only need one subscription (for the first receiver). The second (and third and so on) receiver is only $4.99 a month, which is DirecTVs charge for an additional "mirrored" receiver anyway (even if it is not a TiVo). [Separate standalone boxes still require a subscription]

The DirecTiVos are the best deal, IMHO, because they do not have the MPEG encoders (they record the DirecTV signal directly). So, they are much cheater about $99 instead of $399. Plus, it always records at the highest quality. Standalone boxes have 4 different qualities and the basic (which the hours are rated at -- i.e. 60-hour TiVo) is unwatchable IMHO.

Re:Interested

[Sloppy]

From a dollars point of view, you can avoid a subscription by buying the "lifetime service" for an extra couple hundred dollars, fixed. Then you don't have a monthly billing thing going on anymore.

From a dependency point of view, using the Tivo machine without the Tivo's service, isn't very nice. The Tivo will "operate" but very poorly. If you're not going to use the service (regardless of how you approach the billing), don't buy a Tivo. I wouldn't be too surprised if the other commercial PVRs are similar in this aspect.

Re:Interested

[DivideByZero]

The ability to record WHAT I want, WHEN I want, and use it HOW I want, even after the *AA buys themselves the entire goverment? ...Priceless.

Personally, I'm waiting for either a good deal on a decent tuner card, or general prices to come down - But I don't watch enough television to make the wait difficult. (Hell, I don't even have an antenna installed at this point.) Would be nice to watch CSI with, though

Oh, another option - Two or three sub-$100 VCRs, controlled by a cheap *IX server running for input/output/scheduling.

Re:Interested

[ryanvm]

Well, you can do what I did and plunk down $200 for the Lifetime subscription. Mine's already paid for itself (I've had it for two years), depending on your luck, yours may or may not. You definitely want to buy a primo surge protector if you lifetime sub your machine.

Of course that brings the price of a 40 hour TiVo from $199 to $399. Which , coincidentally, is in the neighborhood of comparable ReplayTVs which don't require a subscription.

Re:Interested

[Xarin]

Yeah it sure does. I have this and it is a great help to watch the news in advance and plan my week accordingly. Right now I am off to buy some shovels, concrete and gas masks before the big rush.

Re:Interested

[good-n-nappy]

Yeah, I actually do the VCR thing right now. Except its only one VCR controlled by a cheap human. The quality might not be great, but since I don't have cable, the extra fuzz just blends right in ;)

The one limitation of VCRs though is that you can't really shift a show by a few minutes. You have to wait till its over to start watching it.

Re:Interested

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, don't blame Tivo for not having descriptions for new South Park episodes.

The quality of animation for SP is such that they can, and frequently do, produce the episodes very close to the last minute... this is also in line with the slacker attitudes of the creative team. The program guide services sometimes don't have a chance to get the plot summary to make it out before the program airs.

Re:Interested

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it's not exactly 'live TV' anymore at that point, is it? And why did you sign your message 'Jackass' when your nick is Viewsonic? Although the former is certainly more apropro...

Re:Interested

[Anonymous Coward]

What makes you think anyway cares what you watch? I know I personally wouldn't pay one cent to find out what you or anyone else watched on TV tonight. Aggregate data, sure, but individual? Nobody wants it.

Re:Interested

[martyn s]

Same thing with The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. I can't reliably record episodes with a season pass since I don't generally want 4 copies recorded every day. I could just have it save a maximum of one episode a day, but then I don't want it pre-empting other shows. If it had a description it wouldn't record the same episode twice in a day.

Re:Interested

[jandrese]

Yeah, even just the airdate (today's date for current shows, or ther original date for repeats) would be sufficent for the Daily Show. They should know if they're going to run a repeat or not. I've had to set up a manual recording for the Daily show to avoid that, but sometimes the show moves around unexpectedly. Grr.

Re:Interested

[martyn s]

Yeah, that's true! They should at least have the airdate. I guess they don't even know in advance whether they're going to show a repeat or not.

Re:Interested

[pelican317]

I think the "boat-anchor" terminology comes from a Sixth Circuit case on contracts of adhesion and EULA's. J. Posner, in his opinion, quiped that without software and the license for the software a piece of hardware's only purpose is "as a boat-anchor." The phrase is often repeated in law when dealing with technology. Just a little off-topic trivia.

Just out of curiousity...

[MasterSLATE]

If you remember, a few days ago I was talking about Dish Network's weak grasp on the market... Does this mean that DirecTV will now completely own the market? Or is Dish Network also supporting HDTV (and consequently TiVo)?

Re:Just out of curiousity...

[mgs1000]

Echostar just announced an HDTV-capable DishPlayer PVR at CES. And it won an award, too.
Link is here

Re:Just out of curiousity...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you remember, a few days ago I was talking about Dish Network's weak grasp on the market...

I remember! I remember! I only read slashdot for your insightful comments, mighty MasterSlate! /sarcasm

Re:Just out of curiousity...

[mgs1000]

Unfortunately the rumor is that Echostar will start charging $9.99/month for PVR service when then current special (free PVR service) expires this June. I wouldn't put it past Charlie.

Re:Just out of curiousity...

[Anonymous Coward]

The DirecTivos also record the signal with out reencoding, in fact the DirecTivo's do not have an encoder, one of the reasons they are cheaper than a stand alone Tivo

Re:Just out of curiousity...

[karmawarrior]

If you remember, a few days ago I was talking about Dish Network's weak grasp on the market.

And I thought it was very insightful too. I wrote a good critique here. A critical problem though that DN needs to get past if it's to progress in terms of market share, was something you didn't raise: namely the crippling effect of the DMCA. Dish Network has problems getting out of a rutt where, by all reasonable standards, cable companies have the upper hand. Cable companies do not have the same kinds of limitations when it comes to decoding multiple channels, they have two-way infrastructure, and they have the capabilities of adding non-television services such as telephony and broadband Internet services to their arsenals.

Dish Network can only get beyond this point by making use of its relatively niche position to create specialised services such as PVR integration systems built into its decoders, and such. This, however, requires changes - it is content providers that restrict the use of equipment to view and record content, and, with the DMCA, the content producers have the final say. If they want to enforce a "no record" bit, Dish Network's equipment must enforce it, regardless of how useless such a tool would be.

This quagmire of Dish Network offering nothing but a wider choice of channels and cheaper programming to compete against entrenched cable monopolies will not disappear by itself. Unless people are prepared to actually act, not just talk about it on Slashdot, nothing will ever get done. Apathy is not an option.

You can help by getting off your rear and writing GPL'd content parsing code which uses the DMCA in nasty ways in order to discredit it. Write code that makes it impossible to use it to produce encrypted, DMCA protected, content, but at the same time enforces little limitations upon its use. Appreciate the work being done by groups like Ogg Tarkin but that if these systems are shipped with DRM systems, such as Real intends to do with Helix, use less and less secure and intelligently designed alternatives. Get SMP working in OpenBSD so that you can efficiently deploy that operating systems on your workstations and servers. Think about freedom, openness, and choice, and work to create software that protects all three. This is an issue that effects YOU directly, YOU code, and that your code is dependent on opened systems.

You CAN make a difference. Don't treat coding as a right, treat it as a duty. Keep your skills up to date, keep writing great code that makes the world a better place. And, most importantly of all, code.

Re:Just out of curiousity...

[Artifex]

One of the advantages of the DishPVRs is that there is no subscription fee on top of the monthly fee for satellite TV. They also record the signal directly to the hard drive without re-encoding, resulting in no loss of picture quality. This should make it cheaper than a comparable TiVo since it doesn't need the hardware to encode HDTV signals.

Current DirecTivos (or, sorry, "DirecTV with Tivo") have no monthly fee if you subscribe to one of their biggest packages. They also record the streams directly. I suspect that the HD-DirecTV models will, as well. I'm sure DirecTV will try to price competitively with their main satellite competitor, don't you? Also, there's a very large hacker community established for Tivos in general. Can you copy the data from your DishPVR directly to your PC?

Re:Just out of curiousity...

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, all of the DirectTivos have 2 tuners, and are significantly cheaper than the stand alone units due to them not having any enconding hardware.

Re:Just out of curiousity...

[/dev/trash]

That's what I need to know as well. I have DISH and I want a PVR. I want a PVR that I can save the streams to VCD.

Re:Just out of curiousity...

[/dev/trash]

Awww come on, DISH has been pretty good about prices, I can't complain.

Re:Just out of curiousity...

[zeoslap]

The DirecTivo also records the signal directly to the hard drive.

Re:Just out of curiousity...

[zrodney]

"in fact the DirecTivo's do not have an encoder"

which means that they can't record signals off the air or off regular cable, only the digital satellite channels.

I get my local stations from basic cable and the hbo, etc from satellite, so I have a normal tivo which can both record satellite and broadcast cable. The satellite is re-digitized though I think.

When I first bought a tivo a couple years ago, I got the directivo which sounded like a great thing, but it couldn't record any local stuff. So, no news, no network shows. back it went.

Re:Just out of curiousity...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, God forbid you have to have two TiVos, one for locals, the other for DirecTV. Perish the thought.

Re:Just out of curiousity...

[CaptainStormfield]

Does anyone know if the DishPVR units (specifically the 501 or the 508) can be upgraded by installing a larger hard drive? I've googled a bit, but can't find any info on such a modification.

wow, all I need is a HDTV to watch it on...

[otis wildflower]

... goddamned recession.. I WANT MY TOYS!!!

Seriously though, time warner in nyc (at least in my 'hood) recently introduced HD-capable boxes and a range of channels (7XX) in HD, including the local broadcast networks and HBO.. IIRC the HD boxes are priced the same as the normal digital boxes and can be swapped with an office visit..

Then again, the next round of upgrades includes an HD-ready set _and_ a new receiver (to handle Xbox, PS2 digital connections).. damn lack of motivation...

More announcements from the CES...

[xTK-421x]

Toshiba DVD-R + Tivo box

Remote scheduling, intra-tivo video sharing, and MP3/JPG display on Series2 Boxes

Re:More announcements from the CES...

[swb]

Unless I didn't pay attention, it doesn't say if it was a DVD-R drive, just that it would combine a DVD and a Tivo.

Re:More announcements from the CES...

[Viewsonic]

You don't read well, it is a built in DVD\DVR drive. The R is Recordable. So yes, it will burn stuff to DVDs right from the Tivo portion. This will be an incredible device!!

Re:More announcements from the CES...

[Tattva]

You don't read well, it is a built in DVD\DVR drive. The R is Recordable. So yes, it will burn stuff to DVDs right from the Tivo portion. This will be an incredible device!!

Despite the arrogant and insulting tone of your assertion, the press release does not say that. DVR is an abbreviation for Digital Video Recorder. It merely means it records to a hard drive. Maybe I'm just rising to the profered flamebait, but please make sure you're right before insulting others for being wrong.

Re:More announcements from the CES...

[xTK-421x]

You are correct sir, I read what someone else wrote, but didn't actually check the release myself. When reading the actual release, it says nothing about the DVD-R, except that they've already released a box with a HD and DVD-R that doesn't have Tivo. Checking the Tivo Community, this was an eyewitness to the prototype box at the show:

"Well, the newest entry to the TiVo product family is the new Toshiba media server unit, which includes a DVD player and a TiVo in one unit. It should be available this fall in the $500-$600 price range. It has component outputs coupled with its progressive-scan DVD player so this TiVo may be one of the best PQ units yet. The DVD player functionality is integrated in the TiVo UI with a "Play DVD" option on TiVo Central (not the exact wording, but something similar). The physical looks of this unit has got to be the best looking TiVo yet as well. Otherwise though, it will be a standard 4.0 Series 2 with an 80GB HDD. An excellent purchase if someone is looking to get rid of another box, or have something very stylish on their TV instead of the current look of TiVos."

My apologies for not double checking the info. A combo DVD-R+Tivo is a great idea, but I guess one they are afraid to explore.

Re:More announcements from the CES...

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought this was interesting, though I'm curious to know who'd buy such a thing:

The radium powered PVR will be on sale in the fifth quarter of 2003, a spokesman for the company said. The device boasts 120G of disk space, the ability to burn a Windows Media compatable stream of any television program onto a recordable CD-R CD, and is powered by a radium gas filled cannister which, according to the company, provides enough power to allow the unit to stay in continuous operation for five years, burning an average of three CDs each day.

"Radium has a half life of two thousand years", explained Francis Howitzer, Chief Technologist of RTV. "A small amount of gas, coupled with a protonic neutron exchanger, is enough to power the unit, for all intents and purposes, indefinitely. Neutrons pass through a sandwich of gold, copper, and gold again, generating an electric current between the two. This builds up continuously, and so is fed into two rechargable batteries which actually power the PVR.

"We developed the PVR in cooperation with AOL Time Warner", Howitzer explained, "after they reported two major issues with those produced by ReplayTV and TiVo, namely a lack of capacity and portability of the programs stored, and the fact the units usually fail during power outages, completely compromising their ability to record television programs."

The PVR, the TK-531992, will be sold at outlets such as Best Buy, Circuit City, and Dollar General, at a price to be determined expected to be under $10,000.

Re:More announcements from the CES...

[questionlp]

According to the second paragraph of the press release:

A pioneer in DVD technology and products, Toshiba has been a driving force in consumer adoption of the DVD format and continues to demonstrate a commitment to offering advanced configurations of the technology. Most recently, the company introduced the industry's first DVD-RAM/HDD (80G) recorder, model RD-X2, in response to consumers' growing interest in recording programs on a hard disk drive and storing on a large capacity digital disc. Toshiba also offers a full line of DVD players with features such as ColorStream Pro® progressive scan, Digital Photo Viewer and DVD-Audio playback (all features not available on all models).

It looks like it's both a TiVo DVR plus a DVD-RAM (it doesn't say if it can support standard DVD-R or if it's just DVD-RAM) recorder. Why DVD-RAM? I think it's allows one to delete a file from the disc and be able to record data into that spot like you could with a hard drive, rather than burning in sessions and finalizing the sessions... which can be a big PIA at times.

Directv channels

[mgs1000]

Now if only DirecTV would add more HDTV channels...

Screw that, I want G4!

Re:Directv channels

[gergi]

No you don't. I thought it would be cool having a video game channel but G4 is terrible . Hopefully, some one else will come up with a better version or G4 will get their act together...

Space Issues?

[Quaoar]

Now I'll be able to record the first 5 minutes of my favorite HDTV program!

Re:Space Issues?

[mgs1000]

Yeah, but you'll be able to watch it up to 90 minutes after you recorded it!

Re:Space Issues?

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Now I'll be able to record the first 5 minutes of my favorite HDTV program!

I recognize that this is funny, but all the TiVo has to do is record the compressed bitstream, much like the Direct Tivo. Even on DirectTivo, recording the bitstream is higher quality and saves space over recording and encoding an analog signal.

Compression

[Templar]

Hmm.. normal compressed streams from the networks come in at about 19Mb/sec. Even taking it down to 15 hurts the image. It will take an awful lot of disk space to store movies.

That said, I'm greatly looking forward to it -- the only other solution, DVHS is buggy and expensive.

This combined with the new ESPN-HD channel will make my TV purchase worthwhile...

Re:Compression

[mr. methane]

Tivo already compresses (with user-selected options) regular TV. Their "best" setting hurts the image a little. The "basic" is something you'd want to use for talk shows where image quality and color are not the most important thing.

I'd imagine that some pretty smart engineers can still get a good HD image (maybe not quite up to my 65" set, but at least on the 40") while being able to compress reasonably.

CSI is the only network show that I actually know what time it's on, because I do like to watch it in HD. Everything else gets tivo'ed.

But, I don't really like watching truly gory stuff while the kids are still awake, so being able to time-shift it would be a great advantage.

Re:Compression

[nedron]

"Hmm.. normal compressed streams from the networks come in at about 19Mb/sec. Even taking it down to 15 hurts the image."

That's one of the problems with most cable and satellite HD delivery. They generally deliver a signal in the 15Mb/s range. Assuming you get good local UHF reception, you're often better off relying on your local broadcasts when available.

As for this comment:

"DVHS is buggy and expensive"

What are you talking about? D-VHS decks can be had for well under $500, can record 4 hours of FULL HD content, or 24 hours of standard def on a single tape. Newer decks even keep track of what's been recorded on each tape to make things easy to find. Name another currently available consumer friendly HD recorder that you can purchase for under $500 right now.

D-VHS has been around for years and I'm unaware of any problems in the underlying technology. Are you sure you're not referring to a specific issue (ie. JVC's problems with their D-Theatre 30K unit)?

The other benefit of the D-VHS platform is that, for the foreseeable future, it is the only way to purchase pre-recorded HD movies. In fact, most of the D-Theatre titles currently available actually run at the same data rate as the studio masters, 28.2Mb/s. This is a significantly higher MPEG2 datarate than the 19.36 used by HD, nearly half again as fast.

Re:Compression

[uradu]

> D-VHS decks can be had for well under $500

Where exactly? A quick search only finds two brands, JVC and Hughes. Pricegrabber only lists the JVC, and at over $600. And please don't say eBay.

Re:Compression

[nedron]

Best Buy recently had the Mitsubishi D-VHS deck on sale for around $425. It's normally $499.

JVC's rolling an upgrade to the 30K in February, and another of the D-VHS licensees (Hughes, RCA, Phillips, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, and Hitachi are all licensees, among others, that have produced D-VHS decks) is expected to announce a D-Theatre enabled deck at CES. The new JVC D-Theatre deck is reported to have an MSRP of $799, which is what the current model is currently marked down to (original MSRP was almost $1500 if I remember correctly).

Over Due!

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been bugging them for over a year on this. All the major networks including FOX and WB have digital signals on the air here in LA with the amount of true HDTV programming increasing almost weekly. FOX playoff games were in HD and the Superbowl will be in HD! Only challenge is I hope they include enought HDD. HDTV/MPEG4 is ~9Gb/hour. The current ~80Gb units would mean about 9 hours of HD recording...

Re:Over Due!

[JoshMKiV]

Fox does not utilize HDTV, only 480p, 16x9. "HDTV" is above 480 --> 720p or 1080i. 480p is better, but not HD.

Re:Over Due!

[AGTiny]

Hehe whatever you do don't say that Fox is broadcasting HD or you will be endlessly flamed! Fox is a total joke with their "high resolution" TV that is basically on par with DVD resolution.

Watch the upcoming 4 HD NFL games (all remaining AFC games on CBS and Superbowl on ABC) and compare that to Fox's NFC games if you want to see how bad Fox really is.

Re:Over Due!

[Brad Wilson]

This isn't really possible, since 480p is 4x3, not 16x9. I don't live in LA, so I don't know what they're actually doing, but it's not "16x9 480p". The title for 480p is SDTV (as opposed to HDTV). Still digital, still much cleaner picture, but not high resolution.

Re:Over Due!

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI, HDTV is MPEG2 not 4

Hmm.. this will be interesting..

[Maeryk]

Luckily, my Toshiba 57" has two component inputs.. so hopefully this will use the other one, and my 2/3 pulldown DVD can still occupy the one it has.

It will be nice to see what this TV looks like with HDTV through it.. but I have DirectTV and Im somewhat nervous. We havent even been able to get good analog satellite recently, lots of chunking and black framing on the picture. I sure hope it isnt significantly worse with an HD signal.

That being said, I *love* directv.. its way better than our local monop^h^h^h^hcable company,
and the TiVO rules.. I only watch the commercials I _want_ to watch now.

On a side note.. has anyone noticed that the commercials seem to be getting much more "grabby" at the beginning, possibly to get people to notice while they have it on the third forward speed as they zip by? I have actually had to stop and watch a few, just because they piqued my curiosity.

Not lookin forwrd to the triple LNB dish and all the holes Im gonna have to drill however.

Maeryk

Re:Hmm.. this will be interesting..

[k3v0]

i've noticed recently that more commercials also have phones ringing, and every time i hear one when i'm not staring at the tv i look around and see if my phones are ringing, and then i curse the commercial

Now if they would only support broadband

[alen]

I'd love to get a Tivo, but I'm not about to spend money running a phone line to it. I would be very happy if I could just plug it into my network and have it update itself via my DSL connection that 3 other PC's share. Currently they only support ATT Broadband in their products.

Re:Now if they would only support broadband

[Samurai Cat!]

You can.

http://www.9thtee.com/

Look for the TurboNet card. Cheap, a snap to install. I don't even have a home phone line anymore.

Re:Now if they would only support broadband

[markpg]

..then you want a replayTV.

Re:Now if they would only support broadband

[Ciannait]

They do support broadband, in their Series2 DVRs. There are USB ports, which you can hook up a USB->Ethernet adapter. Once you've done that, you just give a different dialing code, and it grabs an address via DHCP and does all its downloads over your broadband.

There's a bunch of information on how to do this if you do some searching at http://www.tivocommunity.com.

Re:Now if they would only support broadband

[entrager]

TiVo is adding support for USB->ethernet connection in April this year. It will come with the new software that all Series2 TiVo users will get.

That's when the OFFICIAL support comes out. Unofficially TiVo can use a USB->Ethernet adaptor now. You set your dialing prefix to ,#401 and it will use ethernet instead of the phone line. VERY nice.

Re:Now if they would only support broadband

[nvrrobx]

You can use the serial connection on the back of your TiVo to handle connections.

My Series 1 DirecTiVo runs a serial connection to a FreeBSD box, and it does its PPP connection that way. Dig around on http://www.tivocommunity.com and you'll find the instructions for this. Basically, you plug in the serial cable with a null modem adapter to a Linux/FreeBSD (or even Windows) box, change your dial prefix in TiVo to ,#211 then start pppd and tell the TiVo to dial out.

You dont understand what TiVo provides

[rtphokie]

Without TiVo, I have to watch when they say I'll watch. Improved picture & sound quality is not worth giving up the control TiVo provides.

Not yet

[stratjakt]

I can't get past paying a subscription to record TV on top of the subscription I already pay to watch TV.

Nope. Not gonna do it.

Everything is switching to a subscription based service.

Maybe a few bucks a month for TiVo isn't much, but one day when you have to subscribe to a service to use your 'digital' radio, microwave, fridge, video game console, shoes, toothbrush, you name it, we'll end up with the average joe having the same amount of technology in his home as he did in the 30's.

Digital technologies are supposed to make products cheaper - yet they seem to be doing the opposite.

Can't support TiVo. I can see paying for convenient TV listings, but the ability to record/timeshift should come straight out of the box.

Re:Not yet

[SuiteSisterMary]

You're not paying a subscription to record TV.

You're paying a subscription for a well-updated TV guide, and software updates.

You need never give TiVo any money other than to buy the hardware; if, however, you want the value added services, you pays for them.

Hey, it's better than just auto-bundelling the price into the cost of the unit, aye?

Re:Not yet

[stratjakt]

But that's just it, I don't WANT a well-updated TV guide, nor any software updates.

If I want a service that tells me what shows I like, then I'd pay for it. But I dont want nor need that.

I want a device to record Cartoon Network from 10:00-11:00 PM on sundays so I dont miss Aqua Teen Hunger Force. And I won't pay ongoing fees to do it. I already pay a monthly fee for the channel, I'm not going to be double billed to record it.

I don't want a service - I want a device to perform a task. You shouldn't have to pay ongoing fees just to use a device you bought.

Would you pay 30 bucks a month to Intel/AMD to be able to use your CPU?

Re:Not yet

[Degobah]

>>Can't support TiVo. I can see paying for convenient TV listings, but the ability to record/timeshift should come straight out of the box. Which is EXACTLY what it does

Re:Not yet

[Ciannait]

Besides, if you've got DirecTV and their Total Choice Premier package, the TiVo subscription fee is waived. (Or, included in the package, if you prefer to look at it that way.)

Either way, a TiVo subscription for a DirecTV DVR is all of $4.99 with their less-inclusive packages. If you can afford a TiVo, you can afford $4.99 a month.

Re:Not yet

[benjiboo]

I'm confused. I thought that without the subscriptions, the unit was nothing more than a doorstop?

Hey, it's better than just auto-bundelling the price into the cost of the unit, aye?

Here in the UK we have a choice of paying for the lifetime subscription. I'm tempted by this- but the rumours that the firm might go bankrupt have held me back so far.... :(

Re:Not yet

[stratjakt]

Like I said, it's not a matter of affording it.

You could probably afford 5$ a month to wear Calvin Klein underpants too - but would you pay it?

You pay subscriptions to services, not to use a device. I don't want the service, I want a box to record cartoons.

Make it an option.

This is like Microsoft forcing you to pay a subscription to MSN to use the XBox whether you need it or not. Maybe that will appeal to /. sensitivities.

Re:Not yet

[SuiteSisterMary]

Negative. You just don't get most of the power of the unit; but you can still use it as a 'digital VCR;' tell it to record such and such a channel at such and such a time, and watch it go.

What you *can't* tell it to do at that point is 'record all new episodes of Law and Order, no matter what channel they're on' and 'I really really like Law and Order, so if there's free space/time, record similar things' and the like.

Re:Not yet

[stratjakt]

"TiVo DVR is intended for use only with a paid subscription to the TiVo service. Without the TiVo service, a TiVo DVR has extremely limited functionality. No functionality is represented or should be expected. Receipt of TiVo service is subject to the terms of the TiVo Service Agreement. TiVo service is accessed through a standard telephone line and is available as a local call in most areas. In some areas, local and long-distance toll charges may apply. "

Current models I guess do work without the subscription, but there's absolutely no guarantee going in that the device will even power on without a subscription.

Re:Not yet

[Ciannait]

Well, the service is actually incredible. Have you used it? There's so many features, I can't get into a lot of detail here.

Essentially, a TiVo without the service is about as useful as a VCR. Which is to say, not terribly. The service is worth the money.

Re:Not yet

[miltimj]

Sheesh, then buy a friggin VCR. If you want ease of use, suck up the $400 and be done with it.

Re:Not yet

[stratjakt]

>> Essentially, a TiVo without the service is about as useful as a VCR.

All I want is a VCR.

If the service is worth the money, pay for it. To you it is, to me - who watches maybe 3 hours of TV a week - it isn't.

As long as TiVos fine print reads "Without the TiVo service, a TiVo DVR has extremely limited functionality. No functionality is represented or should be expected.", no dice. Basically that says "we reserve the right to make your TiVo a doorstop if the monthly cheques stop coming in."

And all the downmodding and slashvertisements in the world won't convince me otherwise.

I don't get it. We wouldnt accept clauses like that in any other software/hardware EULA - what's so special about TiVo that their business practices are above criticism?

Re:Not yet

[Lil'wombat]

I though so too at one time, especially with the $12/month that Tivo charges. But then I went with the DirectTV Tivo, and I pay $4.99 a month - same as to activate another decoder box.

Re:Not yet

[tmark]

I want a device to record Cartoon Network from 10:00-11:00 PM on sundays so I dont miss Aqua Teen Hunger ...You shouldn't have to pay ongoing fees just to use a device you bought.

And yet, you pay money for cable TV/satellite so that you can use the TV you bought ?

Re:Not yet

[Anonymous Coward]

again thanks for the FUD...

you CANNOT SET THE CLOCK ON A TIVO.. without letting it dial home and allowing tivo to modify your machine willy-nilly and add bother you to death advertising.. like they do to the non subscribers now.

TIVO lie #1 - use it without the service.. they dont tell you that 1/2 the regualr features that DO NOT REQUIRE the service data are disabled as an "incentive" to get you to buy the subscription.

TivO? never.. I wont own one. I like my phillips vidoe recorded /dvd recorder that has a 20 hour HDD inside that does a great job and I can DUMP to DVD for friends or myself.

Re:Not yet

[Lumpy]

And yet, you pay money for cable TV/satellite so that you can use the TV you bought ?
you are stupid arent you.

if you take that TV off the cable and put a revolutionary device I like to call and "antenna" on it it can "recieve" a revolutionary thing called "broadcast" television. I think this "idea" will sweep the nation as people wont have to "pay" for TV broadcasts.

as soon as you show me a TV that will not work at all without a pay subscription to cable or sattelite i'll agree with you. until then you are just someone who is really silly and fun to point at and laugh.

Re:Not yet

[LordNimon]

You're right - without a subscription, the box is a doorstop.

I bought my lifetime membership almost 3 years ago. At that time, people were also saying that the company might go bankrupt. So I wouldn't worry about the rumors. Just spend the extra $250 (or whatever it costs in the UK) and be happy!

TiVo service is now free...

[ErnstKompressor]

for Directv subscribers who have at least a $35 a month service package and use a combo Directv/TiVo reciever -- we had an older phillips combo unit that we had payed the lifetime subscription for, and we just got bought the same type of unit branded by Hughes and discovered the inclusion of TiVo service for free.

Re:TiVo service is now free...

[pjl5602]

No, that's not quite correct. You get the DirecTV PVR service for free with the "Total Choice Premiere" package which is something like $85/month.

Otherwise it's $5 per month for up to 8 PVRs or some other ungodly number of DirecTV enabled TiVos.

The reason that you don't pay is that I suspect your lifetime subscription on the Phillips unit is tied to your account and as such, you're exempt. I could be wrong about that though.

Re:TiVo service is now free...

[ErnstKompressor]

Correct. Total Choice Premium is around $80 and I do think we got our new TiVo service for free because of our previous lifetime subscription.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

But, wait! How much would *YOU* pay...?

[westies-from-hell]

I think it's great that Tivo is heading towards HDTV compatibility. It shows a move towards the more sophisticated technology that we are capable of.

So, then, why did they disable the serial port on my Tivo with the latest O/S upgrade, forcing me to keep using the stupid I/R wands, making it impossible to channel surf with the Tivo remote? Hmmm....?

One step forward, two steps back....

No Content

[madcheesewarrior]

No one with content is willing to risk Broadcast in HD for fear of copyright violations. Plenty of week old hockey games available for viewing though ... hooooray!

Re:No Content

[mbbac]

Yeah, I hate those CSI episodes in HDTV that I evidently don't watch. It sucks that the local PBS station also has HDTV that evidently I can't watch because no one is willing to broadcast it.

Score 0

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only one sick of hearing about TiVo? TV rots your brain. The whole appeal of computers and the internet for me is that I can stay in touch with the parts of collective culture that I want to hear about, and ignore the capitalist fluff that gets forced down my eyetubes through exposure to the boob tube. Supporting TiVo and its ilk will eventually help the mass media monopolies exert more control over your computer and viewing habits/preferences.

Re:Score 0

[Degobah]

That's the appeal of TiVo. It's supposed to give you control over the stuff you see, filtering out the crap you don't want to see (commercials, etc.). Which is why Big Media is so against it. No argument about the crappy content on tv, though. I've been without one for a year and I'm not looking back.

Re:Score 0

[mhatle]

Lets try that another way...


Am I the only one sick of hearing about BOOKS? BOOKS rot your brain. The whole appeal of computers and the internet for me is that I can stay in touch with the parts of collective culture that I want to hear about, and ignore the capitalist fluff that gets forced down my eyetubes through exposure to BOOKS. Supporting BOOK PUBLISHERS and its ilk will eventually help the mass media monopolies exert more control over your computer and viewing habits/preferences.


You know.. this is such complete bullshit. Anything can rot your brain. You are the one who chooses what you watch, read, listen to, etc. Someone else may pick the subject mater and content, but you don't have to pay attention.

VCRs, TiVos, etc all allow you even greater control over the content (i.e. commercials). If ya don't like it don't watch it.

my TiVO is starting to get a little spastic

[AssFace]

I was at brunch the other day with friends and my fiancee was bragging about our TiVO, and someone mentioned that their friend's parents' TiVO had been acting up lately and not recording the things it was supposed to and such.
We sort of scoffed at them and figured that they were likely morons and didn't set it up properly.
But then, sure enough, yesterday our TiVO started acting up and not recording certain things that it was supposed to (most importantly "Scrubs").

I'm not sure what is causing this, but I'm pretty sure that like any major problem, it can be solved with a sufficient amount of swearing on my part.

Re:my TiVO is starting to get a little spastic

[stratjakt]

The software updates contain code like this:

if cleared(CHEQUE(network)) {
record(PROMOTED_SHOW(network))
}

Re:my TiVO is starting to get a little spastic

[wavedeform]

If you have the Motorola digital cable box, this is a well known problem. Using the IR blasters is problematic, at best. Building an "IR Fort" (a kludge involving taping opaque materials over your IR blaster & TiVo IR receiver) helps somewhat. It at least keeps interference from other IR sources at bay. "I don't have any other IR sources" you say. Well, if you're changing the volume on your TV at the same time TiVo is trying to change channels, you run the risk of a missed channel change. In fact the Moto box is so lame, it sometimes misses changes from its own remote, even without TiVo in the picture.

TiVo has the capability to use serial control of the Motorola box, bypassing all the IR headaches, but they removed this feature from general release with the 3.0 software release, owing to a deal that grants AT&T a period of exclusivity for the AT&T branded TiVo. This fact only emerged after much discussion on the TiVo forum. Many people are really pissed off. To read the whole depressing mess, read the Official Serial Cable Support Request Thread

San Jose Mercury News article

[illumin8]

Here is an article in the San Jose Mercury News about it.

What I don't get

[swb]

Is how people have network jacks everywhere but no phone jacks. I'm assuming you have a landline because you have DSL, but maybe I'm wrong. You could just kludge your network jack and steal the brown pair (7&8) for a phone line.

Re:What I don't get

[dissy]

Ive seen many homes with no landline.
Broadband != phone line required.
DSL = phone line required.

You can get broadband over cable, and to an extent over satellite or wireless.

Additionally, I have a T1 for my data connectivity at home.
I am planning to move into a house in the next few months and plan to have NO landline there as well.
I will use a T1 for data connectivity and use a VoIP phone for landline services.

Currently my only phone service is provided by my celphone.

Re:What I don't get

[Leto2]

a) you could have a cable modem, so no landline

b) you could have a barebone phoneline for your DSL, one that charges you for even local calls

c) i do have network jacks in my bedroom, but no phoneline there

Re:What I don't get

[Anonymous Custard]

[why do] people have network jacks everywhere but no phone jacks? I'm assuming you have a landline because you have DSL, but maybe I'm wrong. You could just kludge your network jack and steal the brown pair (7&8) for a phone line.

I'm guessing it'd be very nice to use your TiVo on your existing residential wireless ethernet network, rather than run a phone cord to it. So you could use a usb->wireless ethernet adapter instead of a telephone cable.

Re:What I don't get

[ahacop@wmuc.umd.edu]

i am (a)....and i have a mobile.

i have lots of friends who no longer have land lines...

You don't need a subscription for that

[nosilA]

If you want to use it like a VCR, you can do so without a subscription. Just buy the TiVo and turn it on. But I really recommend the program guide - I love being able to say "record all the new Law&Orders" and then it also picks out all of the similar series to record if there is extra space on the hard drive.

-Alison

Re:You don't need a subscription for that

[stratjakt]

So, I'm misreading this (from fine print at tivo.com)?

"TiVo DVR is intended for use only with a paid subscription to the TiVo service. Without the TiVo service, a TiVo DVR has extremely limited functionality. No functionality is represented or should be expected. Receipt of TiVo service is subject to the terms of the TiVo Service Agreement. TiVo service is accessed through a standard telephone line and is available as a local call in most areas. In some areas, local and long-distance toll charges may apply. "

It may very well work as a recorder without a subscription - I've read that some models do, some dont until they're 'activated'. The fine print seems to say they can remove that 'feature' at will.

Yeah, y'all go ahead and mod me down some more. I'm not going to buy a TiVo, not never. but I will roll my own PVR.

Re:You don't need a subscription for that

[Anonymous Coward]

*No functionality is represented or should be expected.*

Key phrase.

Re:You don't need a subscription for that

[stevel]

If you buy a current model TiVo ("Series2"), then it is pretty much a doorstop without service. All you can do is watch "Live TV" and scroll the 30-minute buffer. No recordings, even manual.

The only TiVo models you can use without a subscription are those that came from the factory with version 1.3 or earlier of the TiVo software - that is, the Philips HDR312 (and similar) and Sony SVR-2000 (with some exceptions on the latter.)

I find the TiVo service well worth the money, especially for its ability to keep track of ever-changing schedules, avoiding rerecording the same episode, and more.

Re:You don't need a subscription for that

[Lumpy]

Just buy the TiVo and turn it on.

ok so how does it record channel 5 from 11:00 to 1:00 when it doesnt know what the current correct time is?

Oh and there is NO menu option to set the clock.

A 1st gen tivo that has never dialed home has all the features I want... the second you let it dial home it removes 1/2 those featires and shovles advertising at me.

Tivo as a regular vcr without the sub? not. that is a lie that the tivo corp likes to tell everyone.... it works if you let them remove features YOU PAID FOR and monitor what you do.

Canada

[pcameron41]

Now if they'd just offer Tivo up here in Canada.

Re:Canada

[mark_lybarger]

if you all would stop pirating the DirectTV signal, perhaps they would ;)
</sarcasm>

Re:Canada

[easyfrag]

Now if they'd just offer Tivo up here in Canada.

Amen to that. What I want to know is why isn't Tivo or ReplayTV offered in Canada? I know ExpressVu offers a PVR service but I would like something to work with my cable. Does anyone know why we can't get these services up here?

Re:Canada

[Sandman1971]

I've sent multiple emails to TIVO's public relations. All I ever get back is a canned message stating TIVO isn't available in Canada. Maybe if thousands of us email them they'll finally see the light and release Tivo in Canada

Re:Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

you wont get it in canada cause canada is full of ass monkies

Re:Canada

[squeegee_boy]

>>Now if they'd just offer Tivo up here in Canada.

You've got that right. What burns me is the newer Tivo's and ReplayTV's go into doorstop/boat anchor mode without a subscription.

I'd drive to Washington and buy one tonight, but I don't want to pay for a listings service that I can't even use (one that taunts me with incorrect cable listings)!

Even if the new ones worked in "digital VCR" mode without the service, I'd still go for it. Nicer to deal with than tapes.

Robyn

Dish PVR-921 won the best of show (HDTV PVR)

[illumin8]

I know Slashdot is typically very Tivo friendly, and I personally think Tivo makes a great product, but nobody seems to have noticed that Dish networks won the CES best of show award for their new HDTV PVR, the Dish PVR-921.

Read about it here.

It looks like Dish will beat Tivo to the market, as they are entering beta immediately and planning for an April or May release date.

Re:Dish PVR-921 won the best of show (HDTV PVR)

[Anonymous Coward]

Which just goes to show, CES "best of show" is absolutely meaningless. Last year, Moxi won. Where is Moxi now? Still invisible, still vaporware.

Who cares if the Dish PVR will eventually get HDTV? It's still a crappy, featureless Dish PVR. Who cares if it can record HDTV, if it still is nothing more than a dumb digital VCR?

Re:1st post redundant?

[PD]

We'll catch him in meta. I metamod twice a day, every day. Approximately 20% of the moderations that I see are completely wrong. If more people did the metamoderations faithfully, the bad moderators would be removed from the pool.

Pictures here

[illumin8]

Here is a picture of the new DirecTV version of the box.

480p is both

[SpiceWare]

HDTV FAQ

480p comes in 4 flavors:

704x480 4:3
704x480 16:9
640x480 4:3

Re:480p is both

[JoshMKiV]

480p is not HD. The "definition" is exactly the same as NTSC 480i, but non-interlaced. 720 and 1080 are "HDTV". Lots of people (including FOX) like to say it, and now FOX doesn't even claim it anymore, it's "enhanced" definition. Cheers, Josh

Tivo needs to alter their pricing & business m

[swb]

I know plenty of people who feel the same way. I came into $500 of basically free money so I bought one with a lifetime.

I think Tivo needs to shift to being a software company, and license a base software package to hardware vendors. The guide data should be free or nearly free (eg, $2.95 a month or $25/year).

They can then make money selling new software features and updates. The market could then drive the feature sets, instead of sitting around and hoping for Tivo to implement much-sought-after features (Batch Save, Folders, etc) and having them actually deliver BS features, like watching JPGs on TV.

Their relatively high subscription cost will ultimately kill them, IMHO, especially as cable companies deliver their own PVRs. Crime-Warner is giving away a Scientific Atlanta PVR (dual tuners, etc etc) for nearly nothing to customers with higher-end packages. Same guide data as Tivo (often I've noticed the program descriptions from my SA2100 box are word-for-word identical with Tivo), and many Tivo features.

Tivo is better now, but over time the SA box will be as good for most people, and in some ways better (dual tuner, no crippled channel surfing due to IR relay delays, way cheaper than Tivo for any use less than 5 years, if it breaks they replace it, etc).

Unless Tivo re-thinks what they sell and how they sell it, a box that does what everyone thinks it should and costs well over $500 over its lifetime cannot possibly compete..

Who cares?

[Sandman1971]

Who cares about HDTV? I'd much prefer to see Tivo finally launch in Canada. I'd love to own one of these puppies but the service/hardware has yet to be made available to Canadians. Wake up Tivo!

Re:Who cares?

[Rob Parkhill]

Amen brother! Holy crap, I've been ready and willing to give Tivo my hard earned money for years now, yet they won't undertake the painfully trivial work to offer service in Canada. The only PVR available in Canada is the horrible Expressvu 5100, which is nothing more than a digital VCR with pause-live-tv built in.

I simply can not understand why I can't buy a Tivo and Tivo service in Canada after so many years.

There are Component Switchers

[SpiceWare]

If I needed one, I'd get one like this . It is remote controlled so I could set up my ProntoPro's macros to switch to the proper video source.

I'd love to buy one.

[glen]

But Tivo doesn't offer service to Canadians. I don't understand it. The Tivo could even call the same 800 number for program guides.

And they won't even sell one to a canadian to use as a manual dvr.

Why don't they want our money?

Re:I'd love to buy one.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't they want our money?

"Money" with a moose head on it isn't real money.

Re:I'd love to buy one.

[perljon]

Hillary Clinton told us Canadians are terrorists. That means your money is drug money. Drugs are bad for kids. Kids are short. Dogs are short. Dogs can't see color. TV is in color. Therefore, Canadians don't need TIVOs.

In related news

[Gortbusters.org]

My wallet to support HDTV in 2005!

Tivo for EU / & Finland ?

[rasjani]

Anyone know similar gadget that would work in Europe and or in Finland ?

Re:Tivo for EU / & Finland ?

[Duds]

Tivo itself is sold in the UK. You could certinaly buy a non-subscription unit here and use it elsewhere that uses PAL. (although without program guide)

Re:Tivo for EU / & Finland ?

[TheEnglishPatient]

Tivo WAS sold here in the UK but they are now very difficult to find. Tivo customer services say that they are not selling any more because Thompson have ceased production of PAL units but that they MAY (my emphasis) find another manufacturer at some point in the future. Tivo on ebay now approaching £250! without subscription.

look at ebay before you post

[honold]

the lifetime-subscribed boxes yield about a $250 (read: the original cost of a lifetime subscription) premium over those that don't have them.

existing owners (like me) would be prudent to list their tivos before the hdtivo gets released to get max value

Gimme!

[mr. methane]

Look at it as simple ecomonics. Assuming you're employed, and you make even a modest salary - let's say $10 an hour. You watch less tv than the average adult -- maybe only one hour a day.

Having tivo gives you back 12 hours a month that you DON'T spen watching tampon and zit cream commercials.

Free TV is a very poor bargain. Unless your time is absolutely worthless - as in, you're a mindless vegerable being fed through a tube, you're giving Budweiser, Preparation H, and Bob's Used Cars the ONLY thing you can't get more of: Time. For the equivalent of less than the US federal minimum wage.

$12 a month to avoid ever having to listen to some wild-eyed freak pimping soap scum remover? Best bargain I've ever had.

No HD locals on DirecTV/Dish

[Chris Carollo]

Remember that there's almost no chance that DirecTV or Dish are going to be providing locals (that is NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, WB, UPN) in HD because of the enormous bandwidth required to beam those HD streams into each local market. They're having a hard enough time finding bandwidth for the heavily compressed SD locals.

You'll still be able to TiVo things like Showtime-HD, HBO-HD, HDNet and Discovery-HD. But personally I use my PVR to time-shift my locals far more than anything else.

Presumably both the standalone HD TiVo will handle OTA reception of HD locals, but lots of folks don't look at "old fashoned" antennas too kindly. Not to mention all the markets that don't have OTA HD yet.

Re:No HD locals on DirecTV/Dish

[Lil'wombat]

Part of the reason people look antennas badly, is that they usually gave crappy reception. Hell, the whole cable industry was succesful because a lot of poeple signed up with the basic cable because they couldn't get decent reception. In theory, the OTA HD signal being digital, many of the old complaints regarding OTA broadcasts should go away, and people will be happy to multiplex the OTA feed with the DirectTV feed in order to enjoy local channels in HD.

Re:No HD locals on DirecTV/Dish

[mbbac]

This is true for the most part. Sometimes I won't get enough of a signal to display anything so I'll have to go turn the futz knob on the rabbit-ears. Sometimes something will break the reception and I'll get some green screen.

The worst problem is lack of live content in HDTV. Most HDTV is recorded. Everyone should be shooting live stuff with HDTV DV cameras, but they're not. WRAL (Raleigh) is, and I wish more would follow.

Re:No HD locals on DirecTV/Dish

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should Dish Network or DirectTV waste their limited bandwidth with HDTV local channels, when you can get the locals over the air? Just include an OTA receiver in every satellite receiver, and put up an HDTV antenna next to your satellite dish. Problem solved.

Re:No HD locals on DirecTV/Dish

[NM156]

Presumably both the standalone HD TiVo will handle OTA reception of HD locals, but lots of folks don't look at "old fashoned" antennas too kindly. Not to mention all the markets that don't have OTA HD yet.

You don't have to necessarily have a big ugly lightning rod on your roof... I use a nice amplified Terk TV-50 antenna in my attic, and receive all high definition chanels here in Dallas area without a problem. (using a Toshiba HDTV tuner)

dish actually has more CUSTOMERS than directv NT

[Anonymous Coward]

-nt-

They've officially supported it for nearly a year.

[Viewsonic]

You'll have to get your own adaptor for it though. More details on Tivos web site..

Looks like I'll have to wait an entire year ...

[Buran]

... to get TiVo. I'd planned to this spring, but since it looks like I'll have to replace the entire recorder to get the combined HD/standard recording, I might as well wait.

Fortunately a friend of mine already has one that I've been leeching from and going over occasionally to watch the recordings I've piled up. ;) I'm already converted.

Damn you, TiVo, for making me wait to get the one I really want!!

(Or am I wrong and misread the release, and it'll be a software upgrade for existing units, i.e. series2?)

Re:Looks like I'll have to wait an entire year ...

[LEPP]

no point in waiting. The TiVo HD will probably be well over $1000. Right now you can get a TiVo for about $200. These TiVos include a tuner. Currently HD Tuners cost about $700. You can get one or two for about $500. In order for the TiVo to be effective, it must have lots of hd space (Terabyte?). This will raise the cost alot. The only other option is that Tivo goes to another storage medium like digital tape. I really doubt that they will do that because of access time. The long and the short of it is that if TiVo does come out with the Hd version, it will either downscale the image or cost alot of money. My bet is that they will do both.

Orwell's spinning in his grave!

[Anonymous Coward]

In Soviet Russia, television records YOU!

HDTV and Tivo owners

[realmolo]

HDTV- I wish I was dumb enough to buy an expensive TV that will probably be obsolete in a few years, so I can get slightly better image quality when watching (a few of) the universally crappy shows on both cable and network television. Tivo- I also wish I was dumb enough to buy a device that lets me record gobs of those same shitty shows, so that I don't miss any of the shittyness. Oh, and apparently it also gives you the right to claim that you "get more out of tv" and that your life has changed for the better because of it. So, keeping up with your favorite shitty shows was stressing you out? Gosh, that's horrible. You people make me sick. Read a fucking book. Get some taste. Quit trying to pretend that TV is worth bothering with, because it isn't, no matter how you watch it.

Re:HDTV and Tivo owners

[RevMike]

Tivo- I also wish I was dumb enough to buy a device that lets me record gobs of those same shitty shows, so that I don't miss any of the shittyness.

You miss the point. I don't have to watch shitty shows anymore because TiVo watches them for me. Since I don't have to watch my network television programming manually anymore, I have more time to watch my high quality Girls Gone Wild DVDs.

When are those coming out in HDTV?

Re:HDTV and Tivo owners

[Lil'wombat]

My brother says the same thing. Of course he's 25 and single.

Let's see if you have the same attidtude when you are married with a two year old child. In case you didn't know, The Sopranos is not appropriate fare for toddlers. And it is not a matter of needing to record the shitty shows, it a matter of the only decent shows being on at times that conflict with being a parent. You get more out of TV because you can watch something decent when you have a half hour after the kid is asleep.

Read a fucking book.

Hey my advice to you is stay single so you can keep posting your wisdom to /. !

Re:HDTV and Tivo owners

[Tattva]

You miss the point. I don't have to watch shitty shows anymore because TiVo watches them for me. Since I don't have to watch my network television programming manually anymore, I have more time to watch my high quality Girls Gone Wild DVDs.

Yes, but can TiVo appreciate the delicious irony when Chandler casually insults Joey and the boderline hysterical fake studio audience mechanically laughs in fitful bursts so as not to fall prostrate, contemplate their empty lives and break into waves of mournful wailing and pulling of hair?

I think not.

No HDTV for me until it can do what I do now.

[raygundan]

I'm holding off buying any HD hardware until at least two of my three major TV uses are available in HD. Since I watch very little OTA television, and even on cable I only watch things I've recorded, having an HDTV for that is pointless.

When I can some of the following with HDTV, I'll get one:

1. Use my Tivo. (this one's enough by itself)
2. Play console games. (Yeah, yeah, xbox has 720p on a few games, and gamecube does 480p, but limited support doesn't count)
3. Watch DVDs. (slightly better on HD, but DVDs are 480p at best, and only that when the DVD is telecined and the progressive frames can be reconstructed.) When we have HDVD, then I'll be happy.

Besides, this gives me a good excuse to wait for prices to continue dropping on everything. Everybody's different, though-- and if you use your HDTV now, cool. :) Gives those of us who are waiting somebody to mooch off of for basketball games and movie parties.

It will take 9 GB per 1 hour

[esac17]

I already have an HDTV card in my computer and I capture .ts streams to disk. If I want to keep the quality of the HD stream, it takes 9 GB per 1 hour show. Isn't that hefty :)

directivo records the feed directly also

[Anonymous Coward]

directivo records the feed directly to the harddrive as well. There is no re-encoding.

Yeah, right

[SpiceWare]

I guess I just imagine watching HDTV shows every week on CBS and ABC, and all those HDTV movies and series on HBO and Showtime...

The Superbowl will once again be in HDTV this year. Here's ABC Sport's press release about it.

CBS had it in HDTV in 2001 - from here

The network also received recognition for providing the "Best DTV Sporting Event" for its HD broadcast of the 2001 Superbowl.

Last year FOX had it in their sorry SDTV "high resolution" format. Supposedly the same quality as a DVD, but the Superbowl's image quality last year didn't even come close. They used interlaced cameras and converted it to progressive, so there was a lot of interlace "noise" in the progressive signal. The only benefit was the 16:9. See FOX Turns Chicken On HDTV for more info

Canada Wants Tivo petition

[Sandman1971]

There's an online petition to try to convince Tivo to release it's products/service in Canada. http://www.petitiononline.com/t1v0cnda/petition.ht ml

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

So don't buy a TiVo.

[sulli]

Use one of the PC based (free or not) DVR tools, or buy a Replay, or keep your VCR.

All I want is a VCR.

Exactly. For some of us the TiVo service is well worth it, and it's not as if they haven't been clear about the requirement to subscribe. I for one absolutely love it, and only watch a few hours of TV per week. (And $12.95 isn't exactly extortionate - that's less than a tank of gasoline.)

Probably waited for ...

[Masem]

See this previous story on how the cable systems and the HDTV makers have come to some agreement (yet to be approved by the FCC) on HDTV broadcasts including consumers' rights. It would not be surprising that TiVo waited for the agreement to be confirmed before it announced it's plans, lest we get to the point right before delivery to find that the HDTV standard won't allow for TiVo to work right because of the multitudes of formats and other problems.

Also, this confirms with the information on what people will be able to record from HDTV signals. The plan in the above article stated that there would be no restrictions on recording over-the-air broadcasts (read: your local stations), while you could only time shift PPV events by 90 minutes and not save the recording. I'd suspect that other cable stations, basic and premium, would have some restrictions between those cases.

How about digital cable?

[grimarr]

What I'd like to see is a Tivo that can directly receive digital cable signals, without a set-top box. Why have a box that converts D to A, then have the Tivo immediately do A to D conversion right back?

Does anyone know if there are patent issues or something similar preventing it? I've looked all over the net with Google, trying to find a board for PCs that will receive digital cable, and turned up nothing. A few places say things like "no products available" or "we hope to have a product like this someday" but that's as close as I could find.

Re:How about digital cable?

[morgue-ann]

TiVo's lack of support for standard-definition digital cable is no big deal, but HDTV is another matter.

Digital SDTV is a maximum of 720x480 (or 704x486 (704=22x32) or something else close) which is similar to VGA's 640x480 but the pixels are narrower than they are tall. PAL digital SDTV is 720x540 with almost-square pixels.

This maximum is the same as DVD and also known as CCIR-601. However, digital cable might have lower resolution to save bandwidth. TCTI/AT&T/NuevoComcast uses 352x486 on most channels on the HITS satellite and it's likely the content is softened (low-pass filtered) a bit before real-time-encoding.

Therefore, re-digitizing and re-encoding the standard-def analog stream coming out of your digital cable set-top box is only moderately horrible. Motion artifacts will be a bigger issue than resolution because TiVo encodes in real time so can't go back & choose keyframes more wisely later. It also costs 1/100th of the encoders used by HITS and DirectTV do.

Real-time-encoding of SDTV by a sub-$500 box is a reasonable thing in 2003. HDTV is another matter and the digital cable boxes I know of (Scientific-Atlanta Explorer 2000HD) only have analog video outputs (YCrCb component for HD). Pinnacle Systems makes a system where the HD option alone is $1000. HD on PCs now is where SD was 10 years ago- intra-frame (Motion-JPEG/DV-style) or no compression, using oodles of disk space (even with today's 180GB drives). Uncompressed HD @ 1920x1080x30x12bpp (4:2:0) is 90 megabytes per second. That means burning through a 180GB hard drive in about 1/2 hour.

As the poster suggests, you want to get the MPEG-2 stream & just slap it on a disk instead of trying to recompress. For Over-the-Air HDTV broadcasts, this should be no problem. For cable systems that keep OTA in 8VSB...

(something boxes were required to do a few years ago even if the provider doesn't support it- they have to pass through 8VSB with enough bandwidth/low enough noise that a receiver can still demodulate&decode it)

an 8VSB-in-only HDTV PVR would work. Many systems are demodulating 8VSB and re-modulating at QAM64. If they also apply their conditional access (CA), it gets really sticky.

The fact that there aren't digital-cable-ready TVs like there were(are) cable-ready TVs is something the industry, their Cable Labs group and the FCC have been working on for years. The biggest obstacle is Scientific-Atlanta and General Instrument (now Motorola)'s incompatible systems in the US. It's possible to run both on a single network under an agreement called Harmony, but they still see CA as the crown jewels.

POD (point-of-deployment CA, rented from the cable company) was supposed to solve that by putting all the proprietary stuff in a PCMCIA-like card & making the boxes or TV's or VCRs or PVRs use standard interfaces.

Google terms: PowerKEY (SA's system), DigiCipher (Motorola's), Conditional Access.

Other sources: Multichannel News and Communications Engineering and Design (CED) Magazine

File sizes

[briancnorton]

There is some discussion of file sizes for HD programming, but the only current method for recording HD signal is D-VHS, which requires 25GB/hr using MPEG-2. I dont know what kind of compression the TIVO will use, but you're talking about MASSIVE files.

Re:File sizes

[-tji]

Actually, there are several HDTV PCI cards you can put in a Windows PC to decode/record/display Off The Air HDTV. These take about 9GB/hr for HDTV content.

Both Off The Air and Satellite HDTV programs use MPEG2 compression.

Re:Kathleen Malda to bear geekspawn by "Year-End"

[Anonymous Coward]

Even the most heterosexual man would refuse to have sex with the buck-toothed beard.

No way in hell is Malda going to choose her over Michael Sims.

Just like that developer program they promised?

[MbM]

Last CES they promised a developer program which suddenly disappeared a few weeks after -- Can you say marketing gimmick?

Re:Just like that developer program they promised?

[McSpew]

Methinks the developer program died because it probably wasn't a big hit with developers. As is pointed out in this article, TiVo has figured out that nobody wants their DVR to be the hub of their home entertainment network. A TiVo senior VP was quoted as saying, "The PC has won as the center of digital content." Once they figured that out, it probably made very little sense to do too much development on the TiVo itself, especially if nobody else was interested.

All this whining...

[Overzeetop]

about paying for a Tivo subscription. Perhaps they should change the pricing plan. Instead of the $175 basic unit, you buy a Tivo for $425 and it comes with a $250 mail-in-rebate if you agree to sign up for their $12.95/mo service.

Not mentioned is that DTV is adding a buttload of local channels "by june" including my home region of Roanoke. The only drawback I see is that the networks still won't be in HD on DTV, but my cable company is so backwards that they may never broadcast in HD, preferring - when forced by SD phase-out - to simply down convert to 480i and continue with NTSC signal over cable.

I guess my only fear is the DTV box total hold on the content. If they decide I only get it down-res'd, that's my only viewing option. I suppose what I really want is a modulated RF-out for the HD. That way I can pipe it through my house to my (future) HD-integrated sets, or to my DRM-unfettered PC decoder.

Re:All this whining...

[telstar]

What the hell does that accomplish?
Do you enjoy paying tax on a purchase only to have your rebate not reflect the true cost of an item you bought? Doesn't seem too bright.

Tivo with DirecTV is only $5 a month

[zeoslap]

Not exactly high..

Re:Tivo needs to alter their pricing & busines

[mckwant]

Crime-Warner is giving away a Scientific Atlanta PVR (dual tuners, etc etc) for nearly nothing to customers with higher-end packages. Same guide data as Tivo (often I've noticed the program descriptions from my SA2100 box are word-for-word identical with Tivo), and many Tivo features.

Except that it sucks goatse.cx. Seriously. We have one of those, and two TiVos. The TW box we have (our second, after the first one blew up) has all of the following useful feaures:

• reboots spontaneously, even while we're watching a program.
• mysteriously turns itself off at random times (like Wednesday afternoon), and doesn't come back up. You can't record anything if it's not powered on.
• Let's say you want to watch something that it's currently recording. Like, say, an episode of Farscape that's been running for half an hour, but hasn't finished yet. When you tell the box to start watching the show, it dumps you at the END of the recorded portion (aka LIVE TV).
• That, we can fix. Just rewind back to the beginning of the show. Slight hassle, but not horrible. Then, when the RECORDING ends (irrespective of where in the program YOU are), it dumps you back to the live feed. Not horrible for regular programs, but it sure sucks when you accidently see the final score of the basketball game you were watching.
• So you're halfway through a show, and you go run an errand. While you're gone, your SO watches something else. When you return to watch the rest of your show, the TW box starts at the BEGINNING, not where you stopped watching.
• TiVo has a function where you can record beyond the end of your show. College hoop, for instance, tends to run long, so you can tell it to record an extra half hour to make sure you get the end (and OT, if applicable). The TW has a similar function that you can program, but it doesn't work.

TiVo does all of the above admirably, with a user interface my technology stunted inlaws can use. That $500 never made so much sense, and the TW box is going back when I get a spare moment to do it.

Re:Tivo needs to alter their pricing & busines

[Tattva]

The basic point is that TiVo the idea is very powerful and guaranteed to succeed. TiVo the company is not well-positioned to be a strong market force. PVR's improve the television viewing experience, no if's and's or but's. This does not guarantee they will succeed since some industries consider them to be harmful and will attempt to modify or remove the concept from the market. I doubt they will be even moderately successful.

I am surprised there are not patent lawsuits galore since so many PVR's are so similar. That is one thing that could hold back PVR deployment.

TiVo is not well-positioned for success: the software they develop is not that complex, they don't control hardware production or television media distribution, and satellite or cable television companies have experience putting set-top boxes into customer's homes that TiVo can't match. They will almost certainly live on in name, but not much more than that because all the power is in the hands of the media distributors (satellite, cable.)

Without enforcable patents, the only demi-monopolies in the system are the extremely capital-intensive distribution channels: satellites in geosynchronous orbit and millions of miles of buried coaxial cables. Media providers also have some monopoly power, but the distributors have shown they can flex their muscles more effectively in past battles.

... Which is about all you need

[mckwant]

We have two TiVos, one 30hr, one 20hr. We've never had a space problem on the big one, and we've had the 2hr finale of the XFiles on there forever. (We just can't get ourselves to watch it).

We have run into issues on the 20hr, but that's mostly because I like movies and sporting events, so the weekend gobbles up a bunch of programming.

Off Air

[mbbac]

Sweet, it sounds like it is going to support off-air HDTV. I've got a widescreen HDTV that I bought for anamorphic DVDs, but I don't have cable. All of the HDTV I watch right now is off the air, which is a good amount in Charlotte. I'm glad to see TiVo isn't leaving us early adopters behind.

Lower record times

[Frobozz0]

Haha. I can just imagine a 40 hour tivo recording HDTV... act now, and get your 3 hour TiVo!

Try the RCA Scenium DVD/PVR Combo...

[AlphaMaker]

I bought an RCA Scenium DRS7000N. It's a combination DVD player and PVR. They call it a digital media player because it handles DVD, JPEG, and MP3.

One of the best features is the GuidePlus Gold programming guide that gives you the equivalent of the TiVo program guide for *FREE*. Programming info is either downloaded over cable or over the air. I paid $500 for it. Since it it one of the first of its kind, I'm sure prices will come down.

There are other options which include DVD burning, but RCA is the only one to have the GuidePlus program guide. I highly recommend it at 4/5 stars.(There are a few relatively minor issues with the machine)

DirecTV's lack of quality

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh boy, more DirecTV channels where they're compressed so much it makes the low bandwidth internet movies look good.

Wow!!!

[uradu]

Nice segue from PVRs to OS ranting there. You forgot Freedom, Patriotism and the American Flag, though.

Digital Cable would need to be standardized first.

[Kelmenson]

In order to make a digital cable-ready tivo, the cable industry would have to standardize their boxes. Thankfully they are finally trying to do this as this cnn article says. Unfortunately, it will still be years before it finally happens. Until it does, there is zero chance.

Slashdot had discussion about the proposal last week.

Either that, or resampling/recompression.

[digital photo]

Definitely realistic, but I wonder whether or not Tivo will be decompressing on-the-fly and re-compressing and re-sampling to a format which will be slightly degraded, but take up less space?

For example, the current Tivos allow different grades of quality for storage, each one taking less space or more space. I wonder whether or not Tivo will be decompressing the HD stream/signal and then recompressing it at different rates/qualities.

Another possibility is that Tivo might start making use of Mpeg4 instead of Mpeg2 for their internal encoding. This would allow them to store a stream with HD dimensions without taking up the HD space.

Side Note: Wonder if they will be putting out software upgrades to those of us who own Tivo Series2's and older Tivos to make use of HD at somewhat degraded resolution? (Current Tivo2: 199HourCapacity)

Re:Either that, or resampling/recompression.

[ncc74656]

Definitely realistic, but I wonder whether or not Tivo will be decompressing on-the-fly and re-compressing and re-sampling to a format which will be slightly degraded, but take up less space?

I would hope they just demodulate the signal and store the stream as it was broadcast...that's how DirecTiVo works. It would take a substantially bigger HD, but that shouldn't be a problem.

(They should still include an MPEG encoder for handling analog broadcasts. Hell, they should've included an MPEG encoder with DirecTiVo so that it could record local TV.)

Side Note: Wonder if they will be putting out software upgrades to those of us who own Tivo Series2's and older Tivos to make use of HD at somewhat degraded resolution?

I doubt the needed hardware is present to do that. In addition to the tuner (which is already present), I'd think that some sort of demodulator would be needed to take the analog signal from the tuner and convert it to a digital bitstream. Due to the bandwidth needed (and the analog input), you're not going to get that with a USB dongle.

Re:Either that, or resampling/recompression.

[jedidiah]

My series1 TiVo does that with digital cable now without any problems. Of course any compression scheme is going to degrade video quality to some degree. The real question is how much of a degredation you're willing to tolerate.

This is an issue with PVR's in general and is not merely limited to HDTV or digital.

Re:Either that, or resampling/recompression.

[Koynoper]

Unfortunately, it's not a matter of putting an MPEG encoder in the unit, it's about the cost of putting an analog tuner in the box. Analog tuners are quite pricey in the realm of 'parts overhead'. At least that's what a friend who works there claims.

Re:Either that, or resampling/recompression.

[digital photo]

Well, unless I'm mistajken, the current Tivos have analog tuners to get normal TV stations. This is fed into their hardware MPEG(2, I think) compression and then stored on disk.

I'm thinking they might be changing the bitrate of the compression or recompressing on the fly to mpeg4.

I thought the DirecTivo had a normal TV tuner so that you could watch regular TV? The reason why I think this is because the selling point of the DirecTivo was that you could capture a stream from one tuner while watching a show on another tuner.

Re:Either that, or resampling/recompression.

[ncc74656]

Well, unless I'm mistajken, the current Tivos have analog tuners to get normal TV stations. This is fed into their hardware MPEG(2, I think) compression and then stored on disk.

Standalone TiVos do. DirecTiVos don't...they record the MPEG-2 stream uplinked by DirecTV. Standalone TiVos can record anything that's on an RF, composite, or S-video signal (including DirecTV, Dish Network, or digital cable...run some cables from the satellite receiver and/or cable box and set up the IR blaster so the TiVo can control both). DirecTiVos can only record what's on the satellite...they can record two of those streams simultaneously, but they lack the hardware to pick up local broadcast or cable channels.

Logic Flaw

[Snowgen]

It's a ways off (end of the year), but at least we know that HD TiVo is on the horizon.

We know no such thing. All we know is that there's a claim that it's on the horizon. Two very different things indeed!

Two words: Vapor. Ware. At least until it's released.

Still waiting for the Commodore Chamelion to be released... :)

Re:Logic Flaw

[Anonymous Coward]

Its showing at CES right now - go check it out

Probably change the compession rate?

[digital photo]

Well, while Tivo will most likely not muck with the ratio, they might be doing on-the-fly recompression and resampling at the same time to store the HD programming in a smaller amount of disk space and possibly using a different algorithm to encode... perhaps Mpeg4?

It makes sense if you plan on using essentially the same setup as other machines on the production line. What you would change would be the encoder/decoders, possibly upgrade the main CPU on the board, and up the drive to a 120GB single hard drive in the unit.

If they reduced the bitrate of the video stream when they save to disk, they would be able to allow for different levels of "quality" and thus be able to maximize the number of hours to store on the unit.

That'd be my guess, at any rate.

Re:Probably change the compession rate?

[mprinkey]

On-the-fly recoding of an 720p or 1080i HD stream to an equivalent resolution mpeg4 file will take a lot of CPU power. I don't think that custom hardware to do even NTSC resolution realtime transcoding to mpeg4 exists. I know that you can just barely do it in software with the fastest P4s and Athlons.

I would bet that the tivo will just be dumping the OTA and DirecTV HD streams right to the hard drive. Doing anything else will require alot of custom hardware.

and this story comes...

[xtermz]

...on the day i downgrade my digital cable service to basic cable...

I am just not impressed with whats on TV anymore. Either im surfing the web on my laptop, listening to music on my stereo, or reading.... call it pop culture overload, but i cant think of any shows on anymore that i am fanatical about...

maybe im just growing tired in my old age of 24...

Getting a trible LNB dish

[1984]

A lot of people have had success at getting DirecTV customer retention to pay part or all the cost of a triple LNB dish when upgrading. Also, people have squeezed various amounts of free programming from DTV to defray the cost of the HDTV receiver (which is the expensive bit at around $600).

Have a look at this thread at avsforum for more details.

New customer? If you go to buy a DirecTV system at Best Buy or the like, they'll try to take an extra $100-$150 for the triple LNB dish. But you can get one for free. Sign up for DirecTV on one of the regular packages (often free after rebate -- try Blockbuster and you also get a year's free DVD rentals), and tell them you want Para Todos, the Spanish network. That comes off one of the other sats, and you'll get a triple-LNB capable dish. Might not have all three LNBs on it, but the 3rd LNB is about $40, and just slots in with no rewiring etc. You don't actually have to by the Para Todos channels, either -- the dish install and program signup seem to be handled separately. (I went through this a couple of months back after reading about it on the Web.)

Distant HD locals a possibility?

[phlack]

This sounds like a good reason to offer distant locals in HD on DirecTV. Obviously this would require regulatory approval (here in the Orlando area I can't get NYC locals since DirecTV provides Orlando locals). But if there can be one (or two) HD feeds of distant local networks (say, NYC and LA) and throw that up CONUS, that can solve the bandwidth problem. Subscribers can get their local stations for news, while network shows can still be received in HD on the distant networks.

This of course assumes all the local channels of those distance cities are doing HD broadcasts.

I'm sure broadcasters would howl and moan about this anyway, but it seems like a reasonable solution to the bandwidth issue. Otherwise it will be a long time before DirecTV can provide HD locals in every market.

Been done already

[Andy Dodd]

Not only that, but was covered on Slashdot 2-3 days ago.

TiVo Series2 with a USB Ethernet adapter (Or a Series 1 with a TurboNET card from http://www.9thtee.com/) + Linksys WET11 = Wireless TiVo

Re:Tivo needs to alter their pricing & busines

[swb]

I'm aware of the bugs of the SA box that TW is shilling, but I can only presume that its being pushed faster than the bugfixes but that the bugfixes will catch up over time and that these annoyances will largely go away. Strangely, I have not read a review of the SA box by someone who doesn't own a Tivo. I wonder if some of the bugs wouldn't be noticed by a non-Tivo user who approaches it from a VCR perspective.

I own a Tivo and I grant you that there are Tivo-specific features I wouldn't trade for the SA box if both were comperably priced. But they're not -- I can get the SA box for $4.95 a month at my cable package level. A 60G series 2 with lifetime is $550 after rebates. I'd need to own it and have it keep working for over 9 *years* before it would be a monetary advantage over the SA box from TW, and in the course of that time the SA box would likely be replaced with a better one at least once, while the Tivo would be probably unsupported or broken in that timeframe.

As these things catch on, the simple economics of Tivo will enable cable companies to crush them. It doesn't mean that the SA is a better box now or even later, but since when does that *cough*betamax*cough*mac* matter?

Some people will buy a better box if they can, but being better isn't enough, it also has to respect the market somewhat. Tivo needs to look at other ways to sell itself: Enhanced guide data via IMDB integration? Selling major software updates instead of subscriptions? "Xterm" Tivos for $99 that can play Tivo content stored on a full-blown Tivo (yes, its a new feature coming up but requires a much more expensive full-blown unit)?

Not true anymore!

[Gorimek]

You could use the early models as just digital VCRs without the service, but that was changed quite a while ago. A Tivo without an active subscription will revert to "Boat Anchor Mode" .

And even for the early models, you have to request to download an old version of the software to keep using it like this.

So you actually are paying a subscription to record TV.

I own 2 Tivos and 200 shares. I love the product as much as anyone. But I think the subscription pricing policy is scaring away at least half the potential customer base. They see it as a sham, and to some extent it is.

Re:Not true anymore!

[SuiteSisterMary]

Really? Interesting. Well, I stand corrected.

Re:Space Issues? (nope)

[telstar]

Nah, just read this ... you'll be fine.

I get your point.

[mckwant]

I'm really surprised TiVo's prices haven't dropped, too. I'd think there's gotta be a Laffer curve point somewhere in the $300ish range for box and lifetime. I would think they've gotta be able to make money at that level.

The problem MIGHT be that TiVo licenses its HW manufacture, so Philips/Sony has to make coin on the box itself, while TiVo's really about the SW and programming updates.

Still doesn't solve your issues, though. Maybe it'll happen when TiVo starts getting built into TVs and the like. Frankly, I'm a little amazed that hasn't happened yet. That Panasonic PVR/DVD-RW is just dying for TiVo.

Re:I get your point.

[swb]

That Panasonic PVR/DVD-RW is just dying for TiVo.

All its crying out for is a stream of guide data and a reasonable user interface and it will be a drop-in replacement (upgrade?) for just about everything Tivo does.

Most of what I record on my Tivo isn't much more than lazy VCRing. I scan the guide for about a dozen movie channels, pick what I like, and let it go. I have about a dozen season passes, but as of yet the one time one of them got moved in its timeslot, Tivo wasn't any help, it was a network overrun of a prior program -- I would have had to have padded the requested program by over 45 minutes.

For most of what I do with Tivo, the same guide data and slightly-better-than-VCR scheduling would work. Tivo's benefits are 40% being HDD based, 25% guide based, 25% good UI, and 10% unique "Tivo" features. Just about any HDD based DVR with guide data and good UI should get you 90% of what Tivo gets.

Other HDTV PVRs on the horizon

[alain]

This year seems to be the year HDTV is poised to explode.

Dish Network's PVR921 which has DVI output, dual tuners, ethernet support, and HDTV recording won the "Best of Show" at CES

Moxi has announced an HDTV PVR that will be integrated with Cable, the Moxi Media Center. Charter Communications is testing this box right now in St. Louis.

On a related note, I am happy with DVI's winning the interface war for HDTV output, mainly because it does not restrict the signal to MPEG2, which Firewire does. This means when HD-DVDs come out, they can use whatever technology makes more sense (blue laser), and my TV does not have to assume it's MPEG2.

Other links of interest where you could dig up more info on HDTV, or audio/video in general:

• HomeTheaterHiFi.com
• AVS Forum
• DTV Max

GET DIRECTV!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Get DirecTV! It's about 1000 times better than cable anyway (I mean, seriously, putting ads in the guide data and paying $80/month for the privilege? Ugh.) I pay $55/month for DirecTV and that includes the TiVo monthly fee. Plus I get 500 channels. The install is free, and HOA are not allowed to block you from putting up the satellite (I live in a condo and it's fine). (Did that cover all your rebuttals?)

Re:GET DIRECTV!!

[Anonymous Coward]

There are trees and a building blocking where the dish would have been aimed.

I had a Dish Network PVR deal going on, $30 for the "top 50" plus HBO and free PVR features. Then I moved and had to settle with cable, until the next time I move (fortunately, that'll be June 1st)

All For Three Whole HDTV Channels

[ausoleil]

DirecTV is seriously screwing up by not getting on the ball when it comes to HDTV.

Free programming is irrelevant to me -- $600 out of pocket for a Sony HDTV-capable IRD is still $600 out of pocket. Whether DirecTV "finances" it or not, I still have to write a check somewhere.

IMHO, they should sell these new IRD's at their cost in order to keep their customers. Sadly, I decided after five years with Direct to go to Time Warner Digital cable because I will get all of my local channels in HD, plus HBO as well. Directsimply could not match that. I won't be getting HDNet, as TWC doesn't have it, but I honestly believe that I would end up wanting the locals more anyway.

Long story short: DirecTV banked on a merger with EchoStar for getting themselves up and running in the HDTV world. It didn't happen and their terrestial-based competition wasn't sleeping. Hence, they lose this round.

MOD PARENT UP!

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod the parent +1 informative! There's more information in this one post than in the whole rest of this thread!

They do support broadband

[dachshund]

would be very happy if I could just plug it into my network and have it update itself via my DSL connection that 3 other PC's share. Currently they only support ATT Broadband in their products.

People with new Tivos can just buy a USB to Ethernet adapter and they're set to go (cheap and easy.) People with older Tivos can run a serial cable to their PC and run PPP over it, allowing them to share the computer's network connection. This is a snap to set up if you use Windows, and only slightly more work if you use Linux.

I know that - you misunderstood my comment

[SpiceWare]

I was replying to Brad's comment of since 480p is 4x3, not 16x9. FOX could hardly have their few widescreen shows if 480p didn't support 16:9.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Space Issues? (nope)

[trcooper]

So you're recording HDTV@9G an hour a 60 hour Tivo would contain $540 worth of disk. Yikes. Plus what is currently $500 of HDTV hardware, you've got yourself a $1000 peice of equipment...

a few more things

[ChrisCampbell47]

yes, Yes, YES! Thank you.

A couple more things to Google:

• "PowerVu", which is Scientific-Atlanta's video compression / delivery technology (PowerKEY is the CA part)
• "PSIP", which is the programming (i.e. schedule) information standard that was a major part of the 19-Dec-2002 CE-NCTA agreement

DMCA BAD

[Anonymous Coward]

What we all want is a box that takes digital cable or Direct TV signals, captures them in their original formats, whether they're in HD or regular formats, MPEG2 or whatever, then let's us send the programming to our computer so we can chop out the commercials and burn the show to DVD in perfect quality for our collection. If someone could make such a solution for less than 1k, I'd buy it in a second.

Of course, the DMCA is there to stop us from doing what we all want to do.