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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.
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.
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?).
$8.95/mo web hosting
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.
TODO: Something witty here...
Toshiba DVD-R + Tivo box
Remote scheduling, intra-tivo video sharing, and MP3/JPG display on Series2 Boxes
"TK-421, why aren't you at your post?"
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.
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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...
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.
"People" using "unnecessary" quotes should be "shot".
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...
Nosce te Ipsum
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?
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.
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.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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.
A good traveller has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.
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!
Here is an article in the San Jose Mercury News about it.
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
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
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.
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
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.
For those that would die defending it, Freedom
has a sweet taste that the protected will never know.
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.
I write in my journal
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.
,#401 and it will use ethernet instead of the phone line. VERY nice.
That's when the OFFICIAL support comes out. Unofficially TiVo can use a USB->Ethernet adaptor now. You set your dialing prefix to
"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.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
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.
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.
Truth: If it's not one thing, it's another
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.
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
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.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
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
Truth: If it's not one thing, it's another
"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.
* As is generally the case, my opinions do not reflect those of my employer.
- 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.ceci n'est pas un sig.
Slashdot had discussion about the proposal last week.
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.)
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).
* As is generally the case, my opinions do not reflect those of my employer.
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:
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