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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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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?
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
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.
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.
A good traveller has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.
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.
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.
-- derby
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..
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.
KMSMA (WWBD?)
>> 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?
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
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.
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.
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... :)