Slashdot Mirror
Retailers Leak New TiVo HD Specs and Price
Brent writes "Retailers goofed and posted most of the specs of the forthcoming TiVo Series 3 Lite, which Ars says may be called 'TiVo HD' at launch. A comparison with the standard Series 3 shows that for a savings of $300, you only lose the OLED screen (do you need a screen on your TiVo?), the glowing remote (which you can pickup for $50 anyway), THX certification (worthless) and 90GB of storage. Looks like it may be a TiVo hacker's dream."
Why, did they unTivoize the GPLed software?
What exactly makes it a "hacker's dream"?
"I think an etch-a-sketch with an ethernet port would beat IE7 in web standards compliance."
I would we willing to pay an extra $300 for a Series 3 that could record HD from my satellite service (Dish Network). Having been a Tivo user for nearly 10 years, I finally had to dump my Tivo and start using the Dish Network ViP622 HD-DVR. It's not bad, but the user interface is no where near as tight as a Tivo. maybe someday Comcast will grace me with cable in my area...
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
Very nice, albeit still not enough to justify me getting one. Mind you the reason why I haven't is not an issue with the TiVo itself - more of a matter of nothing being on television worth watching anyway. If they add a "unSuck" button you can count me as the first person in line.
Anyone know approximately how many hours of HD content can that hold?
I've been waiting for the T3 to drop in price to something my better half won't cringe at. That $700 price point was murder. Also, I am so freakin sick of the cruddy Motorola DVR that Verizon rents me that I am just peeing my pants with this pseudo press release. It will actually cost less for me to have a Tivo than that crappy DVR. (not factoring in purchase price, of course, so it will cost more, i just won't let myself believe it)
--mike
What? Does the damn thing use a 1.8" drive?
Of course, I read the article. In the interest of not spoiling it for you, I'll just mention that it's on the first page.
(I'd normally answer, but I figure a bit of non-spoiling karma might come in handy. I don't get my copy of HP7 until Saturday morning at 12:01am CDT.)
yum! gimme gimme gimme!!
"Retailers goofed and posted most of the specs of the forthcoming TiVo Series 3 Lite, which Ars says may be called 'TiVo HD' at launch. A comparison with the standard Series 3 shows that for a savings of $300, you only lose the OLED screen (do you need a screen on your TiVo?), the glowing remote (which you can pickup for $50 anyway), THX certification (worthless) and 90GB of storage. Looks like it may be a TiVo hacker's dream."
/. story correctly...
The 90GB is what you LOSE, in addition to the remove, OLED screen, THX, etc.
You LOSE 90GB (250->160), not HAVE 90GB storage.
Damn. If you don't RTFA, at least parse the
That said, if I'm going to get a new Tivo, I have to deal with a lot of new issues:
So in addition to the upgrade to HDTV, I will have to shell out probably another $30-$50 a month, which I really don't see as being necessary, and for what? HDTV? Forget it.
On the other hand, this newsseems promising, if Comcast doesn't f$ck it all to hell.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
I loved the Tivo interface and all the neat extra features it came with. But I didn't love it THAT much. Even the Tivo rep couldn't bring herself to argue against it when I called to cancel (sounded like she had heard the same call MANY times recently).
Even at $500, instead of $800, I still can't afford Tivo HD. At this price you think it would at least come with a DVD burner, like the Humax Tivo model I used to have (I *really* miss the old girl).
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Part of it is plain ol' network issues - blocking, freezing and the like whenever we get a new neighbor who installs their cable.
But the actual DVR unit will lag occasionally, or get stuck in rewind/ff, and just skip to the end on occasion. I would never buy such a unit and think it's pretty much awful. I probably won't spring for HD or their DVR at the next place I live simply because of these reasons.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
I actually love my Windows 2005 MCE box -- 4 tuners. The problem is CableCard compatibility is impossible. It just doesn't work. I'm ready to give up the system I've perfected (other than encrypted HD and CableCard), for a box like the Tivo.
I had the original Tivo the week it came out, and I do miss it. TWF (The Wife Factor) is a big one, and she misses the Tivo also. Just to keep her happy I'd pay $30 a month if I had to for Tivo (2 phone calls from her a month about a broken TV is pricier than it sounds, and she's a geek too).
contributions?
I'm thinking a few hundred GB to start - what was the drive type again?
...
And is it pin-controlled, software set, or hard-wired?
Gotta have some place to put my Red Dwarf and Darkworld episodes
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I've configured both knoppmyth http://www.mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html and mediaportal for win32 http://www.team-mediaportal.com/.
Each has their caveats. Knoppmyth works better once you get it rolling, but there's lots of fiddly work to get it going. Lots of fiddly work. Once it's up its rock steady. It manages powering down/sleeping between scheduled shows much better than win32.
MediaPortal is easier to set up. Buggy interface though. Not show-stoppers but whacky things that make it hard to use. For reasons I haven't investigated it uses some kind of proprietary file type to store the shows. If someone knows how to set it up to make an mpeg that would be great. http://www.team-mediaportal.com/
Got Trader Joe's? friendwich.com RSS feeds work now!
I'm a TiVo Series 1 user who doesn't consider anything on cable worth coughing up $30+/month for, so I get all the TV I need over the air. Given the imminent demise of free programing data for MythTV, and the continuing absence of those legendary digital-to-analog converters the Feds promised us, this may turn out to be my best option for when the analog transmitters go dark. If only I could transfer the "lifetime service" from my Series 1 to one of these... Still, it's cheaper to pay TiVo for an EPG than to subscribe to cable.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
THX cert means little if your speakers/TV aren't also in a room that is THX certified. Unless you are a serious audiophile, it's like having heated car seats when you live in Florida. Cool feature, but not worth an extra $500 when you will probably never use it (hear the difference).
The smaller HD is a bummer, but if the units are as easy to upgrade as the older units were, it's easy to image/re-image onto a larger HD.
So, upgrade the HD in the Lite and the only "functionality" you give up over the Standard is the THX logo.
So you're just posting in a TV-related thread to be smug about your rich and fulfilling non-TV-polluted life then? Gotcha.
It has a 160GB drive, giving an estimated 21 hours of HD recording. The reason for the smaller drive is most likely to that they can still maintain a market for the much more profitable Series 3 Heavy at $799 + monthly programming fees.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
http://www.team-mediaportal.com/ if you like win32. You need a card with the mpeg decoder on board.
http://www.mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html if you like linux. Cheap pci cards/usbpvr2 work great.
Got Trader Joe's? friendwich.com RSS feeds work now!
Well with series 2 and tivo 2 go you can offload videos to your computer and back and forth with things like galleon.tv. Hopefully they keep this kind of functionality with series 3 lite. Another question I have, is why didn't they come out with this version first? Why go with a box that is garenteeed to have limited user base. If they came out with the 3 lite version first, I would have been an early adopter. Sometimes TiVo's decisions blow my mind. (as in tivo desktop 2.4 doesn't work with Vista, but if you install 2.3 it works just fine???)
Can I heat grits on top of it?
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?
I just purchased my Tivo Series 3 (the wife and I are Tivo nuts and we just bought an HDTV so it was required) and here's my notes so far.
h p?t=350510 on how to do so). Then you get yourself a $50 enclosure and $300 1 TB drive and your rocking for approximately the same price.
1. Cablecard installation sucks. Make sure when you talk to the provider that they ALWAYS bring 2 Cablecards. It just took for times for TimeWarner to actually get cable going. None of this is Tivo's fault as much as its lack of understanding on the cable company side. The problems are in two places: one - firmware upgrades can take FOREVER, it literally took my 3 days to update the Cablecards, two: provisioning the TWC head-end folks have not quited figured this out yet and it took the guy talking to a friend to get the cards provisioned correctly. So when they come out make sure they try to flash the cards before they leave HQ and know someone on the other side that knows how to provision.
2. The lost 90 GB is not much of a problem. Tivo Series 3 have an eSATA connection that can be enabled through a backdoor code (see http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.p
3. I wish the OLED wasn't even there and I had $50 back. You can't see it half the time and its so small its tough to read from across the room.
4. THX: I don't have a home theater (working on that but gotta be a little more frugal now) so I wouldn't worry about it.
The $300 price point is the magic number and when it comes in watch out because these will start flying on the shelves.
I've had a tivo for years and refuse to take the HD boxes that comcast are trying to peddle.
TivoToGo is the killer feature for me. I honestly don't care if it's only SD quality, i just can't justify "upgrading" to something that's missing features.
hehe :) maybe subconsciously, but lest anyone think i view myself as 'better', i'll just say i prefer to waste my time on games instead of tv :)
sigs suck
Plus, it uses ReiserFS.
[Sorry. Now I'm going AC for sure.]
Area Man Constantly Mentioning He Doesn't Own A Television
I love how the THX logo is branded on everything now, and none of it really is THX quality. THX has become a marketing angle, but it really does and is nothing.
THX only matters if they're sending an engineer to your home studio, to custom craft an audio solution for your home studio's room size, shape, materials, and how it all effects the acoustics.
but yeah they dont.. So its just a dam sticker on a box.
From TFA:
Series 3 Standard: $799 (but ~$300 less with rebates, sales)
Series 3 Lite: $299
I am curious as to where you get "savings of $300" from those numbers.
You can get a Dish Network DVR622 for free with an 18 month commitment now. 250GB of storage and coming in August you can use external USB drives for even more storage. Online records are coming in September via dishonline.com. Add that it can record three unique HD feeds at a time (2 Sat + 1 OTA) and Dish offers the most HD channels of any provider (6 more coming August 15th). I just don't see why people pay for receivers/DVR's any more.
Unstable Apps: Our Android Apps Don't Suck
The user interface is so ugly and awful that you get the feeling that Comcast hated designing the thing and wish you would just use the "on-demand" feature instead of the DVR. I had it for about 2 months and the user interface was hostile. You couldn't do much of any useful search, it looked like it was an early Alpha release of the software.
Forgot about things like "suggestions" and the web-based connectivity that I'd come to expect.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
TiVo has only a 30-40% market share of a total DVR market of roughly 10-12 million systems.
Ontop of that, they're testing popup ads.....baaaaaaahhhh. Nice of mods to give some free ads.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TiVo
Alternatives. http://www.dvrplayground.com/
Just in case any TiVO people are reading this thread ... here's my wish list of features before I'll upgrade from my old TiVo
... so I can still access on-demand content from Comcast ... so I can customize capacity
1) 2-way cablecards
2) Standby mode that sucks 2W (current system eats 40W 24x7, yech!)
3) External drive
The title has a minor grammatical error. It reads, "Retailers Leak New TiVo HD Specs and Price"
It should read "Retailers Get Websites To Do Their Advertising For Them For Free"
I'll buy a Tivo Series 3 just as soon as it supports Tivo To Go.
For all TiVo units since the S1, you can upgrade the internal drive through a process of either:
.iso with the toolset required (it's really just a bootable Linux image with some scripts, a couple of tools, and a drive image).
(a) using a set of tools to duplicate your current (smaller) drive onto one (or two) larger drives, and then
(b) using the set of tools to image a new drive.
The tools are pretty easy to come by (just google for "upgrade tivo drive"), although the images are...a grey area. Apparently, TiVo complained about people putting images up everywhere for download, although you can usually find them by asking around (or visiting your good friend PirateBay). There is also a company that has TiVo's permission to sell drive images, at about $19, that come as a downloadable
The Series 3, on the other hand, also has an eSATA port on the back for installing external storage; people have hooked it up to everything from a simple enclosure to (I believe) a full external hardware eSATA RAID enclosure. (Some have even upgraded both the internal and external drives, although I think there's a size limit barrier that's been hit). It requires no opening of your case, although it isn't officially supported (read: announced) yet.
Pre-S3 drives are just EIDE drives. S3 (and later) are SATA. Easy to upgrade, especially if you aren't afraid to plug a few drives into a PC and boot off of a Linux cd.
Oh, wait. Nevermind. Linux isn't going GPLv3.
TiVo has only a 30-40% market share of a total DVR market of roughly 10-12 million systems.
... uh, first place, with a plurality of DVR systems. What losers!
Yeah, only 30-40%. That makes them a measly
Alternatives. http://www.dvrplayground.com/
From that page: "The most popular standalone DVR brand in the United States is TiVo". Yeah, I wonder why anybody cares about them.
You buy the S3, you can run your current setup with a 160hr S3L box. If you're getting unencrypted HD, you could even watch HD on your SD set through the composite output.
Or, you could decide that you _wanted_ stuff in the digital realm, then you could "step up" to paying for digital cable rates, and the cablecard(s) and the cc rental (which is supposed to be nominal).
You still wouldn't need an HD set, unless you wanted to step up to HD. OF course - again - if you get an HDTV and your cable provider is sending unencrypted OTA hd channels, you can watch them just fine without upgrading to digital.
By the way - based on what DirecTV did to the TiVo software, you can forget about doing anything useful with a Comcast version of TiVo. I'm not certain, but I think "Comcastic" is the Swahili word for "you're fucked".
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Spoken like a man who has never been married. I also find it odd that you assume I don't have a wife. Slashdot has been around long enough that a lot of the older users are married off and have kids.
I read the internet for the articles.