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."

Comments

My Tivo Series 3 Perspective

[Hangtime]

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.

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.ph 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.

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.

Re:What?

[HTH NE1]

the 30 and 21 hours of HD quality recording really is a setback, but fortunately you can record programs at lower quality on the HD Tivo's.

Only as long as you have the alternative to record HD programs in SD quality on an alternate SD channel carrying the same content. HD can only be recorded in HD. Last I checked, HDNET had no SD alternative. Also, the PBS stations in my area have different programming on the HD and SD channels (e.g. Doctor Who is only on the SD channel).

There's also no IR or serial control by which to use a down-converting cable box on the Series3 platform. For cable programming, you either can record analog and unencrypted digital channels, or you use CableCards.

Re:Hackers dream?

[HTH NE1]

But having units with Lifetime Service still qualifies you for discounted monthly service at $6.95 a month for additional TiVos on the same account.