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Retailers Leak New TiVo HD Specs and Price
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Wed Jul 18, 2007 04:06 PM
from the tastes-great-less-filling dept.
from the tastes-great-less-filling dept.
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."
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Hackers dream? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not gonna buy a unit...and then have to pay a monthly 'fee' to use it for the rest of its useful life.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hackers dream? (Score:5, Informative)
What? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Well, hackers are poor and... well... That's Slashdot, you and your reasoning.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So what you lose he
Re:What? (Score:4, Informative)
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.
*sigh* no satillite connectivity... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Satellite TV boxes put out analog (component) and/or digital (DVI/HDMI) uncompressed hi-def video. To record that, you need A. a component capture device (relatively cheap/easy) or DVI/HDMI input hardware (also relatively cheap/easy), and B. real-time hi-
Finally! (Score:3, Interesting)
--mike
Still doesn't change a big price difference (Score:5, Interesting)
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-$50 a month, which I really don't see as being necessary, and for what? HDTV? Forget it.
On the other hand, this news [arstechnica.com]seems promising, if Comcast doesn't f$ck it all to hell.
OT Recommendations (Score:3, Informative)
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/ [team-mediaportal.com]
My Tivo Series 3 Perspective (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:My Tivo Series 3 Perspective (Score:4, Interesting)
2. eSATA port is unconfirmed. (BTW, I hate that people selling cables try to sell "internal eSATA cables". I almost bought the wrong kind because they haven't learned that the "e" stands for "external".)
3. Even if you can't read the OLED display from across the room, you can still tell from a glance (on a unit not in Standby mode) whether what's recording on a tuner is a scheduled recording of yours or not (Suggestions are not named on the OLED; scheduled recordings are).
4. I wish earlier models included an Emmy symbol the year TiVo was awarded one.
I'm waiting for my $300 rebate, but I won't use it to buy another one. Eight TiVos are enough for me right now. (Heh, my first two 14hr Series1 TiVos also had $300 in rebates, making them cost -$0.01 after rebate, not considering taxes on pre-rebate price.)
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Re:Neato keen and all but meh (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It loses 90 GB of storage.
As to how much HD content it can store, RTFA. (31 hrs for the expensive one, 20 hrs for the new one)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
And TiVo "jumped on the HD bandwagon" several months ago, when the Series 3 first came out.
Re:Losers! (Score:5, Insightful)
*the OLED screen (do you need a screen on your TiVo?)
*the glowing remote (which you can pick up for $50 anyway)
*THX certification (worthless)
*90GB of storage
Now, why didn't 'you' parse the submission right?
Re:90 freaking GB? 160GB, and here's why... (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)