Tivo HD Released Into the Wild 228
B.Gud writes "Tivo has launched the new 'Tivo HD' DVR, validating what was learned from retailer leaks last week. The new unit is available for orders and will ship in early August, but the good news is that Tivo is going to activate serial ATA later this year, and that TivoToGo support is coming as well. From the article: 'Suffice it to say that it's the machine we thought it was, loaded with dual tuners, support for two CableCARDs (or one MCard!), a 160GB drive (180 hours recording SD, 20 hours HD), and HDMI. It really makes the Series 3 look weak. Or put another way, it makes the Series 3 into the boutique device it really is.'"
why buy when I can rent? (Score:5, Interesting)
History - that's why (Score:3, Interesting)
That way, with a 20 hour HD DVR, you're not coming back from vacation to find that a marathon of "Planet Earth" has kicked off every other program on your box. With Tivo you get continuity of what you've viewed (i.e. Season Pass) that's at least recoverable if you must change hardware. Want to wade through 20 years of "Simpsons" to find that one episode you've never seen?
Even better is MythTV, which does all that, and skips commercials.
Copyright Cable versus Bootleg Pirate Bay? (Score:5, Interesting)
This sounds to me like a great idea -- there's a ton of HD content over Comcast that I'd probably watch an hour or two a week of, more if I am sick or after a long stretch of work in the winter. I haven't found much HD content available over bittorrent sites, just a few RIPs. But I don't know if I really feel like paying for cable (and then a TIVO monthly bill) for what we get. From a legal perspective, I'd probably buy downloads (PPV online) if they were available and were high quality. But they're not available, so I resort to my own form of PPV. We generally buy movies we download, yet still keep the downloaded version on the PC to watch. I assume Tivos can't accept an XVid Video, so there is a downside.
This leaves a lot to be desired, but it's a step in the right direction. What I want in addition is:
1. Ability to download my own content, or RIP my own content.
2. Ability to remove commercials "real-time": we use a MCE plug-in that works well.
3. Ability to speed up shows without affecting speech tone (plug-in).
4. Remote access capability to a PC or a video game console (preferably both).
Tivo doesn't offer any of these, AFAIK. That's a big limiting factor. Someone needs to step up and provide these services, and their market will blossom.
Comcast/Motorola DVR is CR*P (Score:5, Interesting)
And my favorite is that after a couple of months the box will start "slowing down" more and more frequently. The fix is to replace the box -- so says Comcast.
So yes -- I will gladly be purchasing the TiVo HD box just so I can get rid of the piece of junk Comcast/Motorola calls a DVR.
Just doesn't make sense (Score:5, Interesting)
So I get an HD set, and I'm a cable guy so I'm looking around at what my options are. TiVo wants me to spend 800 bucks on their (then current) HD recorder. Riiiight, not so much. I talk to my provider and here is what they will give me:
HD DVR - 1080i(p?) recording. 160 GB drive. Two tuner record and watch capability. Show listings. No advertisements in the UI. And it comes with HDMI Out and Optical audio out of the box. All for the fabulous low price of 5.95/mo with no money down. As an added bonus, it requires only three cables to hookup to a good HD TV - HDMI, Power Cord and Coax feed from the cable company.
I fail to see how TiVo can possibly remain relevant in the face of this overwhelming opposition. In my mind there is no way that that $300 and a monthly service fee can compete with the Cable guys option. As a personal point of irritation, paying for a service (apart from TV, which is a whole separate conversation) and then being advertised to is simply unacceptable.
My thought for TiVo when I made the switch is that TiVo needs to exit the hardware business ASAP and start licensing their technologies to the cable companies. I imagine a model similar to Direct TV would be good. The cable boxes that I've gotten from RCN and Comcast both could use some UI improvements (RCN is def. not as good as Comcast).
Either that or sell me a box and don't ask me for any more cash.
Good timing (maybe) (Score:3, Interesting)
Which then raises the question - am I right in thinking that it will work with my current all-SD setup? I figure within the next year I'll be diving into HDTV so it will be nice to have the HD TiVo in place, but will it really work?
Re:Comcast/Motorola DVR is CR*P (Score:3, Interesting)
Its always been a driver support issue. The vendors are constantly changing their chipsets, etc with a small hardware revision number change, not always apparent looking at the packaging. The whole reason why Tivo came out with their own branded adapter was to have one that doesn't change and is always compatible with Tivo.
The Tivo wireless adapter also has some additional processing capabilities which offloads processing from Tivo's low-power processor, which I believe is how they handle things like WPA, for example.
Sigh... DirecTV (Score:3, Interesting)
Those if you with the non-Tivo DirecTV DVR will understand.
Re:why buy when I can rent? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:History - that's why (Score:3, Interesting)
Bottom line is that the content providers (yack) want to restrict what we can record and what we do with it - HBO is a perfect example with others happy to follow their lead first chance they get. Right now you're actually doing pretty good - many people aren't so lucky. I can get few OTA channels and not many via QAM either. Myth would do very little at all for me without CableCard support - never mind the PITA it is to set it up. What I and most others want is an appliance and the TIVO is exactly that - anyone in the household can figure it out. I have a DTIVO and I love it, it's a shame that Direct is too stupid to use TIVO for their HD boxes or I'd have had one of those 6 months ago. Instead I'm stuck watching SD on an HD set or doing a series of contortions that no one in my house but me understands to watch QAM or Torrent'd HD. I've complained to DTV and I may have to go with more expensive cable and an S3 or this new box just to keep a solid working interface. Sadly hacking these new ones SUX so I may be left with Bittorent if there's some show out there I want to take on the road with me to play on my PSP. I'm so pissed off about the situation I've stuck to watching SD on a 47inch HD set just because my options ALL suck right now. Be glad you've found yourself more fortunate but do NOT expect it to last as what you're doing is exactly what the content providers do NOT want...