arstechnica.com — TiVo has clearly seen the light after years of pushing rather high-end, high-priced HD DVRs out its doors. The company disclosed in its Q1 earnings call that a reduced-cost version of the TiVo Series 3 is on the way, and not a moment too soon.
May 31, 2007 View in Crawl 4
senselessJun 1, 2007
By the way, for you Comcast customers waiting to get the Tivo interface on their boxes, a quote from the transcript of the conference call.."Second, we have made significant progress on work related to the Comcast product. The trials are progressing well and will include limited subscriber deployment between now and the early summer. We're also excited to update you on the date and location for the commercial launch. Comcast's plan, and I'm now quoting Comcast directly, the Comcast TiVo trials will continue into early summer with a commercial launch plan for August. The commercial launch will be in parts of our New England division, including Metro Boston, Southeast Massachusetts and New Hampshire."Go New England!!
stalky14Jun 1, 2007
Check out one of the Panasonic or Pioneer DVD recorders with hard drive. That's pretty much what you're talking about right there, plus the ability to dub off the hard drive to DVD-R.
thundercat1971Jun 1, 2007
I have a Tivo S3, and I could not be happier, and for me it is worth every penny spent.I think the main problem people have with buying a tivo is that they have never had one. Many people think that the Comcast DVR is as good as it gets. They have never known anything better.I briefly had the comcast DVR when we upgraded to HD. I had it for less than a month. It was so frustrating to use that it was a chore to watch tv. The menus are confusing, the drive capacity is a joke, and the lock ups, OH the lockups! That box crapped out at least twice a week, just using it normally. And after a reboot it takes about 6 hours, 6 HOURS to repopulate with data! What is that crap?After that, I had no problems spending the money on the new (at the time) S3 tivo. The menus are so simple a first time user has no problems doing everything quickly. My tivo was recently upgraded with an ESATA drive so now I have 131 HD hours of recording capability. No problems saving the Planet Earth series and the last season of The Office for as long as I want. In the 8 or so months I've had it I only had one lockup. And after a reboot the tivo only takes minutes to be back up and running 100%.You can also play music on the tivo from your computer, and the same with displaying pictures. There are included games. You can schedule programs from any web browser anywhere so you don't have to be home to record a show you just heard about. Wishlists are great. We use them to record Flyers hockey games and action movies that are in HD. None of the capabilities I mentioned you can do with the Comcast DVR.Comcast DVR users: THERE IS SOMETHING BETTER OUT THERE!!!!
scottie924Jun 1, 2007
How about a TiVO that doesn't have to have a land line. We don't have a home phone service, just cell phones. The Internet should be able to do the same thing.
enderthethirdJun 1, 2007
You may be right. If it weren't so expensive and I didn't already have a DVR solution in place, I might be tempted. I just don't have that kind of money to throw around (and I resent having to pay money to rent a CableCARD so I can pay extra for premium channels/services, which isn't Tivo's fault I know). If you have the money for it, I'm sure a Tivo is a great way to watch TV on your own terms. And maybe once you get a Tivo, it is a lot more difficult to go back to any other kind of DVR. But with such a large price tag, I think Tivo will have trouble getting people to use one in the first place so they CAN fall in love with it and never go back to a cable/satellite provider's DVR.
chedlinJun 1, 2007
The series 3 doesn't require a phone line... I have one and like it. I don't love it like previous my previous unites because my cable company has switched digital video and the remaining channel selection stinks. I dumped cable and use my Series 2 DirecTiVo for my SD recording, and use my Series 3 for over the air.I have a lifetime sub I transferred off a 7 year old series 1.
morse213Jul 24, 2007
I like that TiVo partnered with Amazon for the Unbox service. Download movies directly to your TiVo. For the past few weeks they've been offering a small selection of new movies each weekend that rent for 99 cents.