TiVo confirms Series3 testing, hitting retail "soon"
by Ben Drawbaugh 
posted Jul 18th 2006 at 10:25PM
Dave Zatz continues to break news on the upcoming standalone HD TiVo known as the Series 3. He reports that TiVo has notified the FCC that the new series 3 is in testing and will be released soon. The unit will support dual CableCARDs and can also be used with a single card.
This is fantastic news to TiVo fans everywhere who have been tortured by bad DVR software supplied to them by their programming provider. Of course this will come at a price and no doubt will cost enough to make many think twice about the benefits.
What we really want to know is why Dave didn't tip us off to this, we must be on his bad side.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Tube @ Jul 18th 2006 10:54PM
Finally!! I cancelled TIVO a year ago when my cable company started offering their own HD DVR. It's NOT the same, but certainly functional. I miss TIVO.
jim @ Jul 18th 2006 11:18PM
I don't quite get the hype surrounding the series 3. It's pretty cool, but it sounds like it is going to cost a ton, and then there is the monthly fee. I have a motorola 6412 and it only costs $10/month. No big cash outlay and I can use the firewire port to capture the HD streams to my PC. Unless they can use that Ethernet port for something other than the guide downloads (such as streaming content off to a PC) I can't see why someone would buy it.
WASD John @ Jul 18th 2006 11:59PM
That box looks gorgeous! If I could get that and not have to worry about a Cox HD-DVR Box rental fee it may be worth it. Of course easily letting me back up my HD records would also be great too. In order for Tivo to earn my cash it would have to allow me to stream HD to my TV via ethernet, and also allow me to burn or backup recorded HD content via ethernet as well. Guide info downloaded via ethernet would also be great.
William C Bonner @ Jul 19th 2006 12:12AM
Having gotten rid of my cable bill recently to go with ATSC HDTV for free, I don't see spending close to $1000 for a TiVo and then paying a monthly service charge. If I could pay around 800 for a dual tuner TiVo including the lifetime service, I'd go for that, but right now I'm leaning towards getting that Media Center PC and putting a pair of ATSC tuner cards in it.
My Series One TiVo is still recording analog TV until 2009, right?
John Burton @ Jul 19th 2006 12:23AM
I have a "Moxi" from Charter after having a TiVO for many years. I got used to the Moxi, but my wife still hates it. She will let me buy this Tivo in a heart-beat. She misses that TiVo tone, I think.
Ben Drawbaugh @ Jul 19th 2006 6:52AM
William,
The Series 3 will also be able to record ATSC dual or one and one cable.
Your Series one will work as long as your cable company output analog or you have a STB with a S-Video output. So probably long after 2009.
How good could it be, if it isn't HD?
dpratt @ Jul 19th 2006 9:25AM
Almost too little, too late.
I think that that the series 3 will be a success, and it might even help tivo grow a bit, but this is almost two years too late. They've missed out on two years of subscription fees from people like me, two years of product mindshare growth, and two years of mavens/evangelists like me telling everybody they need to buy Tivo. I don't think Tivo is dead or dying (quite yet) but they are getting very very close, and they need to release the Series 3 very soon - within a month or two.
And for those of you saying they needed to wait for the cablecard 2.0 spec to firm up, that's bunk. I would have bought a cablecard 1.0 version in a heartbeat, even knowing I'd probably have to replace it in a few years to get more functionality - all I care about is being able to tape shows with the Tivo format. I don't care about anything else that cablecard 2.0 gets me, and I'm willing to bet that a vast majority of Tivo's potential HD customers don't either.
cckrobinson @ Jul 19th 2006 10:03AM
I want one too!!
My media center PC is serviceable, but it's just not as mature as a Tivo. I've spent countless hours trying to get all of my PC hardware to play nicely together with limited success. It really makes you appreciate a device like the Series 3 where it just works out of the box.
$750 for the Series 3 and I'll be all over it. Anything more and I'll probably wait for Vista.
Gregory @ Jul 19th 2006 10:53AM
When I upgraded to High Def, I swapped my Tivo for a Scientific Atlanta 8300HD. I love the High Def picture, but I really miss my Tivo. The 8300 is really klunky compared to Tivo and I don't understand why I only get a couple of days worth of TV guide. The Tivo works so much better. If I can actually use the series 3 with my cable company, I might upgrade!
siva @ Jul 19th 2006 6:26PM
While the TV Guide interface is not as refined as the Tivo, I have been enjoying OTA HD-DVR without paying any monthly fees with a Sony DHG-HDD250 (250 GB HD-DVR, one ATSC Tuner, one NTSC tuner).
Works great and I use ATSC OTA exclusively. Guide downloads through the PBS NTSC embedded stream. No monthly fees. I paid $499 for this from Best Buy. Unfortunately, Sony has discontinued this.
BTW, this Sony box also has cable card slot - however I am not using it.
AudiMalc @ Jul 22nd 2006 1:38AM
Tivo has many of these devices in the Wild as part of thier testing.
I have personally seen it in action and the Cable Card intergration and setup is very easy.