TiVo Series 3 (launch) rumors  

Man, am I itching to jump in here, but I won't. ;)

All I'll say is that the only esimate I saw was in another thread here and that was late 2006, not summer 2006 (late or otherwise). And that came out of CES, but not from any Tivo rep that I know of. I think it was just an educated guess by an attendee. Where did you here summer 2006? Did you hear any pricing info?

Tivo has said the Series3 will be available 2H 2006. They weren't more specific than that. I wish it were available mid-June, but mid-October is more likely, imo.

There's a video interview with Tivo linked on Tivocommunity with this information, and specifications on the product. Unfortunately, there's no price yet.

Well, I hope someone will keep one of these threads updated as info becomes available. Even I'm looking forward to more specific info, especially pricing, and I'm still relatively happy wth my SA8300HD DVR.

2H06 to me means, you're not going to see it before 3Q06.

While I'm not the happiest man on the earth WRT the SA8300HD, I'd say it's been a solid performer, but has limited intelligence that can make it annoying as all hell in certain situations like when you've got more than two 'New Shows' that are part of the 'record new episodes only' list and the box does a brain fart and records NONE of them.

I more than likely will pick up a TiVo Series 3 when the come out (depending on price of course) I think the $500 that's been floating around is about my upper limit for this box w/ a 500GB HDD of course. Then I'd spend the $299 for lifetime subscription (two years of month to month subscription price for hopefully at least 5yrs+ use before I have to buy something newer ;) but I doubt I'd dump the box even then.)

CCourtney

Given that the demo unit at CES prominently featured the eSATA port as an external hard drive expansion option, I don't see why they'd put anything larger than a 250GB drive inside the unit as a default. Unless the price/capacity curve shifts significantly in the next several months, 250GB is the largest drive you currently get before you start paying price penalties for higher capacities. Maybe by the time they're ready to go into production, the 300GB drive will be at the sweet spot.

Also, my gut feeling is that the Series 3 will start out at $799 list, with a $200 MIR for a one-year commitment to the TiVo service. That's just my guess, though -- no evidence to back it up.

I too cannot wait for this device, origionally I said I wouldn't buy an HDTV before the HDTivo comes out, I have changed my tune there a little to just I wont get HD cable until the HD Tivo comes out, I will probably get a TV in March and just do OTA until the series 3 hits shelves. I hope they get their act together and announce more details on this soon!

Actually the 300GB SATA's have been at close to level pricing per GB for a while now (~2.5GB/$) I expect the shift to go from the 250-300GB being the sweet point to the 320-400GB (~2.3GB/$ for 320GB and 1.9GB/$ for 400GB) by this summer. That's going to put the 500GB (currently ~1.4GB/$) into a more reasonable market, especially for a high volumn customer. An interesting thing to note is that the Cable Provided DVRs are mainly shipping with 160GB drives that are currently at a $2.3GB/$ cost.

The reason I quoted 500GB is because of a recording of the TiVo S3 presentation specifically stated that it would be offered with at least 500GB. Wish I could find the link.

To be honest I'd be happy with 320GB though. It's twice my current storage on my cable company provided SA8300HD dual tuner PVR, I can archive things to my PC which has 0.9TB at the moment, and I can expand it using an eSATA drive (which I can do with my SA8300HD now, but I haven't because I'm not running into space issue.)

CCourtney

Actually I think Tivo did help my grades in college, after getting a Tivo I woudlnt put off my homework to watch some show. I would just go watch shows once all the work was done, so I know you are kidding but it really can!

You are absolutely right about that. Almost any DVR frees up time and frees up your schedule to do other things, like studying or quality time with family while catching up with TV on your schedule.

Exactly right.

When I used to tell people about the Tivo years ago, they all said I was nuts for paying a monthly fee to record programming. But the Tivo has probably saved me many, many, many times the cost over in other ways. I still can't believe there was a point where some events in my life (decisions to go out or stay in, etc) were affected by the time a particular program was showing on TV. No way I could or would ever go back to that. In that regard, a dependable DVR like the Tivo helps to keep your priorities straight.

Count me in; I want this sucker yesterday. As soon as I can get one, bye-bye Directv.

Remember, however, that most Cable companies offer their HD programming as part of a digital package. How TIVO will address that is going to be curious. Right now, the series II DVR/burner can't see anything except analog stations. There was no way for Tivo to "see" anything beyond that, period. How will Tivo get the HD/Digital signal? Will it actually replace our Motorola cable box or will it be a slave to the cable box programming? If so, then many of the features that TIVO offers will be useless. I guess the question is, how will TIVO interact with your cable box? To me, that's the big question. Tivo can have all the capability in the world but if it won't read my HD cable signal, what's it really worth?

Rome

Cabinetman - you obviously don't understand how the Series 3 will work. It is not an "add on" box that has to control a different cable box. It has digital cable tuners built in and plans to use "cable card" decoding devices to be able to subscribe directly to premium cable channels. It is more like the DirecTiVo (for cable) than the old standalone TiVos.

I have an SA8300HD which I almost threw out the window 4 times last night. I need my Tivo back baddly. I just moved into an apt where hooking up my D* HDTivo is not to feasable and so I'm having to settle for this crap. I have been a little bit more impressed with the Moto boxes but for some reason the comcast serving my particular area doesn't use them, just the SA boxes. Anybody know what ever happened to the Tivo/Comcast joint venture? I haven't heard alot about that in quite some time.

From what I have read it doesnt sound like this will be out until later this year as well.

That's the part I don't like about what I'm hearing.... we're going to have to pay for the unit, pay TIVO for the service (monthly or lifetime) and pay the cable company for cable costs and rental for one ore more cable cards.

Rumor has it series 3 will feature two tuners and can use either one cable card 2.0 or two 1.0's.

Overall it seems like a lot more than what I'm paying my cable company now for thier DVR.... is it going to be worth it??

it's all about choice, vijay. if you think what the tivo offers is worth the price they'd sell it for and the monthly fee, then you buy it. i say YES! (even though i don't know the price yet)

Actually you have the option of using a Multi-stream (MCARD) or Single-stream (SCARD) CableCARD. There will be SCARD's that are CableCARD 2.0, you would still require two SCARDs even if they were CableCARD 2.0 to get dual tuning of encrypted digital cable channels. Let's not confuse the two.

Lifetime TiVo subscriptions run $299 if I'm not mistaken which is 23months of a monthy subscribtion. I'm paying this in STB/DVR fees w/ a SA8300HD currently.

I'd say we're getting close to the end of the enhancement line. The only step I see beyond this is to add a High Density DVD (BR/HD-DVD) recording capability, which I don't see happening for at least a few years (at least not in my price bracket.) I'll use Firewire to dump files to my HTPC and burn them there first anyway. This is something I can live with for at least 5yrs and I don't feel TWC will be providing me with an equivalent platform. The first two year pays for the subscription, the last 3yrs pays for the box and CableCARD fee's.

Not to mention it takes care of my OTA Tuner DVR needs and I can always toss it in a second room if I do decide to move on to the next big thing. Unlike most Sat. boxes which for the most part turn into junk the moment you drop the service.

CCourtney

CCourtney

Ahh..it means that literally, not just to you. ;)
2H '06 means 3Q or 4Q '06, so, of course you won't see it before 3Q '06. :D

I think I also heard there will be CC 1.0 MCards, is that correct?

Since we're not confusing things :) , perhaps we should include the cost of the box when comparing costs to renting a cable box. If the S3 comes in at the $500-$800 price that has been suggested, payback could be anywhere from 40 to 56 months based on the $20/mo I pay for my 8300 ($15) and recording service ($5) and that's not counting CableCard fees, replacement of a failed unit, etc.

Now, I won't say the S3 won't last that long or that Tivo service is not worth that price, I'm just pointing out all that needs to be considered when deciding to go the S3 route. I've already gone from a 3250 to the 8300 in 2 years and I fully expect to go with the Multi-Room unit when it becomes available. It's a darned good thing I haven't had to buy these units or I'd probably still have the 3250. :)

That's a good catch, I totally missed it. :)

Thought everyone might find this interesting:
http://www.opencable.com/downloads/s...I04-060126.pdf
This is the latest Cable Card 2.0 spec. From what I saw glancing through this it looked like the Cable Card 2.0 will be able to handle way more then just 2 programs at a time. This would be very sweet if you could set up your HD Tivo to record many programs all at once. Check it out and let me know what you think it means.

Without having read it, my initial thought is the HDD itself would be the limiting factor when defining just how many programs can be recorded at the same time. Each program to be recorded would need it's own buffer, which is just a matter of adding more memory. But, just how many buffers can be written to the HDD at about the same time given current HDD write speeds, etc.? From what I've seen, recording 2 programs while watching a 3rd recording taxes current DVRs, like the 8300, not sure about HD Tivo's. Of course, they could always design around multiple HDDs, separate memory, etc., but my point is I don't think the specs would allow any added capability in the current designs, though I certainly have nothing concrete to base that on. I suppose it could allow viewing of a 3rd live program, maybe even a 4th for PIP.

It may be something that we won't see in this generation of HD Tivo but maybe something they could add in the future.

Is there some reason why you ditched DirecTV now and not when TiVo actually won't work any longer? My HR10-250 still works fine and I plan to use it until DirecTV disables it by switching to MPEG4.

Chris

Has there been any mention of sending protected content into Windows Vista? Similar to the rig that Directv announced at CES.

Thanks