For me, probably the biggest news from the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Vegas is the announcement from TiVo of their Series 3 High Definition PVR. While this is not the first PVR / DVR to record HD programming it is the first from the brand leader, TiVo. Quick specs rundown: it’s supposed to have 6 tuners in it (2 ATSC, 2 NTSC and 2 CableCard Tuners), it will support external SATA storage and be able to playback MPEG4 content. What I think it’s missing is support (via line in and IR Blaster) for existing DISH or DirectTV receivers and it will still record shows in MPEG2 (what’s wrong with space saving MPEG4?). However, with the addition al suppor for playing back MPEG4 content (via PC) and if it does support all the current TiVO online / HME integrations, it should be a rockin’ set-top-box! It’s definatley the nicest looking TiVo box yet, it has a display on the front telling you what it’s currently recording, and the famous peanut remote is now backlight.
I don’t suppose the big DBS dish providers will ever support CableCard so unless TiVo adds a line in to this box it seems at this point if you want a TiVo brand HD-DVR you’re stuck with choosing either free (as in Beer) OTA or subscribe to Expensive Cable (which in my case would mean Comcast, BLAH!). I guess that’s probably the result of harsh ending of the DirectTv – TiVo licensing agreement.
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Way To Go TiVo, two years ago at CES you promised us this device and now you deliver (we’ll see when it 2006 and how much!!) More (and pictures) Here.
As for my current HD playback setup, I’m happy with the solution I have now. (I’ll be writing about this solution is a future post.)
It is quite cool looking. Curious to hear what your current setup is.
And kudos on moving to wordpress, looking good!
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WordPress… I probably went through 10 or more CMS / blog packages… I liked joomla / mambo and wordpress… I worked with joomla and learned a bunch of stuff, brough up the IC website and i realized it’s best suited to help organize mid – large websites with wide variety of content… when wordpress 2.0 dropped I updated my existing install and began to mess with the templates again… i relized that all i really want to do is continue to put up photos along with links and my random thoughs… WP is the best for for the latter two. There are still things about WP which bug me, but plugins take care of them most of the time.
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It’s probably inevitable that TiVo will face tough, if not crippling, competition from the cable operators. TiVo is already in a profit crunch, and now cable is bundling DVR units along with a slew of other services. The cable operators already have those customers, and can sell them on an iPod/iTunes-style integration of product and service – something TiVo can’t match.
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