TiVo Series 3

[azvenigo]

I just want TiVo to know: I don't care what the Series 3 costs, I'm buying one. If they can make it affordable, all the better. But the Series 2 changed my life. And the user interface and features have been unmatched by any other PVR I've ever used.

I currently have a Comcast HD DVR that I use (through gritted teeth) alongside my TiVo. When Series 3 comes out that Moterola box is getting tossed right out the window.

Long live TiVo!

[d_anders]

I just want TiVo to know: I don't care what the Series 3 costs, I'm buying one. If they can make it affordable, all the better. But the Series 2 changed my life. And the user interface and features have been unmatched by any other PVR I've ever used.

I currently have a Comcast HD DVR that I use (through gritted teeth) alongside my TiVo. When Series 3 comes out that Moterola box is getting tossed right out the window.

Long live TiVo!

I'm with ya, but you should know that TiVo and Comcast have a deal, similar to what TiVO had with DirecTv, and later this year it's expected that the Comcast DVRs (that are Motorolas) will be "upgraded" to have TiVo software.

Given the $10 monthly rental charge, it will be interesting for Comcast subscribers to see what you get with the Series 3 SA vs upgraded Comcast DVRs.

[ChuckyBox]

I'm with ya, but you should know that TiVo and Comcast have a deal, similar to what TiVO had with DirecTv, and later this year it's expected that the Comcast DVRs (that are Motorolas) will be "upgraded" to have TiVo software.


TiVo has been saying 2nd half of the year for both the Series 3 and the Comcast/TiVo box, but I've heard rumblings that there will be a test of the Comcast box in New Hampshire in March. That might mean the wait will be shorter than expected.

For those of us who aren't Comcast customers, however, that Series 3 box looks so... very... delicious...

[Larry in TN]

I just want TiVo to know: I don't care what the Series 3 costs, I'm buying one.

Ever wonder why you've never done well at poker? :)

[Dan203]

I have every intention of buying two. I just hope they're not $1,000 each because my wallet doesn't like it when it has to take that big of a hit. :)

Dan

[DCIFRTHS]

I have every intention of buying two. I just hope they're not $1,000 each because my wallet doesn't like it when it has to take that big of a hit. :)

Dan

Depending on the cost, I also plan on buying two.

[VinceA]

Depending on the cost, I also plan on buying two.
I'll be starting with replacing my Series 2 first then after the inevitable price drops/rebates replacing the two Series 2's in the kids rooms. A lot will also depend on how well the Series 3 'plays' with the Series 2's.

[ZeoTiVo]

I'll be starting with replacing my Series 2 first then after the inevitable price drops/rebates replacing the two Series 2's in the kids rooms. A lot will also depend on how well the Series 3 'plays' with the Series 2's.


good point on how they play together. MRV is used a lot at our house and I do not want to think about where I am recording things in relation to being able to get at it. (HD of course being the exception of staying on a Series 3)

faster MRV is also a good thing :up:

[Dan203]

If you replace all your TiVos with S3 units then MRV wont be an issue, even in HD. :)

Dan

[VinceA]

If you replace all your TiVos with S3 units then MRV wont be an issue, even in HD. :)

Dan
Not being fabulously weathly, a wholesale replacement project just ain't gonna happen. Right now getting one S3 & a modest HDTV are more than enough home entertainment improvement for my budget.

[Bierboy]

Maybe they give individuals a "volume discount"...;)

[briboy75]

If you replace all your TiVos with S3 units then MRV wont be an issue, even in HD. :)

Dan

From what I understand thats not true. Mulitroom viewing will not be supported on Series 3, at first due to "Technical problems".

[ChuckyBox]

Maybe they give individuals a "volume discount"...;)

Maybe we TC members ought to pool our orders and try to get some kind of discount direct from TiVo. And maybe if our pre-order is big enough we could get it filled from the first shipment. :D

"I want my HD TiVo. I have money and I'm not afraid to use it." - Me

[VinceA]

From what I understand thats not true. Mulitroom viewing will not be supported on Series 3, at first due to "Technical problems".
From whence comes this nugget of knowledge?

[bidger]

As I understand this, and I could be wrong, that the MRV would be between S3 units, but not between S2 and S3 TiVos. If I'm mistaken, feel free to correct.

[Dan203]

From what I understand thats not true. Mulitroom viewing will not be supported on Series 3, at first due to "Technical problems".

The "issue" TiVo was referring to at the show about MRV is related to the copyright flag technology that they have to conform to in order to get certified by Cable Labs (the people who control CableCARD). The only thing this might do to MRV functionality is prevent transfers of shows that the content provider explicitly marks as being non-transferable. Which, as of right now, is only being done on VOD and PPV channels and is illegal to do on OTA broadcast channels.

As I understand this, and I could be wrong, that the MRV would be between S3 units, but not between S2 and S3 TiVos. If I'm mistaken, feel free to correct.

This is incorrect. According to sources at the show you should be able to transfer anything to, or from, a S2 unit except HD content. And that's only because the S2 units are incapable of actually playing HD content due to hardware limitations.

Dan

[d_anders]

TiVo has been saying 2nd half of the year for both the Series 3 and the Comcast/TiVo box, but I've heard rumblings that there will be a test of the Comcast box in New Hampshire in March. That might mean the wait will be shorter than expected.

For those of us who aren't Comcast customers, however, that Series 3 box looks so... very... delicious...

I certainly hope that this is true...Where have you heard rumblings about New Hampshire in March?

What makes New Hampshire so special, just curious? Sorry, just venting...I would beta test this in a heartbeat in the Twin Cities, MN....but I'm sure it's got to do with the program guide updates, etc., and the need to test within a given market, etc.

Anyway, the sooner the better. Given the statements around here, I easily expect that the Series 3s SAs will be inflated by $300-$400 for the first month or two to milk all the early-adopter salivating that's going around. If TiVo is smart, they'll only do it that long...

[TivoZorro]

Does anyone know yet if the Series 3 will have dual tuners for analog cable? All I have is analog and would love to record two shows like Law & Order CI and Desperate Housewives at the same time on one Tivo.

[headroll]

I'll be starting with replacing my Series 2 first then after the inevitable price drops/rebates replacing the two Series 2's in the kids rooms. A lot will also depend on how well the Series 3 'plays' with the Series 2's.

I will be replacing the 2 Series2 on the same TV with the 1 Series3 (we only have 2 for dual tuner functionality).

Since both are lifetime, I believe my out of pocket cost will be managable once they are sold off on e-bay, return the cable boxes and acquire cable-cards. Space will be substantially saved; 4 boxes to 1 (Woo Hoo!).

Moreover, the quoted standard size for the Series3 is in excess of the 2 Series2 combined.

My math may fail me once I figure that I will want a HD TV to support full functionality. (:

-Roll

[Jonathan_S]

Does anyone know yet if the Series 3 will have dual tuners for analog cable? All I have is analog and would love to record two shows like Law & Order CI and Desperate Housewives at the same time on one Tivo.
Yes, it can record from analog cable, and yes it can record two thing at once from analog cable.

Given the rumored price, it won't be a cheap way to do that, but it will certainly work for that.

[ZeoTiVo]

Yes, it can record from analog cable, and yes it can record two thing at once from analog cable.

Given the rumored price, it won't be a cheap way to do that, but it will certainly work for that.


I would think the ability to efficeintly utilize digital cable and do HD factor more in the introductory price than the dual tuners. Dual tuners are a nice helping of gravy to be sure but most early buyers of this TiVo are looking for digital cable and HD. That will up the price point TiVo will think they can get

[ChuckyBox]

I would think the ability to efficeintly utilize digital cable and do HD factor more in the introductory price than the dual tuners. Dual tuners are a nice helping of gravy to be sure but most early buyers of this TiVo are looking for digital cable and HD. That will up the price point TiVo will think they can get

Hmm, seems like a tough call. Even the analog users will get a crack at OTA digital/HD, which expands in value when you have dual tuners, so there are side benefits all over the place with this box. For me, it is the combination of digital cable, OTA HD, and dual tuners that makes the package so very attractive. The expandable storage is a nice dollop of icing on the cake. And then there are all the TiVo service features (announced and unannounced) to throw into the mix...

Damn, all this talk makes me want one all the more. It's like looking at porn. :o

[IrishTiVo]

THIS is what I've been waiting for. I want HDTV, but have held off for a 1080p DLP and an HDTiVo. Seems my wish list is no longer a wishlist! Once the early adopter dust settles, I'm ALL OVER one of these.

[webjunkie]

any thoughts on when the sweet new series 3 will be available to pre-order

[jautor]

Does anyone know yet if the Series 3 will have dual tuners for analog cable? All I have is analog and would love to record two shows like Law & Order CI and Desperate Housewives at the same time on one Tivo.

I heard 2nd hand (didn't occur to me to ask them at CES) that there will be a "non HD" model of the series 3, which would essentiall be a dual tuner Series2... Don't know if this was supposed to come out at the same time, or sometime later. Either way, don't expect that box to be 'cheap' like the single tuner boxes.

Jeff

[megazone]

I don't know about that - with the coming requirement to have ATSC tuners in any box with NTSC, it'd be hard to do a Series3 with no HD.

[TheNumberSix]

I really just don't understand what the delay is.

TiVo has been working on this forever. Didn't we see some early prototypes at CES in January 2005? And I bet we won't see a box shipping until Q3.

My only wish is that they would include a DVD player. Then I could replace both my Cox boxen and my SD-H400 and have only one box in my entire entertainment center. I'd love that.

[jautor]

I don't know about that - with the coming requirement to have ATSC tuners in any box with NTSC, it'd be hard to do a Series3 with no HD.

That's a good point. Are those requirements clearly written enough that we know that a DVR is covered? As opposed to a 'display device'? The quotes I've seen say "TV source devices" that contain tuners, so it does appear that way.

Now, maybe this 'rumor' depends on the timing of the release of Series 3. The ATSC date is 3/1/07. If Series 3 came out in 2Q - that's enough time to sell a de-populated NTSC dual tuner box, since you've got 9 months, and a whole xmas season... If series 3 doesn't appear until the fall, then it's probably too late...

[Dan203]

My only wish is that they would include a DVD player. Then I could replace both my Cox boxen and my SD-H400 and have only one box in my entire entertainment center. I'd love that.

I'd love to see one with a built in HD-DVD/Blu-Ray player. However give the price of the respective technologies it'll probably be a couple of years before a combo box like that is economical to produce.

Dan

[pinkfloyd01]

I just want to mirror azvenigo's original comments and say I will be an early adopter no matter the cost and can't wait to throw my steaming pile of **** Motorola dual tuner HD Comcast box out the window! Please let that day be tomorrow! We have 2 of the Motorola boxes and 1 has been replaced 4 times in less than a year and it is starting to pixelate and miss recording programs again! I don't believe the Tivo software upgrade will help but I may be wrong.

<rantoff>

[Stormspace]

good point on how they play together. MRV is used a lot at our house and I do not want to think about where I am recording things in relation to being able to get at it. (HD of course being the exception of staying on a Series 3)

faster MRV is also a good thing :up:

I plan on waiting. I Already have two Series 2 boxes that work fine with my current provider and configuration. Before I make plans to upgrade I'll make certain that a)S3's play nice with S2's, b)they are affordable, c)they play nice with all the cool third party apps (Galleon, etc.) and d)there's an upgrade path similar to the S2's as far as increasing capacity is concerned.

Before any of that I plan to get an HDTV, the bigger the better....but the wife insists on a Fridge first. <sigh> Maybe I can talk her into one with a built-in HDTV! LOL!

[ZeoTiVo]

I plan on waiting. I Already have two Series 2 boxes that work fine with my current provider and configuration. Before I make plans to upgrade I'll make certain that a)S3's play nice with S2's, b)they are affordable, c)they play nice with all the cool third party apps (Galleon, etc.) and d)there's an upgrade path similar to the S2's as far as increasing capacity is concerned.

Before any of that I plan to get an HDTV, the bigger the better....but the wife insists on a Fridge first. <sigh> Maybe I can talk her into one with a built-in HDTV! LOL!

the upgrade path is the external hard drive connector. :up:

there are LCD screens in some fridges at best buy :D

[classicsat]

the upgrade path is the external hard drive connector.


The wait and see there (in addition to internal expansion) is;


Must we buy a prepared drive from TiVo (either the online or a B&M store)?

Will aftermarket drives (from Weeknees et al) be available?

Will resources be made available to DIY your own drives?

[Stormspace]

The wait and see there (in addition to internal expansion) is;


Must we buy a prepared drive from TiVo (either the online or a B&M store)?

Will aftermarket drives (from Weeknees et al) be available?

Will resources be made available to DIY your own drives?



This is really what I was talking about for the upgrade path. External drives are nice, but they tend to be more expensive than internal drives. I like the TiVo's current hackability and hope it stays that way with the S3's.

[Dan203]

With the size of the unit, and the hardware inside, it may not have physical space for another internal hard drive. (like the DVD units) If that's the case then the external drive will be your only option. As for cost of external drives... eSATA enclosure are actually cheaper then USB and FireWire because they don't need any logic chips to convert from one protocol to the other. All they need is something to hold the drive, feed it power and passthrough the native SATA connection. So as long as the hacker community can figure out how to "bless" an external drive to work with a TiVo, it shouldn't be much more expensive then installing a drive right in the TiVo.

Dan

[Bierboy]

...there are LCD screens in some fridges at best buy :DBut are they HD? ;)

[tenthplanet]

This is incorrect. According to sources at the show you should be able to transfer anything to, or from, a S2 unit except HD content. And that's only because the S2 units are incapable of actually playing HD content due to hardware limitations.

Dan[/QUOTE]

You would hope the S3 could convert a file to make a down-rezed version that could be transferred to an S2 and played. Otherwise we will have to buy two S3s.

[megazone]

You would hope the S3 could convert a file to make a down-rezed version that could be transferred to an S2 and played. It won't do that. Yes, you'd need two S3s to use MRV for HD content.

[jacksonian]

I can't wait for this. I'll buy 2 for sure, maybe 3 if they're reasonable!

[72morgan]

I want my HD TiVo. I have the money and I'm not afraid to use it."

I agree wholeheartedly!!!!

I have the Comcast Motorola HD unit and it sucks , I am on my 3rd one and it still does not work correctly. The TV Guide is wrong , I can not record some HD shows. It is just awful. I hope Comcast does not " help " TIVO with their unit.

Hands off Comcast!! TIVO knows how to make a DVR and we know how to use it !!!

I believe I saw somewheres that the series 3 unit will have 6 tuners. 2 HD , 2 analog and 2 cable.......

[Bierboy]

....I believe I saw somewheres that the series 3 unit will have 6 tuners. 2 HD , 2 analog and 2 cable.......Not really six tuners..."only" two with the ability to record any two combinations of the six you mentioned simultaneously.

[mattack]

As for cost of external drives... eSATA enclosure are actually cheaper then USB and FireWire because they don't need any logic chips to convert from one protocol to the other.

Do you mean an enclosure an end user can buy for an existing drive?

Pretty hard to beat the $20 external USB2<>IDE enclosure I got for Christmas. I also bought a $16 USB2<>IDE cable which is essentially the same guts minus the case.
I wish they were firewire too..

[tfish77]

I would just like to echo everyone on this board and say that I'm willing to spend my hard-earned cash on an HD/cable card/dual-tuner TiVO if only the company would be so f***ing kind as to release it for sale.

Please?

PLEASE??

(please forgive the pseudo-profanity, but like the rest of you, I've been waiting a loooong time for this goodness.)

[ZeoTiVo]

This is really what I was talking about for the upgrade path. External drives are nice, but they tend to be more expensive than internal drives. I like the TiVo's current hackability and hope it stays that way with the S3's.

yes but if the external drive goes bad your system does not go down with it. You may loose the shows but at least you can be back in business much quicker

[megazone]

I believe I saw somewheres that the series 3 unit will have 6 tuners. 2 HD , 2 analog and 2 cable.......That was my phrasing. There will be two tuner 'sets', each one can do digital or analog cable, NTSC, or ATSC.

[FieryRobot]

Does anyone have any more specific info than 'later this year'? Meaning, does anyone know if its more, say, Junish then Septemberish? Just trying to plan out what I want to do. These Series3 units seem pretty cool, but it does mean I'd have to switch to Comcast (I'm on DirectTV now). In the meantime, do I either not get HD until this happens, or go with a DirectTV HD TiVo and possibly go with Comcast/Series3 later... My TV arrives Sunday, and I want to use all the pixels to the best of my ability :-P So the sooner I figure this out, the better. Woot!

[ZeoTiVo]

Does anyone have any more specific info than 'later this year'? Meaning, does anyone know if its more, say, Junish then Septemberish? Just trying to plan out what I want to do. These Series3 units seem pretty cool, but it does mean I'd have to switch to Comcast (I'm on DirectTV now). In the meantime, do I either not get HD until this happens, or go with a DirectTV HD TiVo and possibly go with Comcast/Series3 later... My TV arrives Sunday, and I want to use all the pixels to the best of my ability :-P So the sooner I figure this out, the better. Woot!


all we knoiw is second half of 2006 which means TiVo is not very firm on a date yet either or tehy would have at least specified a quarter instead of a half.

if it was me I would switch to cable and lease a cable DVR until something TiVo was available to replace it. But then I do not use DirectTV so it is easy for me to say "switch to cable"

[Bierboy]

And I'm using the Sony DHG HD DVR until TiVo gets its act together. Picked one up for well under retail just to use until the Series 3 is available, then it's off to eBay. It's clunky (TVGOS) and only one-tuner, but it'll have to do. I ain't payin' the cable co. for anything more than basic at this point until Series 3.

[ZeoTiVo]

And I'm using the Sony DHG HD DVR until TiVo gets its act together. Picked one up for well under retail just to use until the Series 3 is available, then it's off to eBay. It's clunky (TVGOS) and only one-tuner, but it'll have to do. I ain't payin' the cable co. for anything more than basic at this point until Series 3.


oops - good point bierboy on just using extended basic cable. that is all I use for now. Actually HD is not something I am buying into yet.

I went with the SA TiVo in part because it would be 35$ a month to go digital and get the DVR from the cable company.

[Dennis Wilkinson]

Does anyone have any more specific info than 'later this year'? Meaning, does anyone know if its more, say, Junish then Septemberish? Just trying to plan out what I want to do. These Series3 units seem pretty cool, but it does mean I'd have to switch to Comcast (I'm on DirectTV now). In the meantime, do I either not get HD until this happens, or go with a DirectTV HD TiVo and possibly go with Comcast/Series3 later... My TV arrives Sunday, and I want to use all the pixels to the best of my ability :-P So the sooner I figure this out, the better. Woot!

If the set has a QAM tuner, another option (albeit a DVR-less one) would be to get bare-bones, basic cable from Comcast, which would give you whatever they carry of OTA-broadcast HD. That's pretty much what I did--for about two weeks, anyway. I then broke down and rented a DVR from Comcast just so I could time-shift, biding my time until the Series 3 ships. Admittedly, I was already on cable when I did this.

Given that the current HD TiVo for DirectTV seems pretty much end-of-life (with DirecTV and TiVo no longer buddy-buddy and the switch to MPEG4 for much HD content on DirecTV) I'd have a hard time justifying buying one right now.

Edit: and that's what I get for starting a post before lunch and finishing it after...

[MichaelK]

I don't know about that - with the coming requirement to have ATSC tuners in any box with NTSC, it'd be hard to do a Series3 with no HD.

actually ATSC tuners dont need to mean HD outputs at all. The tuner and the outputs are 2 differnt things. In a couple years there will be a HUGE multimillion dollar market for converter boxes to receive ATSC and send it SD outputs so people with SD tv's receiving over the air tv can still use them when NTSC is shut down 1st quarter 2009. (actaully the goverenment will give everyone 2 rebates of $40 for converter boxes. WOuld be interesting if an SD outputting ATSC receiving tivo would count towards that $40 rebate from the governement.

[MichaelK]

The wait and see there (in addition to internal expansion) is;


Must we buy a prepared drive from TiVo (either the online or a B&M store)?

Will aftermarket drives (from Weeknees et al) be available?

Will resources be made available to DIY your own drives?




for the eSATA drives- it seems tivo implied they would allow any off the shelf drive that had enough throughput to work. So you could buy any eSATA drive from online or a B&M.

If that comes to fruition Kind of puts weekneed et al out of business I would think (at least for new buyers). Why would I buy a drive from them when I can go to shopper.net and find a hundred dealers with cheaper prices selling generic eSATA drives?

No need for DIY resources- likely the code will be built into the tivo so its automatic- like when you plug a usb thumbdrive into a modern PC.

I DOUBT internal drives and hacking (besides HMO/HME/galleon type stuff) will be allowed- in order to be approved for the broadcast flag(assuming that congress passes the legislation allowing the FCC to promulgate that regulation) and for cablecard the things need to be very secure. Nevermind pissing off directv or cable- screwing the pooch on the broadcast flag is likely to have the FCC ban those pruducts form being sold. No more hacks to turn encrytpion off can be allowed. like all the internal hacking seems to allow (except maybe the newest directv combo?- not up on it all honestly) So that's even more of a motivator for them to make off the shelf eSATA work so as not to piss off customers used to upgrades.

[MichaelK]

This is incorrect. According to sources at the show you should be able to transfer anything to, or from, a S2 unit except HD content. And that's only because the S2 units are incapable of actually playing HD content due to hardware limitations.

Dan....

You would hope the S3 could convert a file to make a down-rezed version that could be transferred to an S2 and played. Otherwise we will have to buy two S3s.

try to reencode a DVD to a smaller size on your pentium 4 computer. It takes a while. Doing that in real time is no simple task. Considering TiVo always seems to try to make do with the least amount of hardware possible, I wouldnt bet on a S3 having enough overhead to reliably do that. I guess maybe (i'm not all that knowledgable in that regard ) they could wire up some path to do it with the internal encoder instead of using CPU and software but that would require them to build in a chip that has the ability to handle a third stream in case you tuned to 2 analog channels and both encoders where busy.

[brebeans]

Hi:
Does anyone know if all of us loyal Tivo customers who do have Comcast, will get some kind of discount?

Or, will we "punished" by having to pay the same as everyone else (and in addition to what we already pay for our Tivos) to access the same functionality?

In other words, if you have a series two that is wirelessly networked, what are the advantages of purchasing Tivo through Comcast instead of directly?

I do have Comcast, but don't want to pay extra for something that I already have with my stand alone Tivo.

What are pros and cons of the Tivo deal with Comcast? Anyone know the details?
Thanks.

[ZeoTiVo]

Hi:
Does anyone know if all of us loyal Tivo customers who do have Comcast, will get some kind of discount?

Or, will we "punished" by having to pay the same as everyone else (and in addition to what we already pay for our Tivos) to access the same functionality?

In other words, if you have a series two that is wirelessly networked, what are the advantages of purchasing Tivo through Comcast instead of directly?

I do have Comcast, but don't want to pay extra for something that I already have with my stand alone Tivo.

What are pros and cons of the Tivo deal with Comcast? Anyone know the details?
Thanks.

no one knows the timing of the series 3 or Comcast available to market.

we do not know what features Comcast will make availble and which they will shut down. these are things like TTG, HME internet download of coentent, MRV
That you will have to compare against what is important to you.

we do know you will own the Series 3 outright and will have the features above and can add hard drive or mod the TiVo at your own risk, etc..

we do know that Comcast will own the motorolla hardware the TiVo software will be running on. You will lease the whole thing from Comcast.

Comcast is looking to nab DirectTV users who want TiVo and reduce churn for those already on Comcast but they are not looking to reward current customers of TiVo.

[Justin Thyme]

Do you mean an enclosure an end user can buy for an existing drive?

Pretty hard to beat the $20 external USB2<>IDE enclosure I got for Christmas. I also bought a $16 USB2<>IDE cable which is essentially the same guts minus the case.
I wish they were firewire too..Yeah, but the enclosure maxes out at 120GB or so, right? Seems like all the ones that you can stick a cheap 300GB in, that has fans and such all come it at least $49.

What Dan said is right for a single disk sata enclosure. What I still am super curious about is if we will be able to figure out how to bless a multi drive unit using one of the boards I mentioned earlier (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=3673693&&#post3673693). It's easy to wonder why they'd want anything more than a formated MFS volume. But attempting to divine the ways of Tivo can be mysterious sitting from the comfortable distance of our armchairs.

Anyway, there are plenty of sata enclosures, but the description is highly ambiguous. There are two things referred to as sata enclosures that are useless for an S3:

an enclosure that accepts SATA drives, but whose interface is something else (USB or firewire)
an enclosure that has more than one sata connector on the back.

You can quickly eliminate anything that doesn't have a single eSata connector. Of course if all you are doing is a single drive then it will be way way cheap. But the coool coool thing as pointed out in the other note, would be if S3 works with multi drive enclosures. For example using a board that allows multiple SATA drives to appear as a simple volume. Such modules exist ($99) and are inexpensive for DIY and weaknees folks to use. I haven't seen a prebuilt 5 dirve enclosure under $450 though. But I do have some questions about capacity. As I recall the -r4 blocksize flag will only get you up to 1TB. But for this particular module, you can access 5 sata drives, and 500GB drives are shipping so jeez- that is 2.5TB right there.

So besides the blessing question, we need to know if MFS will support larger blocks necessary. -r2 is 4MB blocks, and -r4 was 16MB blocks. If they can support addressing into 64M blocks, then that will hold us for a while, because we can then have single 4TB drives- either that or they remunge MFS to support more than two bytes for block numbers (yielding the 64K limit).

I'll crawl back into my hole now...

[JamieP]

So besides the blessing question, we need to know if MFS will support larger blocks necessary. -r2 is 4MB blocks, and -r4 was 16MB blocks. If they can support addressing into 64M blocks, then that will hold us for a while, because we can then have single 4TB drives- either that or they remunge MFS to support more than two bytes for block numbers (yielding the 64K limit).Maybe you have a better understanding of the allocation issues than I do, but I don't see this as a limitation. With -r2 we were limited to 274GB in a single MFS zone.You could still use larger drives by splitting them up into multiple partitions/zones. With -r4, the single zone limit is 1TB, but you should still be able to reach 4TB simply by having multiple zones. I am not aware of a limit on the number of zones -- the data structure on disk is a linked list of zones. Allthough mfstools 2.0 assumes a one-to-one correspondence between partions and zones, this is not a requirement either. You can have multiple zones coalesced together in a single partition. That's the key idea behind this (ttp://alt.org/forum/index.php?t=msg&th=124&start=0&rid=0&S=b4bdcb07991bbc9626e674759200a547#msg_num_2) hack that gets around the "can't expand twice because you run out of partitions" problem.

[Justin Thyme]

Maybe you have a better understanding of the allocation issues ...I don't. Actually I have only rudimentary understanding. I have only read enough about MFS to understand what the tools were doing when I have done Tivo manipulations. I get curious about that sort of thing having mucked with file system internals before.

So- what you wrote sounds interesting and I'd like to follow up if the need for a gigantor disk arises and no one has crushed the problem yet. I am only guessing about what a zone does in MFS, but your description gave be a good enough feeling for it. I would really like for the limit not to be some gorey situtation like "gotta wait to entirely rewrite the file system to use N Byte pointers because we wrote it using N-2 Byte pointers". From your note, it appears this is not the case. :)

BTW- Cool forum there. But I'd like to quote your post here since I wouldn't like the data to disappear.
I was interested in doing an MFS zone resize tool a while back, but I ended up doing a quick and dirty one-off to expand my disk instead, as described below. wc_b suggested the approach.

The key insight is the observation that MFS zones need not be in a one-to-one correspondence with partitions. You can coalesce adjacent partitions together, and as long as they were adjacent in the MFS superblock devlist, and you delete the additional devices there, MFS doesn't care.

To expand a disk with a full partition table:
Copy the disk to the new larger disk with an mfsbackup|mfsrestore pipeline. Do not 'optimize' the partition layout in the restore. You want partitions 13-15 to be contiguous on disk.
Run pdisk on the new disk and verify that partitions 13-15 are contiguous. Delete partitions 13-15 and replace them with a single partition 13 that covers the space of the previous 13-15.
Edit the devlist in the MFS superblock to list only partitions 10-13, dropping 14 and 15. You just need to put a zero byte after "/dev/hda13" in the devlist string. The devlist is at byte offset 36 in the first MFS partition (10).
MFS will reject the patched superblock unless you update the CRC. mfs_info -f in recent mfs_* releases can do that.
The resulting disk should be acceptable to the tivo and to mfsadd. I've never tried to back mine up, so I'm not sure about mfsbackup. If you want to play it safe, run mfscheck/fsfix on it before and after running mfsadd, and save the original disk.

YMMV. If this method corrupts your disk, it's not my fault.

[JamieP]

I don't. Actually I have only rudimentary understanding. I have only read enough about MFS to understand what the tools were doing when I have done Tivo manipulations. I get curious about that sort of thing having mucked with file system internals before.

So- what you wrote sounds interesting and I'd like to follow up if the need for a gigantor disk arises and no one has crushed the problem yet. I am only guessing about what a zone does in MFS, but your description gave be a good enough feeling for it. I would really like for the limit not to be some gorey situtation like "gotta wait to entirely rewrite the file system to use N Byte pointers because we wrote it using N-2 Byte pointers". From your note, it appears this is not the case. :)

BTW- Cool forum there. But I'd like to quote your post here since I wouldn't like the data to disappear.
Thinking about this a little more, and remembering past discussions, I think there may be a 2TiB limit with the existing MFS data structures: sectors are 512 bytes, and all the sector addresses in MFS are 32 bits. So it may be something fundamental will have to change to get beyond 2TiB (2^32 * 512). With signed ints, the limit may be 2^31 * 512 = 1TiB. There was a post (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=245604) from a guy who hooked up a 1.6TB raid to an HR10-250. It mostly worked, but there were some UI anomalies (http://home.pacbell.net/arn-py/hdtivo/ss5.jpg).

[mattack]

Yeah, but the enclosure maxes out at 120GB or so, right? Seems like all the ones that you can stick a cheap 300GB in, that has fans and such all come it at least $49.

The online info for either my enclosure or the separate USB<>IDE cable (remember, they seem to be exactly the same thing except for the actual case) said it had a 250 gig limit... but nothing in either of the packages refers to that.

[mattack]

try to reencode a DVD to a smaller size on your pentium 4 computer. It takes a while. Doing that in real time is no simple task. Considering TiVo always seems to try to make do with the least amount of hardware possible, I wouldnt bet on a S3 having enough overhead to reliably do that.

It's admittedly NOT the exact same situation, but somewhat similar.. standalone hard drive/DVD recorders *can* reencode their recordings to a lower rate when burning to DVD. They're basically just playing the existing recording, and simultaneously recording with the new settings to the DVD.

So really, there's no reason Tivo couldn't do this too, but it adds confusion to the user, since it is using the recording facilities of the machine in the meantime.

[ZeoTiVo]

It's admittedly NOT the exact same situation, but somewhat similar.. standalone hard drive/DVD recorders *can* reencode their recordings to a lower rate when burning to DVD. They're basically just playing the existing recording, and simultaneously recording with the new settings to the DVD.

So really, there's no reason Tivo couldn't do this too, but it adds confusion to the user, since it is using the recording facilities of the machine in the meantime.


plus TiVo would rather you just see the solution as acquiring multiple S3s so you can MRV HD around. Why spend resources on something that has a better solution in terms of revenue for TiVo ;)

[JPRosiak]

Not sure if anyone has seen this yet, but I found this video of the new tivo series 3. It shows the connections, options, and even gives an anticipated production time frame :eek: .
If this was posted somewhere else, I apologize for the duplication.

http://www.gearlive.com/videocast/gearlivetivoseries3.mp4

[classicsat]

actually ATSC tuners dont need to mean HD outputs at all. The tuner and the outputs are 2 differnt things. In a couple years there will be a HUGE multimillion dollar market for converter boxes to receive ATSC and send it SD outputs.

But by then, even if not now, there will be a plethora of HD chipsets,so the costs between an SD ATSC box and an HD ATSC box will be marginal. Even makining CC/ATSC combos might bring the quantity of boxes up, and the costs further down.

[Fist of Death]

Not sure if anyone has seen this yet, but I found this video of the new tivo series 3. It shows the connections, options, and even gives an anticipated production time frame :eek: .
If this was posted somewhere else, I apologize for the duplication.

http://www.gearlive.com/videocast/gearlivetivoseries3.mp4
Thanks for the link to the great video - I learned a lot. It also served to remind me how much I detest the tech-idiot-savant types, desperately trying to demonstrate intellectual supremecy by constant staccato interruptions. That guy reminds me of a cross between a used car salesman and *any* Best Buy sales person!

I'm looking forward to replacing my 2 Series-2 TiVo's with Series-3 units when they arrive...

[tewcewl]

Just a couple of quick questions: what does ATSC stand for? And how does multi-stream CableCard technology work? Does this presume that the whole spectrum is being fed through cable like it is nowadays, unlike an unstacked satellite signal?

[megazone]

Advanced Television Systems Committee - the committee that developed the digiral OTA broadcast standards for the US. The standard is named after the committee.

NTSC, National Television Systems Committee, is the old analog broadcast standard for the US. Actually NTSC was B&W and NTSC 2 is color, but everyone just calls analog NTSC. ATSC is the digital replacement which covers broadcasts in 480i (SDTV, what NTSC is), 480p (EDTV), 720p (HDTV), 1080i (HDTV), and 1080p (HDTV). (Yes, 1080p is in there, but only at 24/30fps, and never used.)

And yes, cable broadcasts the whole spectrum down the wire in discrete frequencies, and leaves it for the tuner to select what it needs, including digital cable. The CableCARD is simply a decryption token, needed to tune encrypted digital cable channels. Almost all of today's CableCARD systems are single stream, meaning the card allows decryption of one channel at a time. Multi-stream cards, defined by not widespread yet, allow decryption of up to 5 channels at a time - but only as many as the host device has tuners for. (So a dual-tuner Series3 box with a multi-stream card can only tune 2 channels.)

[tewcewl]

mega, thanks for the response! It cleared up a few things for me. I had always wondered how we got to ATSC from NTSC. Now, I know this has no bearing on TiVo in the States, but is Europe going to adhere to similar standards set by the ATSC, getting rid of their PAL broadcast signal. Does anyone know the answer to that? I'm just curious.

[Dennis Wilkinson]

Europe is using a different broadcast mechanism (DVB-T, using COFDM; as opposed to ATSC, using 8VSB.) Actual high-def resolutions are similar to those broadcast in the US, although using frame rates similar to PAL (25fps) in common usage.

The actual tuning of OTA content (the RF tuner/demodulator) would be different, but once an MPEG stream is extracted, it's actually covered by the same specs, at least for truly HD resolutions.)

[lrhorer]

This is really what I was talking about for the upgrade path. External drives are nice, but they tend to be more expensive than internal drives. I like the TiVo's current hackability and hope it stays that way with the S3's.
Amen to that! I really couldn't care less about TiVo-To-Go and am not really interested in the HMO option, and unless the PC based TiVo utilities really a lot better than I suspect they are, I want telnet, ftp, TiVoWeb, and TyTool on a Series 3.

[flempitsky]

Not sure if anyone has seen this yet, but I found this video of the new tivo series 3. It shows the connections, options, and even gives an anticipated production time frame :eek: .
If this was posted somewhere else, I apologize for the duplication.

http://www.gearlive.com/videocast/gearlivetivoseries3.mp4
What player do I use to watch this video. I tired MEdia Player 9 with the MPEG 4 Codec. all I get is audio no video. Any ideas?


thanks

[tewcewl]

What player do I use to watch this video. I tired MEdia Player 9 with the MPEG 4 Codec. all I get is audio no video. Any ideas?


thanks

Quicktime worked well for me.

[MichaelK]

But by then, even if not now, there will be a plethora of HD chipsets,so the costs between an SD ATSC box and an HD ATSC box will be marginal. Even makining CC/ATSC combos might bring the quantity of boxes up, and the costs further down.



sure could work out that way. I just wanted to point out ATSC doesn't HAVE TO BE HD.

[MichaelK]

It's admittedly NOT the exact same situation, but somewhat similar.. standalone hard drive/DVD recorders *can* reencode their recordings to a lower rate when burning to DVD. They're basically just playing the existing recording, and simultaneously recording with the new settings to the DVD.

So really, there's no reason Tivo couldn't do this too, but it adds confusion to the user, since it is using the recording facilities of the machine in the meantime.

that's why I originally wrote:

"they could wire up some path to do it with the internal encoder instead of using CPU and software but that would require them to build in a chip that has the ability to handle a third stream in case you tuned to 2 analog channels and both encoders where busy."


I am pretty positive they wont allow an encoder to be taken off line- since the like the concept of 'virtual tuner' that can do anything. Taking an encoder off line kills your ability to tune to 2 analog channels which require encoding.

[George Cifranci]

Thanks for the link to the great video - I learned a lot. It also served to remind me how much I detest the tech-idiot-savant types, desperately trying to demonstrate intellectual supremecy by constant staccato interruptions. That guy reminds me of a cross between a used car salesman and *any* Best Buy sales person!

I'm looking forward to replacing my 2 Series-2 TiVo's with Series-3 units when they arrive...

FYI.. That "idiot-savant-type" is Bob Pony aka TivoPony who is a frequent contributer and valued member of these forums ...

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/member.php?find=lastposter&t=286105

[weldon]

I think the "idiot-savant" comment was directed at the guy behind the camera who kept interrupting with questions that were phrased in a way that made it seem like the guy was trying to "play smart." I suspect that because I had the same reaction to the guy off-camera.

Not to Bob, he's just dandy.

[timstack8969]

I want to get another TIVO. I currently have the Series 2 TIVO. Should I wait for the Series 3 or get a cheap Series 2 with the rebate deal??? Also, will the Series 3 work with Series 2 for multi-room feature??? Thank's

[classicsat]

It depends how desparate you are for another TiVo. Get an S2 now, if you want one.

An S2 and an S3 should MRV SD MPEG2 content (rights permitting).