Tivo Series3 to be available everywhere

[coderus]

It would be great if there could be a single unit which could be used in all markets, as being here in the UK we only got the Series1 and no Series2 :-(, so with the Series3 it would be great if all markets could use this.

As alot of other electronic products seem to be multi-market aware these days.

Just a suggestion, but would be great.

[megazone]

The Series3 is based around CableCARD - which is US only technology. For the UK you'd need a different system for the *completely* different digital broadcast standards there. Unfortunately the global market for TV gear is fragmented - digital is even worse than NTSC vs PAL. Japan has their own HD standard too.

[DeadKenny]

Surely while the receiver part differs per region, the rest of the TiVo box should be fairly portable the world over?

Also you don't necessarily need a built in receiver. Most of us in the UK just plug in an external box via a SCART into our series 1 boxes. Surely we just need a box with HDMI sockets and these could be compatible as I believe UK and US both use similar standards for digital TV over HDMI (well, there's a difference still in the 50/60 Hz business I think and at 480/576 lines for non-HD resolutions, but most HD TVs in the UK are dual standard I think, just like the CRTs have been for years for NTSC/PAL). Sure still need a variation in the boxes between regions but shouldn't be a major difference.

Though over here for satellite it does mean getting a Sky+HD box just to be able to plug in a TiVo as that's what you'd need for HDMI, and Sky+HD is a PVR anyway (rubbish one though).

Failing series 3, even series 2, or just some other European specific TiVo would do :D

I'll admit though to not really knowing much about series 3, so if the box is designed specifically around content in US then that's another matter.


Sadly the real truth is TiVo is dead in the UK and Mr Murdoch has firmly got the monopoly with Sky+ / Sky+HD, with no chance of any competition short of a regulatory body forcing it.

Unfortunately, once I get my HD TV I'll be ditching TiVo in favour of a Sky+HD box as it's the only way I can get HD TV content :(

[classicsat]

The Series 3 by its nature records the digital stream directly.The (cablecard) access sytem would have to be significantly reworked to work with European access systems.

To record from an SD source (there is no way to record the output in HD, form an HD box), you might as well have a Series 2.

In any case, there are probably business/legal reasons why a pan-European Series 2 TiVo could not be realised.

[DeadKenny]

In any case, there are probably business/legal reasons why a pan-European Series 2 TiVo could not be realised.
Yeah, he's called Rupert Murdoch ;)

[wolflord11]

The Series 3 is already Dead in the US to us Sat users.

Thats the problem in the US, we have the Sat vs's Cable crowd.

Now if Tivo could bring out a Series 4, similar to the Series 2 things may change. And before I get the "Sat dont allow us bs" it was allowed in the Series 2!

[DeadKenny]

And before I get the "Sat dont allow us bs" it was allowed in the Series 2!
Similar with Series 1 in the UK. Our boxes even say "as recommended by Sky" !

Of course what changed was Mr. Murdoch decided he wanted his own thing and total control over it. Result was Sky+ which is inferior in almost every way except for being integrated into the sat box and being able to record multiple channels at the same time.

In fact isn't it the same guy responsible for this situation in the US? i.e. Murdoch who owns DirecTV.