S3 as media player?

[Phantom Gremlin]

I have DirecTV so don't really understand "recent" TiVo developments like Home Media Option.

Based on the capability of current TiVo offerings, will the S3 make a good HD media player? Will I be able to upload HD from wherever and play it back thru the S3? Using component output? If so, this would make an interesting substitute for devices like the LinkPlayer!

[Dan203]

The S2 TiVos have the ability to transfer specificly formatted MPEG2 video files from a PC. However based on the beta leak we saw on the S3 that feature may not be available on the S3 at launch. And even if it is there is no guarantee it'll be able to play formats other then MPEG2. (the S3 decoder chip is capable of doing MPEG4 formats, but the current version of TiVo Desktop does not recognize anything other then .mpg files)

Dan

[megazone]

Yeah, what Dan said - basically the hardware can do it, and TiVo has said some things that indicate it will - "That is a dual tuner, actually it has more that two tuners, high definition, broadband connected, it works with all of the Internet video formats, it is a very compelling high end product." (http://blog.tivolovers.com/314035.html) - but final details aren't out. And it could ship without these features in software and have them added later.

[Phantom Gremlin]

Thanks for the informative replies.

If S3 doesn't ship with media player features, I sure hope they are added quickly. I've read about devices like LinkPlayer at avsforum and it seems that "firmware roulette" is needed to work around various bugs. If TiVo has the features I think they would be more robust.

[MickeS]

I would be enormously disappointed if S3 does not at least have the capability to play back mpeg4/2 content - preferably also ts files. I'd say that right now on my Series 2, I probably watch as much recorded content as I do content that I've transferred from my PC (thank you, inventor of Videora! :)).

I could see why TiVo would have problem getting past the problems with recording HD content and transfering that off if the TiVo, but I don't see any real hurdles for doing the other way around...?

[Dan203]

Like I said above this would not only require the S3 to be able to play MPEG4 based files, but it would also require a new version of TiVo Desktop that's capable of publishing .avi or .mp4 files because .mpg files can't hold MPEG-4 data. So even if the box supports the transfer feature from the start, we'll have to wait for the next version of TD for the additional format support. Unless of course they're developing that simultaneously, and release it on the same day. (wouldn't that just piss off the Mac users ;))

Dan