[Jasoco]

You know, for us people who DON'T have HD and won't have HD for a while and don't want to pay what could end up being $600-700.

 

[bidger]

I think if there were, it would have been announced simultaneously.

 

[Chmeeee]

SDTV isn't going to last much longer as a valid technology, so I wouldn't imagine that they would bother developing a new product to support it. S2 is a perfectly nice piece of hardware anyways.

 

[Jasoco]

I really hope they're not going to leave us unlucky SD users in the dark here. I really really like this.

I mean, I sure as hell ain't paying $600 for something I can't use.

 

[ZeoTiVo]

well if you hook your analog cable up to it , it will record on both tuners or record on one and watch on the other and give you like 200 hours of SD shows.
It will have an ethernet connection for faster TTG and the ability to download mpeg4 content from the internet or play the mpeg4 content from your PC
Plus it is future proofed against the day analog cable is no more

sounds like a kick ass SD recorder to me that I could spring 400$ on. so compare that to the cost of having to go to the digital tier and rent the DVR from your cable company. Long term it is still a better deal.

So that is what I will probably do. wait for the cost to hit 400$ or maybe 600$ if I can move a lifetime over and keep on loving my SD Series 2 TiVo DVRs till then.

 

[Jasoco]

I might agree on $400. I'd have to see it first. But I don't want to have to wait forever for it to drop in price to $400.

I just bought a 40 hour Factory Renewed Series 2 to replace the one I posted about in the help forum. It arrives Wednesday (According to Fedex) so I'll have something to use. But man, I just really want that sweet looking S3.

Edit: Ugh, and I just found out Comcast has stopped allowing non cable box users to get the movie channels! Now I can't watch Starz, HBO or Showtime.

 

[ZeoTiVo]

Edit: Ugh, and I just found out Comcast has stopped allowing non cable box users to get the movie channels! Now I can't watch Starz, HBO or Showtime.

For 10$ a month you can download Starz movies unlimited now and with TiVoToComeBack most likely watch them on your TiVo. Do a google on Starz and Vongo

 

[Jasoco]

I am a Mac user and Vongo is a service directed at Windows users created solely as a competitor to Apple's iTunes Video Store.

Besides, I wouldn't pay a monthly fee on anything Download. It's one time fee/unlimited use (i.e. Pay once to download the show. Watch as much as you want.) or nothing at all.

Thanks anyway.

 

[dswallow]

ATSC really has to be supported so I doubt very much you'll see a Series 3 box without that support, hence all such devices will inherently support HD material.

 

[megazone]

I think if there were, it would have been announced simultaneously.

TiVo didn't really 'announce' the Series3, they were showing it but didn't make any official announcements year.

And, not necessarily anyway.

 

[lajohn27]

I've crossposted this in several threads...

BUT..

I firmly believe there will be an update to the S2 platform very much along the lines of the TiVO Greater China (TCG) box. That is to say.. something with a higher recording resolution, slightly bigger processor (Intel inside maybe?), bigger HD capacity built in and an internet ethernet port.

The reference design is done and being manufactured. And on sale in China. So porting that to North America is hardly rocket science.

J

 

[shepler76]

I would love to see a non-HD Series 3. All the same features just not HD and a lower price. I would get the HD version for my HD TV but would like to replace the series 2 in the bedroom that is attached to a digital box, this way I would only need 1 box instead of 2.

 

[Gregor]

My personal belief is that the Series 2 is a soon-to-be end-of-lifed product, and there will be no SD-only Series 3.

With the end of SD broadcasting coming in 3 years it doesn't make any sense to produce a new box just to support SD technology. It's taken TiVo over 2 years to produce a HD tivo for cable, and I just don't seem them splitting efforts on the HD (future) front to spend any resources on SD (past).

However, iirc, the Series 3 does have s-video and composite outputs, so it will support an SD television. I sure hope folks realize in 2009 they're going to need some sort of box to keep their SD televisions alive...

 

[Larry in TN]

With the end of SD broadcasting coming in 3 years

There is no end to SD broadcasting coming anytime soon--at least not until the end of B&W broadcasting. There will be an end to NTSC broadcasting but there will be showing SD content, and broadcasting channels at SD resolution, for many years to come.

It's up to the cable companies as to for how long they will use analog NTSC on their systems.

They certainly could make an ATSC/QAM/CableCard SD TiVo but I'm not sure how much cheaper it would be. I guess the hard drive could be smaller so that would save some money.

 

[Gregor]

There is no end to SD broadcasting coming anytime soon--at least not until the end of B&W broadcasting. There will be an end to NTSC broadcasting but there will be showing SD content, and broadcasting channels at SD resolution, for many years to come.

It's up to the cable companies as to for how long they will use analog NTSC on their systems.

They certainly could make an ATSC/QAM/CableCard SD TiVo but I'm not sure how much cheaper it would be. I guess the hard drive could be smaller so that would save some money.

Correct, what I am referring to is the end of NTSC broadcasting. Whether or not SD is upconverted or not is unclear as yet, but it will be broadcast in a digital format. Cable companies are trying to rid themselves of analog channels so they can be replaced with digital. On many systems, the premium channels are only available in digital format.

My comments on an SD Series 3 still remain.

 

[lajohn27]

I think you're wrong.

Millions of consumers will still be using a standard definition television whenever the switchover happens. Most of them will not buy a new television right off.. but rather just get a different box from their cable or satellite provider.

A current S2 or an updated S2 that I spoke of earlier in this thread.. would still be useful for those millions of consumers...

I believe there will be an updated S2 box along the lines of the TIVO Greater China box. And that comment remains.

I originally posted that supposition in mid-December when the details on the TCG box were finally posted on these forums. And I stand by it. In fact, I'll put it in my .sig file for this site till it's proven wrong or right.

J

 

[dswallow]

I think you're wrong.

Millions of consumers will still be using a standard definition television whenever the switchover happens. Most of them will not buy a new television right off.. but rather just get a different box from their cable or satellite provider.

A current S2 or an updated S2 that I spoke of earlier in this thread.. would still be useful for those millions of consumers...

I believe there will be an updated S2 box along the lines of the TIVO Greater China box. And that comment remains.

I originally posted that supposition in mid-December when the details on the TCG box were finally posted on these forums. And I stand by it. In fact, I'll put it in my .sig file for this site till it's proven wrong or right.

Do you really think people who won't upgrade TV's and won't go digital with cable are the sorts who'd buy a gadget like TiVo? While there's many OTA-only households in the US, a great number of them are probably OTA-only for financial reasons -- a group wholly unlikely to have disposable income to spend on TiVo or their monthly fees. So yeah, there's millions of potential customers, but far fewer realistically reachable potential customers.

TiVo likely has more insight into their subscription growth and penetration and how many subscribers there are utilizing various cable technologies. But one thing is certain -- their standalone growth isn't stellar. And while it wasn't the biggest income source, their DirecTV growth was much closer to something you could call "stellar." To me that indicates it'd be the higher end customers they should focus on appealing to; I really doubt you'll see them make much effort on the low end except in partnership deals like with Comcast -- though even there it appears to me a focus more on the high end side of Comcast with support for HD programming.

There could very well be an updated Series 2 system, but it'd be getting updated because there was a technology improvement that could make the machine cheaper to build... more like a normal hardware revision over the lifetime of the product. I just don't see any significant investment being made on the low end of their product line until it becomes absolutely necessary.

 

[Gregor]

I think you're wrong.

Millions of consumers will still be using a standard definition television whenever the switchover happens. Most of them will not buy a new television right off.. but rather just get a different box from their cable or satellite provider.

A current S2 or an updated S2 that I spoke of earlier in this thread.. would still be useful for those millions of consumers...

I believe there will be an updated S2 box along the lines of the TIVO Greater China box. And that comment remains.

I originally posted that supposition in mid-December when the details on the TCG box were finally posted on these forums. And I stand by it. In fact, I'll put it in my .sig file for this site till it's proven wrong or right.

J

I could very well be, but I just don't see a market for SD video. It wouldn't be the first time Tivo has done something that I didn't understand but I can't imagine there's a profit in it.

 

[atmuscarella]

I found some data on TVs that I thought was interesting, In the USA:

As of 2005:

1. 109,600,000 households had TVs
2. 73,930,000 households where wired for cable (67.5% of all house holds with TVs)
3. 35,120,000 households paid for cable (32.0% of all house holds with TVs)
4. Total TVs in USA was 287,000,000

As of 2002 only 4,755,000 Digital/HD TVs had been sold (total all years) - in 2002 22,469,000 SD TVs were sold. In a very good year about 25,000,000 TVs are sold.

The above information came from: http://www.tvb.org/rcentral/mediatrendstrack/Trends_In_Television.asp

As a side note I was in Walmart a few days back they were selling a 27inch RCA Digital TV with a built Digital Tuner (ATSC) for $280 and guess what it was SD not HD.

I believe most people will be watching TV on a SD TV for years and cable/satellite/OTA digital signals will be converted for use on analog SD TVs just as long.

What does the above mean for TiVo - who nows - but I would think having both SD and HD products for quit a few years will make sense.

Thanks,

atmuscarella

 

[quango]

I think the issue with a non-HD Series 3 is that once you've done the work to add an ATSC/QAM "SD" tuner, adding the HD tuning capability is trivial. Reduce the hard drive space to 40-80 GB, and effectively you have a non-HD unit. Get rid of the component and HDMI outputs if you want to make it explicitly non-HD.

Having said that, there is a ATSC tuner mandate: by March 1, 2007, all consumer electronics devices manufactured for sale in the US with an NTSC tuner must also provide an ATSC over-the-air tuner. So, TiVo will have to either discontinue the Series 2, add an ATSC over-the-air tuner (which is 90% of the work needed to build the Series 3 anyway), or replace it with a Series 2 that cannot tune NTSC either (i.e. can only work with a cable/satellite box). The first option is by far the most likely.