[Rob Randall]

Time to stop dreaming of a new Series 2 TiVo for the UK market and start thinking about a Series 3 HD

There's an amateur (but quite informative) video chat with TiVoPony at CES 2006 on Gearlive where he talks about and demonstrates a pre-production Series 3 due out second half of 2006 (in the US obviously).

http://www.gearlive.com/index.php/n...ries-3-video-interview-first-look-0108051437/

 

[sanderton]

Damn, I missed that!

 

[Andy Leitch]

That is *cool*!!!

 

[andyjenkins]

Oh mamma .. come to daddy !

Please TiVo .. PLEASE we BEG of you !!!!!

 

[andyjenkins]

BTW .. TiVoPony .. its just rubbing salt into our wounds when you say things like "its just a $49 consumer box" ... if the unit is that mundane .. get it to the UK !!!

(reckon that will work lads?)

 

[blindlemon]

I think if you re-view the clip you will see that the reference to a $49 box was in relation to the current Series 2 TiVo. When asked if this will be $49 he says "Oh, no. Not this one" (OWTTE).

Pretty cool though, and I particularly liked the fact that the external add-on drive will have to be configured for TiVo use before it can be plugged in

 

[ericd121]

Wow! That does look wonderful!
(Although I must say, if you can have 2 tuners, why not 3?) :up:

I suspect that the fact that we haven't got nationwide HD yet may delay its introduction here..

On the other hand, if it's coming out in the U.S. in 6 to 12 months, that'll give Sky and TeleWest enough time to introduce HD, enough time for TiVo to iron out any kinks in the S3, and enough time to look at the UK HD specs to develop a UK version.

Yours, ever the optimist...

 

[aerialplug]

Until we have Freeview HD (another few years for that one as we'll have to wait for the analogue channels to shut down to free bandwidth) I can't really see a market for a non-sky HD PVR as Sky have the market cornered with Sky+ related products. They've already stated that they won't provide an analogue output (though I believe the first generation may do to support legacy plasma screens) and the digital output will be encrypted to prevent copying.

 

[sanderton]

Freeview HD might be an option in five years or so. Sky HD will never be, unless Blair mandates that Sky must make access modules available. The only reason that this is happeneing in the US is that their Goverment ordered the cable and satellite companies to produce access modeules to a common standard (CableCard) so 3rd parties could build boxes.

 

[blindlemon]

With the introduction of Freesat I would have though that now is a good time to start pushing OfCom and the Culture, Media and Sport Committee to advise Blair to force Sky to provide or license a CAM:

In fact, it could even be seen to be in Sky's interest to do so as they may be able to upsell Freesat (and FTA) satellite viewers using non-Sky hardware (eg. DreamBox, CAM-ready Series 3 TiVo etc.) in the same way that TUTV does on Freeview.