Gizmodo
Dropped in on TiVo this morning to get more details on the Series3. No word on pricing, but they are promising this will be out in midd-2006. The remote is backlit and fully programmable. It's got a 250GB internal HD, and as you can see in the picture below they are pushing a TiVo-branded external 320GB drive to go with it (the box will also work with some third party HDs as well). All told, the two drives will give you 70 hours of High Def programming.
The OLED display on the front shows the two programs that are being recorded as well as the output format. There are two options for output: Native (which outputs the shows in the same format it was received whether 720p or 1080i, etc.) or you can set the box to scale everything to, say, 1080i. It can also decode WMV and other advanced codecs that they didn't want to commit to yet.
There is no WiFi in the box, the adapter is still necessary. Also confirmed the two CableCARD slots, the dual tuners and whatnot. Looks like just the thing TiVo-nauts have been waiting for—what's taking so long?
Comments
FINALLY! This IS what I've been waiting for! What's the deal with cable cards though? I don't know a lot about those. Is it going to be DVI or HDMI, or just composite? AAAAannnnnnddd, What's it cost!?
Dan Max: Component and HDMI outputs. CableCard is a standard (mandated by law in the US) that lets 3rd-party manufacturers produce boxes that work on cable systems. You rent a card from the cable company, and plug it in, and suddenly your box can automagically decode their stuff without an external tuner. Nobody knows the cost yet, as near as I can tell.
Has anyone verified that this thing'll record the MPEG-2 bistream directly without recompressing? The last thing we want is to recompress the already crappy picture we're getting.
Palmer, Digital signals, from digital cable or ATSC, are recorded as-is, with no re-encoding. Basically just like DirecTiVo units record the satellite stream. Analog signals, from analog cable or NTSC, are encoded on the box into MPEG-2, just like with today's Series2.
Finally, an update to the Series 2! Still sucks that you don't get wireless. External hard drive units are cool but I'm sure they'll be locked down so you can't move your shows from Series 3 to Series 3. I love my Tivo.
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