It’s more than you get from most of the cable company HD-DVRs. Mine is the newest model that Time-Warner carries, and it records 20 hours of HD. You have to bear in mind, that works out to be 50 hours of standard def, which accounts for most of what we record, and which is plenty for us. Tivo lets you set compression rates on recordings, so the Series 3 can record as much as 300 hours of standard def. Plus, since you own the hardware, you have the option of dropping in a larger hard drive, which you can’t do with a cable company DVR (which you rent).
That’s roughly 30 hours of HD, you’d get 130+ hours of SD video at high quality and 200+ at medium. If you want to add more space, it has a standard E-SATA port on the rear.
I retract my previous statements: http://tivo.com/2.0.boxdetails.asp?box=series3HDDVR
This is so lame. $800 is way out of line. They’re PS3-gouging here…
Truly, the Comcast/Time Warner box is one of the worst pieces of technology I’ve ever used. As if the crippling design flaws outlined comprehensively above weren’t enough, the product also suffers from horrifying firmware glitches and lock-ups. Oftentimes the box will appear to be refusing commands from the remote, only for you to discover a minute or two later that they are getting queued in a buffer somewhere, and suddenly you get about 100 commands processed all at once. It’s absolutely infuriating, especially when you’re trying to do something as simple as pause or rewind a show. I’ve had my box replaced twice now, and they all have the same problem. Comcast knows about the problem, but they still haven’t fixed it.
The sooner they come out with a Tivo box, the better. I’m going to look into it, and if it turns out it’s a long wait I can actually see myself spending $800 on the Series 3. Anything to escape from this hell.
Tivo series one was $1000 at launch. Like the previous versions, it won’t remain there.
A few things I haven’t seen mentioned about the Series 3:
[ol]
[li]No TivoToGo functionality out-of-the-box (promised for the future).
[/li][li]No multi-room viewing out-of-the-box (promiseed for the future).
[/li][li]E-SATA port not enabled out-of-the-box and no promises on functionality. Tivo could try and require you to purchase the drive from them at inflated prices. Not trying to FUD here, but Tivo needs money and the upgrade market has long been eating their lunch (or at least an appetizer platter).
[/li][*]Comcast and Cox have both announced Tivo software for their Motorola DVRs is being worked on, addressing some of the feature disparity between the two.[/ol]#2 is what kills this for me. I’d buy 2 of these if it allowed me to record and watch shows transparently between devices. The Series 2 at least allowed the “watch” part!
I have 2 Tivo units and I love them but seriously they are not worth 800 bucks… Yeah yeah the price will drop whatever thats how all electronics are but how on earth can this thing cost 800 bucks? Hard drives are not nearly expensive as they used to be and I am sure they are not paying retail prices for them.
Also there is no way in hell I’d pay 800 for one seeing as how my Series 1 Tivo had the HD die when it was a little over a year old. ( yeah I replaced it but still its the fact that it died ). The Tivo software is nice but its not 800$ nice.
Also for all you saying the price will drop… yeah no shit it will but with such a high entry price its going to take a long time for the price to come down ( at least 2 years to come down to 300 with out rebates ).
I have used the comcast and charter DVR and while they not even close to the level of the TIVO its cheaper and if it breaks I dont have to worry about fixing it and the monthly cost was cheaper.
I guess the $800 price tag is that Tivo needs to stay alive. Not really $800 worth of hardware in them.
Yeah thats what I figured but if they would have priced it at 300 I honestly would have bought 2 of them today and restarted my TIVO subscriptions. There really is not much value at 800 IMHO.
800 is nuts. I am a Tivo whore and this product makes my pants damp, but at 800 bucks, not right now thanks.
Yeah, what he said. I loved my Tivo, but honestly, there’s nothing keeping Adelphia, Charter, Scientific Atlanta, etc, etc, from writing software that duplicates the functionality. And then Tivo is history. I don’t see what they offer being so compelling that they can’t be edged out by the big cable and/or set top box firms (unless they get busy licensing their software). Does anyone think Tivo will be around in this same form in 5 years? I don’t see how.
There’s been nothing keeping their competitors for duplicating tivo’s interface and functionality for the past 6 years either, and yet somehow nobody has done it. Everything else sucks.
$800 is expensive, but like I said, they’ve got my money. I still use my thrice-upgraded series 1 tivo to this day, bought in 1999. Best money I ever spent.
And yet they have not. Competence? Cheapness? Damn if I know, but nobody ever seems to rave about a DVR that isn’t a Tivo. More likely they’re bitching about reliability, missed shows, mishandled program conflicts, or unexplained cancelled season passes. Tivo kicks ass.
EDIT: but . . . $800 for a DVR with only a 250gig drive is stupid.
Yeah, I’ll second Gary’s comment. $800 is definitely too much. But it’s not like my current DVR is “good enough,” either. It’s barely worth the nominal monthly fee that I pay for it. I’m willing to pay more to get a Tivo… just not quite that much more. For that kind of money, I could throw together a media center PC. I’d rather spend a bit less and buy an HD Tivo, so I guess I’ll just wait until they cost a bit less. It probably won’t be long; Tivo (and retailers) are always offering rebates, so I predict you’ll at least see $100 off offers pretty soon (maybe even this year). I’d probably get one if they go below $500.
A Cable company box with Tivo software will address these issues and it won’t cost $800. I don’t understand Tivo’s thinking here. Either do one or the other, but why compete with yourself?
Because cable and satellite providers are notoriously reticient about licensing TiVo’s software. DirecTV dropped tivo because they were taking $1 out of the $5/month DVR charge to their customers.
So are there actually alternatives besides TiVo and the cable company boxes for recording HD? I’m in the “I love TiVo but not $800 worth” camp and I’m on an apparently infinitely long waiting list for a cable company HDDVR right now. So in short I’m not really using my expensive new HDTV much because I can’t stand watching live TV. What are the other alternatives? Where’s the competition?
Not paying attention to the lawsuit against DISH by TiVo over patented time-shifting and hierarchical interface? They WON, that’s why there are no clones. Same reason there are no good exact clones of the iPod interface!
Meanwhile they’re perfectly OK selling your data to third party companies without your consent so that you get harassed by the friends (companies) of satellite sales companies. Check out the class-action lawsuit they lost a few months ago.
So they didn’t just cut TTG, but also the ability to move programs between tivos on your network. Bummer.