What I conveniently called system software 7.3 yesterday turns out to be 7.2.1, for those of you keeping score. I looked closer at the “Overlap Protection” feature and while it may be overdue, it’s a very welcome enhancement. Basically if the network schedules a show to end at 9:01, your 9:00 show isn’t recorded. With “Overlap Protection,” on by default, both shows will be recorded with the higher priority show gaining the extra time. As seen in the picture below, you can manually change which show gets priority.
Originally, we were under the impression the dual-tuner HD TiVo box with CableCARD support might be ready Q1 2006. Based on what I was told (and what I wasn’t) I’m thinking we’ll see something mid 2006… if we’re lucky. One possible reason for a delay could be the slow acceptance and release of the multistream CableCARD specification. While it’s very early, I get the sense TiVo is looking at much friendlier pricing than the HD DirecTiVo model which premiered at a $1000.
In Comcast news, I couldn’t get any information other than things are being worked on. I also wasn’t able to confirm they’re actually engineering for the current Motorola 6412 hardware.
When questioned about Netflix, I was told that their current content download feature is a “proof of concept” and that’s about it.