No Surprise, TiVo Series3 Lite Arrives

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After several weeks of leaked info, there’s not really much I can add at this point. The “TiVo HD” ($299.99) is basically a Series3 TiVo ($799.99 MSRP) without the S3 price tag. The most visible cost cutting moves were made by dropping the OLED display and Glo remote, plus reducing hard drive storage by about 1/3. Though it seems that the bulk of the savings were obtained by re-engineering the internals. Interestingly, industrial design and hardware layout began about 14 months ago – prior to the launch of the Series3. TiVo HD pre-orders begin today with units shipping, and hitting retail, in early August.

Having played with the TiVo HD a couple of weeks, I can definitely recommend it over the Series3 to those looking to buy a high def TiVo. Though you’ll want to expand that storage (internal or external) and should consider the much more polished Glo remote as an accessory. I’ve had such good luck with Comcast lately that I didn’t want to tempt fate in requesting a CableCARD or two, so I used a combination of analog cable and OTA while testing the DVR… and it works exactly as you’d expect it to. At first I didn’t care so much for the exterior design of the new unit, but it’s grown on me and I actually prefer it over the original Series3. I also prefer seeing the CableCARD slots located up front — it’s a smart design move to make them more accessible. And speaking of those slots, TiVo now officially supports the M-Card. Meaning if you can find a cable provider that offers them, you can dual tune digital cable using one card instead of two. (TiVo wouldn’t confirm that M-Card support is coming to the Series3, though they didn’t rule it out either.)

I can confirm some of the rumors posted on Engadget yesterday… TiVo does intend to officially enable external storage (eSATA) this fall, plus multi-room viewing and TiVoToGo are still under development for the Series3/HD platform.

TiVo HD pictures after the jump and the opening animation over at YouTube…

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Does Anybody Read Anymore?

That is, does anybody read books anymore? Like 8.3 million other people, we bought the final Harry Potter book for our household on Saturday. The huge sales would seem to suggest that people are still engaging in the offline activity. But, beyond the Harry Potter series, I wonder how many people actually read regularly just … Read more

Don’t Buy These

Ugh. So much for impulse purchases. I wandered over to the AT&T store on Friday to pick up a stereo Bluetooth headset to use on occasion with my Blackjack, work Treo 700w now with A2DP, Macbook Pro, and Muziq. While the Southwing SA505 headphones are inexpensive ($60), have decent buttons, and seem relatively comfortable… the … Read more

Digital Media Bytes: Business Week Edition

The latest issue of Business Week (7/30) could be the best ever and was obviously tailored for geeks like me with a ton of relevant stories worth checking out. Annual IDEA Awards The Best Product Design of 2007. Samsung is Having a Sony Monent The Korean titan is showing signs of complacency — and results … Read more

Digital Media Bytes

A periodic roundup of relevant news… from our other blogs. Living Without a DVR: Connected Home 2 Go DVR Lands In Dictionary: Connected Home 2 Go OCAP No More: Connected Home 2 Go The Monthly Communications Bill: Connected Home 2 Go

Out With The Old, In With The New: Muziq Replaces UpStage

I was pretty psyched a few months back when Sprint told me they were shipping a Samsung UpStage to evaluate… However, the reality of the device hasn’t been impressive at all. I’m a big fan of Samsung products, and over the years I’ve probably owned more Samsung phones than any other (back in the day … Read more

What’s Wrong With Comcast?

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I don’t know what’s going on, but Comcast has served me very well this year. In prior years I haven’t had much positive to say. Maybe it was the possibly intoxicated installer who had to be escorted out by the Verizon installer, or his replacement who drilled a hole through our dresser, or the three visits to get the TiVo Series3 operational, channel lineup issues, unusable broadband, etc. But this year, Comcast has really been on top of their game (service and support) and they deserve some public lovin’.

When I joined Sling in February, I figured I’d want a little more bandwidth to stream up to 3 Slingboxes simultaneously. So I reluctantly gave up my Verizon DSL (capped at 384Kbps up in my apartment building) and moved on over to Comcast which offered 768Kbps. The process of adding broadband was very smooth and the service has been very good – fast and reliable.

Sometime in the spring I decided I didn’t need all these extra digital channels, but I did want to keep ESPN, Discovery, etc in HD on my S3. I called Comcast and they were able to cut the digital tier (~$15/mo) but retain the HD channels… for free. Nice! Also nice: In my region Comcast doesn’t charge for CableCARD rentals.

I gave Comcast a call this morning asking if they had any deals on the movie channels. Unfortunately they didn’t have any promotions running and it looked like the cable television portion of my bill would nearly double. However, the phone agent was very patient and went through a variety of TV packages and deals on my broadband until we found something agreeable. He asked if my CableCARDs were in a TV or a TiVo (!) and then put me on hold while he called in the changes. HBO HD and Showtime HD magically appeared (on both tuners). Then he wished me a good day, good week, and good weekend.

Maybe this competition thing (satellite, FiOS) is finally paying off for us consumers.

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