TiVo is finally releasing the next generation of DVRs, but no hard date have been set. This is what TiVo fans have been waiting for what seems like eons. Cable providers have been leapfrogging TiVo by introducing DVRs of their own, including support for HDTV. The only HDTV tuner TiVo ever introduced was about two years ago, and it only worked with DirectTV satellite service.
I got a first glance at this unit and got to playback a few HDTV recordings. The user interface/on-screen menus hasn't really changed at all. (as a matter of fact, the secret backdoor to enable 30-second commercial skip is still present in the software. the sequence is "select, play, select, 3, 0, select")
All the major changes are in the hardware. There is now a sleek flourescent text display screen on the face of the box. There are slots for two cable cards, hence dual tuner support. They didn't mention any pricing yet, but I suspect initial pricing will hover about $1000.
Jim Louderback from PC Magazine has more details:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1908898,00.asp
TiVo is also pressing ahead for the ability to transfer recorded content to video iPods and the Sony PSP. This will require a $30 software add-on to Tivo-to-Go software. Although this has brought on the ire of NBC, TiVo has been smoothing out relationships with major networks and studios regarding issues with DRM. For the most part, they are simply allowing consumers make copies of purchased content for personal use on other devices. E-Week reported on this back in November:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1892482,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03119TX1K0000594
No comments:
Post a Comment