Tivo Series 3 gets thumbs up from CableLabs and 180-hr Series 2 box disappears

TiVo's HD-ready Series 3 box just got one step closer to being real now that it's been certified by Cable Labs. Sure, the cert may not mean as much as that golden FCC blessing, but it allows the box to be sold as compliant with various cable standards, including CableCARD. Meanwhile, the dual-tuner, 180-hour TCD649180 and 80-hour TCD64908 Series 2 boxes appear to have vanished, after initially appearing for pre-order on Amazon. We'll leave the rationale behind that to the conspiracy-minded among you. We're gonna keep waiting for Series 3, and hope that the dual-tuner, big-drive model stays in place for those units.

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 4th 2006 2:20PM]

Nice! I love TiVo.

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 4th 2006 2:33PM]

How much is it gonna cost--8k?

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 4th 2006 3:46PM]

Who knows what it will cost, but from another entry on Engadget about the series 3:

"Engadget contributor Dave Zatz speculates that the box will be out the first of September, at a price of $800."

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 4th 2006 3:56PM]

#3 Yeah that may be true but if you read the referring article Dave corrected himself after being contacted by the Tivo faithful.

M

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 4th 2006 11:25PM]

ok - I am curious. The information from Cable Labs that was cited in the article just says it is "certified".

Does anyone know if this is for cablecard 1.0 compliance (no iTV functionality or program guide resources)? Or is this TiVo Series 3 thing actually cablecard 2.0 compliant (which - through OCAP - supports iTV, electronic program guide (EPG) from cable company, etc.)?

Looking through the TiVo community site, this link discusses some of the key issues wihtout saying how TiVo is addressing them:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=281722&highlight=cablecard

Generally - the EPG and scheduling tools offered by TiVo have been one of TiVo's strong points, while the EPG from cable provider has been pathetic in comparison.

But other iTV functionality is coming (supposedly) and it would be nice to know how far TiVo is really taking it.

Anyone out there have clue on this?

Also - I thought that cablecard itself was going to be obsolete soon with DCAS (or "downloadable crypto") ...see this link:

http://arstechnica.com/guides/other/cablecard.ars/3

It would be nice if the TiVo series 3 could be upgraded to support this new spec so we don't have to actually rent the cablecard from our cable company.

I think it would probably be worth waiting for the HD TiVo Series 4 with DCAS support - if the series 3 does not support it.

Anyway - real information is so hard to come buy ...

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 5th 2006 7:32AM]

I believe I read on the Tivo forums that it is Cablecard 1.0, not 2.0

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 5th 2006 11:42AM]

The pictures of the back panel show two cable card slots, with one of them being 2.0 (backwards-comaptible to 1.0).

2.0 supports dual-tuner on the same card and I believe the second 1.0 slot would be automatically disabled when a 2.0 card is inserted.

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 5th 2006 12:47PM]

wondering for us series 2 owners, will there be a trade in option. I bought the lifetime package and that would suck if Tivo at least didnt compensate a little, otherwise it is not worth it. Most ocmpanies will rent you one for 12 a month. Tivo will sell it for 800..then charge a monthly fee, not cool.

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 5th 2006 5:13PM]

Meantime Telewest users in the UK can sit back with their 3-tuner HD DVR :) I'm amazed there's been so little coverage of it on sites like engadget!

http://www.telewest.co.uk/html/tv_drive/index.html