Western Digital finally releases the 1TB My DVR Expander, TiVo owners rejoice
By Nilay Patel 
posted Apr 22nd 2009 12:55PM
posted Apr 22nd 2009 12:55PM
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Locked down eSata port? Really?
I really don't understand why TiVo stopped making the Series 3. It's better in every way.
Better in EVERY way? Get a clue. Well, there is no reason to want a Series 3 (other than the OLEDs on the front panel, its brushed metal finish, and wait, nothing else). You can buy a HDXL for less than $599. It comes with four times the storage space of your beloved Series 3. It is THX certified. It has the cute little back-lit remote (which are useless to most people with home theatres -- ever heard of a universal remote like the Harmony series?).
Not to mention, amongst other improvements TiVo made to the internal electronics that make the HD & HDXL superior to the Series 3, they also allowed for them to support multi-stream CableCARDs, so you don't need deal with your cable provider for more than one card. Your Series 3 has two cards sitting in it right now, right? I've got one MCard in my TiVo HD and its functionality is the same.
With the price of the 1TB Expander being reasonably priced, I can now get a 500GB Expander for less than $90 and for about $350, I have more storage space (which is far less than you ever dreamed of paying for your Series 3 box). I don't need THX. I've got great sound, but don't need to pay for a damn three letter certification. And, since I have a Harmony One remote, I could care less what they give me. I wouldn't use it anyways.
Wake up and smell the TiVo! You've got rocks in your head or something.
The HD and HDXL support multi-stream CableCARDs. Did I mention the price? You can get a HD XL with a much larger HDD than the original Series 3 and with THX for less money than the Series 3 cost. But wait, you can't live without the OLEDs?
Ever heard of universal remotes (so I'm glad that I don't have to pay TiVo for a remote that will stay in the drawer forever, never even seeing batteries)? Well, if I had a Series 3, I might sell that crazy remote on eBay. I have a Harmony One and never use manufacturer supplied remotes (except in the case of powering-on the PS3, but Harmony is about to fix that issue, too). And about the THX, I can't afford a home theatre system where I need a fully THX certified system. I've got outstanding sound and paid at least $300 less. Now, I can add a 500GB expander to my TiVo HD for less than $90 and I've got more room than your Series 3, plus I am using a single MCard, instead of two SCards...
@sully
I suggest decaf. Either that or a frontal lobotomy. I'm not disagreeing with what you said...just...WOW
Slow your roll there. Why the aggressiveness when all I said was I happen to like my Series 3?
You make some good points, but I actually do appreciate the OLED--I find it useful to glance at it and see if anything interesting is being recorded without turning on the TV. And I have a THX certified surround sound system, so that wasn't a waste for me. I watch TV with the lights out often, so the the back-lit remote is a must. And, when I bought the series 3 I got a $150 rebate, so the final price was very close to that of the HD with 50% more recording time (20 hrs for the HD vs 30 for Series 3).
One CableCard vs two might be nice, but really, why would I care, even if mine required 4? I configured it once a year or so ago when the Series 3 first came out and I haven't touched it since. I've had a cheap eSata drive on my Series 3 for quite a while, so no problems with storage space for me.
As for the Harmony One remove, I've looked at it, it's nice, but with a price tag of almost $200, that puts your system well beyond mind in terms of price.
I modded myself down for all my typos. I suggest everyone else do the same.
@Harkonian:
You did say that the Series 3 is, "better in every way." That's a blanket statement that applies to everyone, not just in your case with your set-up. That's why I took the stance I did.
No personal attack meant, now that you clarified your position.
And I, too, apologize for the typos. I forgot to delete the darn extra paragraphs I had originally written.
@Harkonian:
My understanding is that by law, cable companies are required to not charge monthly fees for the first cable card, so a single M-Card is cheaper fee-wise than two S-Cards.
I hate you Comcast Motorola box and your tiny ass HD that cannot be upgraded
I'm tempted to try it with my SA8300HD
My Time Warner SA8300HDC used to work with my external DVR extender till they just upgraded the Navigator software and now they have disabled the e-sata port :(
Please add me to the list of Comcast DVR haters.
(Are we sure that this WD drive won't work with Comcast?)
will this work with a directv HR20/21?
Yes it will work. But any esata drive will work so don't overpay for this one. DirecTV does not lock down their esata port like Tivo does.
Meh....I already upgraded my TivoHD from a 160GB to a 750GB HDD.
It was easy as heck.
my stupid fios motorola box wont allow any of these.....will it?
I like how you criticize the box, but then ask if your criticisms are valid. :P
Anyway, please someone answer sabih because I really want to know too!
no, "stupid fios motorola box" is true either way. I too have FiOS and feel your pain. It's a pain in the ass to navigate but worse, unresponsive to user input.
And BTW, J&R (and a couple Best Buy's got a few, but not a large shipment like J&R got) has been selling them for at least three weeks now (and currently has them in stock). They're out there. And since J&R has been shipping them, they have had a TiVo-Verified sticker on the boxes. They just got shipped to J&R early by mistake. Western Digital is selling them direct, as well, but at full retail of $199.99.
I'm just wondering if TiVo has added support for the drives, because up until now, they have not been recognized by either a TiVo HD or HDXL. If you called TiVo support, you were told that you just had to wait. I'd check with TiVo directly to see if they are supporting it yet before you get yours from either WD direct (if they're available there)
It doesn't appear on the tivo.com website yet, either. I would assume that they now have a better chance of being supported since Western Digital is selling them, but it would be nice if TiVo made the new drive official.
Be careful until TiVo makes it official or until someone who already has one gets it recognized by an HD or HDXL.
They are officially TiVo Verified:
http://www.westerndigital.com/en/company/releases/PressRelease.asp?release={AF3CD2C0-8F81-447B-A72B-71F2D11D4ED9}
Or you could just forget Tivo altogether and get a Moxi (Google it).
I decided to check out Moxi, because I've never heard of it.
$800 on Amazon! Wow~ That's just way to expensive.
Anyone know if this will work with my series 2 Tivo, 80Gb ?
I've been searching youtube and google for hard drive upgrade/replacement info...
I think I may go with WeakKnees.com and their upgrade kits. The pre-formatted upgrade kits are less complicated, but this DVR Expander seems the most painless/easiest solution~
@Crazy J:
It will only work with the HD Tivos (Series 3, HD, HDXL). The Series 2 boxes don't have an external SATA connector. Unfortunately, the Series 2 TiVos don't have a plug and play expansion option available at all.
If you want to expand your Series 2, I'd recommend the Instant Cake software (which will give you the ability to hook up a standard PC drive to your computer, format it, and give you all the instructions you need to install the drive into your TiVo as a replacement of the current drive). The company behind it, http://www.dvrupgrade.com, also will do the install of the drive for you. You might want to check out their website. I've heard nothing but good comments about their service and the Instant Cake software.
No matter what, if you decide to do the install yourself, make sure you get the correct version of the Instant Cake software. Your TiVo model number will tell you which version you need. The software will give you the rest.
I don't have any personal interest in the DVR Upgrade company. I've just heard lots of good things about their software as well as their service.
@Sonic_13:
They are, but TiVo, as of two days ago hadn't released an update to their software to allow the drive to be "married" to an HD or HDXL. J&R has been selling and shipping them for three weeks (and they all had the TiVo-Verified stickers on the box).
The problem is that TiVo (until at least two days ago, that I know for sure) had not made whatever software update is necessary on the HD and HDXL to allow it to be recognized. I was at a friend's house who had one of these drives (with the wonderful TiVo Verified sticker on the box). It would not go through the process of being linked to the TiVo HD that he had. It said that it was an unrecognized drive. When he called TiVo phone support, he was told that there was a software update that was needed that hadn't been released. They didn't know when it was coming, but suggested he wait until the beginning of the month (meaning May) when updates are most commonly released.
I'm not saying that they won't eventually work with a TiVo HD or HDXL, but as of two days ago, they didn't. It's not a problem with the drive. It's a problem with the TiVo system software. I know TiVo is aware WD has made this product officially available, so I'm hopeful that whatever change they need to make will happen sooner than the beginning of next month. I did see that TiVo isn't mentioning the drive on their website at all yet. However, information is available about it on the http://tivo.com.au (for those folks down under, but it still is listed as "coming soon" and not available).
I was just making people aware of the fact that as far as I've seen, it was not supported by either the TiVo HD or HDXL, despite what the box or WD might say (at least just yet). I still would check with TiVo phone support to make sure the software update has been made before buying one either directly from WD or from J&R (for $20 less). TiVo seems to be the slow one in this release.
If I hear from my friend that his is working, I'll pass along the info. That should confirm that the update has been made to the TiVo system software.
Wow, my poor ol' Dish Network VIP-722 only has 55 hours of HD recording time and uses ANY USB external drive (and there's no monthly fee for it), so I've got absolutely no use for this overpriced hunk...
Yeah but as a very recent Tivo to Dish convert... Dish still has a lot to learn. I miss my Tivo!!
Not certain I understand what you mean by no monthly fee for the 722... I have a DVR fee on my bill.
Sorry, but these extenders blow chunks. It's probably because TiVo is scared sh*tless of being sued by the entertainment industry, but why on earth do they store part of a program on the internal disc, and part on the external disc? This prevents you from moving the drive from one TiVo to another without reformatting the drive.
I recently replaced my HD (w/ extender) with an HD XL. Since the extender is tied to the HD, I could not simply transfer the programs over to the HDXL by moving the external drive. I had to transfer each program individually from the HD to the HD XL. What a pain.
Hmmm...me thinks the price on the Tivo HDXL is headed down.
Looks to be about $250 more for the XL, but you buy this with the regular box and you actually have more room than the XL, because you get 1TB plus the original drive's space.
I already have an XL and am just as happy to not have to buy and power a second drive to have enough space, but this is going to cause HDXL sales to fall off a cliff. Nobody is paying that much more just to get a fancy remote and THX certification.
For what it is worth, I find 1TB is PLENTY of space. Unless you want to use the TiVo as a video library instead of a DVR, you will never need more room. 1TB is basically the equivalent of limitless storage unless you watch 12 hours of TV a day and have no life at all.
I agree that HDXL prices will probably come down, but after dealing with the limitations of the 2nd external drive, I'm glad I have the single internal 1 TB drive.
Yes, I have no life. :-) I actually record and watch a lot of golf (typically fast forwarding through most of it). Each week's tournament is 4 days, and roughly 4 hours in length. Because of the possibility of a playoff, and because I've cut off the end one too many times, I record with an extra hour and a half. That's 22 hours practically each weekend. On top of that, just about every show I record these days is in HD, so even a handful of sitcoms and documentaries starts to add up quickly. Add in a few archived shows, and the old XL w/ extender wasn't enough.
I may eventually wind up swapping out the internal drive for 2TB drive once the prices come down. It's actually feasible to ghost the internal drive onto a larger drive, whereas that's not possible with the combo drives.
I play a game here where I read about an item that interests me, and ignore the name of the blogger. If there's something particularly annoying about the post, or it tries too hard to be funny or snarky, it's usually Nilay. I'm about 90% accurate on this lately. He has no snark creds but says sarcastic/lame stuff anyway because he thinks it's funny.
stop trying so hard. less is more dude.
I play a game where I ban you for being an ass.
My game is more fun.
I would never want to use an WD Expander, if it wasn't the easiest way to expand a TiVo (without having to crack open the case and replace the stock drive). There are countless problems that have been reported in various forums that prove that point.
Having the programs split between the internal drive and the external drive is a copy-protection measure. It was put there to make all of the companies that TiVo wants to work with (and earn profits from) happy that their copyrighted material isn't just easily copyable from a plug and play external drive to wherever it can be plugged into.
You're definitely right that the HDXL should be taking a dive. It does give you THX Certification and a nicer remote (in looks only, not functionality), but adding a 1TB Expander to a TiVo HD is only around $430-450 and you've got more room. You do have potential problems with the Expander, but they normally work fine. Although I mentioned problems with them, they are in the minority and most people don't have any problems with them at all.
I'm really thinking of just adding a 500GB Expander to my HD now that the price for that model has dropped to under $100. I think it's enough room from letting me just be down-right lazy and let stuff collect. By the time TiVo has enough content in HD that I'll want to keep for a while, I have a good feeling that their Open CableCARD (aka tru2way) standard box, which would be the Series 4 unless they rename it, will be available and definitely a viable and definitely desirable option. I don't want to keep investing in technology that is right now being developed in a little TiVo lab somewhere getting ready for release sometime (hopefully not really soon, but soon enough to make me feel like I got good use out of my TiVo HD first).
Does anyone know what to do if you already have the half TB hooked to your tivo? The data is stored on both as noted above and I don't want to re-format and lose. My wife has filled it up again almost. If I get the TB model can you "daisy chain" or swap out?
@Jam:
You can not daisy chain 2 or more extenders, and you can not move the existing extender to a different TiVo.
Your best option is to transfer the existing programs from your TiVo to a 2nd TiVo, which is what I did. If you don't own a 2nd TiVo, you're likely out of luck.
You may be able to transfer the programs to you PC, and then transfer them back to the TiVo once you've swapped extenders. I didn't try this option, but I assume it's possible.
Either way, it's a royal PITA.
Just upgrade your internal hard drive--it's not hard using free software and a PC. That way, no extra power use, case, etc. Check out AVS forums for details and easy instructions. And I don't think the eSATA port is locked down.
This thing has been on MicroCenter shelves for half a month.
I have a scientific atlanta 8300HD with Cox Cable. Does anyone know if they deactivate the eSATA port?
I have a Western Digital 500GB DVR Expander hooked to my Cox Cable 8300HD in Phoenix, works like a charm, although I can't promise they don't muck up stuff in other areas; the local Cox people aren't even aware that you can do this!
Be warned that the Cox 8300HD can (I'm told) only address 500gb of external max, so there's no point in getting a terrabyte drive for it!
Why do they need to do this crap (locking the eSATA port to specific drives, storing the program part on the external and part on the internal). If they want to copy protect it, just encrypt the data so even if you read the drive on a PC, you cant get at the protected content.