Koz, it's not about them screwing over DirecTV. Nobody would like to have this product support satellite than TiVo. The issue is the encryption of the HD signal. As this product is CableLabs certified it allows them to unencrypt the HD cable signal via CableCARD. There is not a CableLabs equivalent with the satellite providers, per se, but they would need to make their HD stream avaialable to this device in order for it to work with satellite.
Just speculation on my part but I suspect that you may actually see this in the future. Sean Alexander over at Microsoft has already blogged about that fact that DirecTV will offer an aftermarket support product which will allow new CableLabs approved Vista PCs to record high def off of DirecTV. I would suspect that DirecTV (and possibly DISH?) might offer similar aftermarket support products for TiVo Series 3.
DirectTV does not want to lose customers to cable for everyone who buys a Series 3 TiVo. The technology is already there to do this as is evidenced by the current DirecTV quad tuner TiVo box. The difference is that that is a proprietary DirecTV box whereas this is a standalone product.
It will be up to DirecTV to decide to create an aftermarket way to support this TiVo unit, but it would not surprise me if we see one. This is based on no personal information that I possess, but just speculation on my part based on what Microsoft and DirecTV are doing.
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Koz, it's not about them screwing over DirecTV. Nobody would like to have this product support satellite than TiVo. The issue is the encryption of the HD signal. As this product is CableLabs certified it allows them to unencrypt the HD cable signal via CableCARD. There is not a CableLabs equivalent with the satellite providers, per se, but they would need to make their HD stream avaialable to this device in order for it to work with satellite.
Just speculation on my part but I suspect that you may actually see this in the future. Sean Alexander over at Microsoft has already blogged about that fact that DirecTV will offer an aftermarket support product which will allow new CableLabs approved Vista PCs to record high def off of DirecTV. I would suspect that DirecTV (and possibly DISH?) might offer similar aftermarket support products for TiVo Series 3.
DirectTV does not want to lose customers to cable for everyone who buys a Series 3 TiVo. The technology is already there to do this as is evidenced by the current DirecTV quad tuner TiVo box. The difference is that that is a proprietary DirecTV box whereas this is a standalone product.
It will be up to DirecTV to decide to create an aftermarket way to support this TiVo unit, but it would not surprise me if we see one. This is based on no personal information that I possess, but just speculation on my part based on what Microsoft and DirecTV are doing.