« Comcast/Motorola DVR pet peeve regarding spoilers | Main | Meedio released for free as Yahoo Go for TV »

Dual Tuner Standalone TiVo released

According to my sources at TiVo, today the previously rumored daul-tuner standalone TiVos will be formally announced and released. The 80 hour unit will be the first available at TiVo.com and go for $99 after a $150 rebate. The 180 hour model will be released sometime in May for $199 after rebate.

TiVo was kind enough to send me a preview unit that I've been using for a couple weeks and a review will soon follow.

Update: My short review of the unit is in this week's Circuits section of the New York Times.

by Matt Haughey April 25, 2006 in News

Comments

I thought they were going with a subscription-only pay model, and giving away hardware free?

is that not the case with these?

Posted by: jeremiah johnson at Apr 25, 2006 10:39:15 AM

I think they'll still do the standard single tuner standalone tivo for free with a monthly commitment, but these have the extra feature. It's like the DVD burning TiVos, and how those cost a little extra.

Posted by: Matt Haughey at Apr 25, 2006 10:54:11 AM

Good stuff, here's what I'm most interested in.

Single IR Blaster/Serial port, one tuner is limited to analog cable (or OTA)? If that's true (very likely) can you tell it what cahnnels are available on each tuner (one would expect yes).

Wonder if you can set a "preferred" tuner so if you are recording something on an analog channel it goes for the internal tuner first because of the faster channel change.

Built in Ethernet?

Number of USB ports?

Component outputs? (like the Humax players have)

OS version?

Posted by: Robert Aitchison at Apr 25, 2006 10:56:17 AM

Probably will be a premium product. Now you can watch more junk on TV!! Should I get one? Is transfer performance any better?

Posted by: nice at Apr 25, 2006 10:57:04 AM

Robert, some answers from my experiences with it:

1. There is a single IR/serial port. The box is designed to work with one cable box and just analog cable on the second tuner. I have been testing it with just analog cable on both tuners. The box has an internal splitter, which is nice, so I only have one coax going into the back of it.

2. Since I was on dual analog, I couldn't see options for preferred tuners, but I would hope that the higher priority show just goes to the digital tuner instead of the analog one.

3. Yes, I just looked and it has built-in ethernet

4. There are two USB ports

5. Unfortunately, only S-video and RCA output

6. Lemme check... It says it is running 7.2.5a.A1-01-2-649

Posted by: Matt Haughey at Apr 25, 2006 11:10:09 AM

Matt, I'm guessing this box has no built-in networking support, right? So the WiFi adapter I bought two days ago wouldn't be cancelled out by this model?

Posted by: Paul at Apr 25, 2006 11:19:36 AM

It worked fine with Tivo's USB g adapter (and matches in aluminum)

Posted by: Matt Haughey at Apr 25, 2006 11:32:43 AM

**notice sad face**

Just exactly what I've been waiting for. Sadly, I won't ever buy it -- as we currently have a perfectly good series 2 Tivo box with all-paid-for lifetime service.

I'm sure the switch to monthly fees will help out their cashflow, and won't be a barrier to new subscribers, but its left me and lots like me behind.....

Posted by: anastasiav at Apr 25, 2006 11:47:50 AM

The email I just got from TiVo says that the price is $254, which includes 1 year of service.

That's $30 more than the single-tuner box, which I assume they will phase out given the price similarity.

But then here
http://www.tivo.com/cms_static/press_88.html
I see this:
"The TiVo Series2 DT DVR ... is available in an 80-hour model priced at just $99.99, after rebate and service activation."

Assuming $12.99/month, that works out to $256/year, paid monthly. So the $254 doesn't seem all that great.

Posted by: Andy at Apr 25, 2006 1:57:12 PM

Yup, just got the same email. It mentions that the $254 deal is only for current subscribers, for the time being at least.

[quote]TiVo subscribers get first dibs on an 80-hr TiVo Package that includes 1 year of TiVo® service for only $254.[/quote]

Posted by: Ryan at Apr 25, 2006 2:13:49 PM

Actually I'd rather have the priority given to the analog tuner, since every analog channel is also going to be available on the digital cable box input I would want it to use the analog tuner first if the channel were available on it to reserve the digital tuner for digital channels.

Watching an analog channel through the digital cable box won't improve the picture quality any, in fact it may be (a teency bit) better watching it using the TiVo's analog tuner because the signal goes through less cables (shrug).

IMO the perfect scenario would be for the TiVo to first determine which tuner the channel was available on. If it's available on both use the analog tuner if it's available. If it's only available on the digital use that of course.

In the "channels you recieve" are there per-tuner settings? (I would think there would have to be)

Posted by: Robert Aitchison at Apr 25, 2006 2:57:15 PM

Good news, Matt doesn't have to open it up and study decoder chips! Bob Pony has stated this does not have MPEG4 decoding... something many of us believe is necessary for an efficient movie download service.

I have analog cable with no box and would have really enjoyed this unit... if I hadn't just bought a Humax DVD-burning model in December (prepaid for one year). This time next year everything in my place will be HD. So the question is will I be running Series 3 units or Comcast Moto TiVos?

Posted by: Dave Zatz at Apr 25, 2006 4:35:56 PM

I notice from the mailing that OTA is NOT supported, by which I assume they mean that there is no UHF tuner, 2-13 being the same on cable and VHF.

Posted by: DonBoy at Apr 25, 2006 7:03:08 PM

Is this the same unit from the CES?

I thought that it was going to have cable card and ESATA support, is this not the case?

Posted by: Bob at Apr 26, 2006 6:30:16 AM

Matt do you know if you can have different channel lineups for each tuner? I'm in a Comcast area that still an A & B side.

Posted by: Jon at Apr 26, 2006 6:34:48 AM

Wish there was an ATSC tuner on one of the inputs, even if it did just record at 480i. That would be useful to me. And since I have noticed ATSC tuners on $230 SDTV's at Best Buy, I figure it's about time for Tivo to have at least one.

Posted by: dglynn at Apr 26, 2006 7:01:24 AM

Bob, that TiVo from CES you are thinking of is the Series3, this one is a Dual Tuner Series2. I think most people are still thinking late Q3 to early Q4 for the Series3 to show up.

Posted by: Leo at Apr 26, 2006 7:11:18 AM

dglynn - ATSC is one of the features of the Series3, coming later this year. And it'll have dual-tuners for ATSC (and NTSC, and cable).

Posted by: MegaZone at Apr 26, 2006 6:02:21 PM

Congrats on making the NY Times Matt. Pretty cool that they used a blogger instead of Walt. This makes PVRBlog news fit to print.

Posted by: Davis Freeberg at Apr 28, 2006 2:13:08 PM

Davis, I've been a contributor since last Fall (
http://tinyurl.com/8gmhg) -- this was just the first time I actually got to review PVR software.

Posted by: Matt Haughey at Apr 28, 2006 8:41:28 PM

Am I alone here, or should this dual-tuner TiVo have been released about 3 years ago?

Personally, I've defected and gone to Media Center so I can do HDTV. TiVo taking a year to deliver the Series3 is a joke.

Posted by: Mike at Apr 29, 2006 7:58:01 PM

Yes you are alone... More than half the country still has analog cable. This is a product for them.

Tivo is marketing this product to them. The average consumer doesn't have HDTV and isn't spending 2k on a media center.

I

Posted by: kbennett at May 1, 2006 12:22:53 PM

So can I use this with DirecTV HD?

Currently, I have a splitter ... one line to my HD box, an one to my old DTV Tivo unit (which is then split for the duel tuner). The problem -- satellite 2 is often dropped (probably a little less than 50 percent of the time) ... channel won't change, so I miss programming. I'm wondering if this box might help solve that problem since one tuner is IR?

Posted by: Howard Owens at May 1, 2006 12:24:36 PM

I agree that it should have come out a long time ago. Heck, I was using analog cable in 2000 when I got my first TiVo, and the series 1 DirecTiVos already had dual tuners back then.

With the spread of HD, this product feels like it was a little late to market but now that it is here, it really fills a niche well.

Posted by: Matt Haughey at May 3, 2006 10:12:25 AM

Howard - you're not supposed to use splitters on satellite! That's part of your problem. Satellite is NOT like cable, you cannot split one cable into two tuners or you get drops, missed recordings, etc. Because the satellite system is a cooperation between the receiver and the LNB on the dish. To have two tuners you need TWO feeds from the dish and you cannot split them. To feed multiple units you need a multiswitch, NOT a splitter.

The solution for you is to correct the error in cabling and everything should work fine.

Posted by: MegaZone at May 5, 2006 12:52:47 AM

HAS ANYONE EVER TAKEN OUT THE EXISTTING HARD DRIVE AND REPLACED IT. IF SO , IS THERE INFO STORED ON THE OLD DRIVE OR IS IT A MATTER OF JUST PLUG AND USE. MINE HAS A SEAGATE 80 GIG AND i WANT TO REPLACE WITH A 160 OR BIGGER. CAN ANYONE GIVE ME POSSIBLE PROBLEMS THAT MAY BE ENCOUNTERED??

Posted by: JIM B at May 18, 2006 1:35:40 PM

"Posted by: MegaZone at May 5, 2006 12:52:47 AM

HAS ANYONE EVER TAKEN OUT THE EXISTTING HARD DRIVE AND REPLACED IT. IF SO , IS THERE INFO STORED ON THE OLD DRIVE OR IS IT A MATTER OF JUST PLUG AND USE. MINE HAS A SEAGATE 80 GIG AND i WANT TO REPLACE WITH A 160 OR BIGGER. CAN ANYONE GIVE ME POSSIBLE PROBLEMS THAT MAY BE ENCOUNTERED??"

Answer: go to http://www.newreleasesvideo.com/hinsdale-how-to/index9.html it has step by step instructions. By the way,this took about 10 seconds of searching on google.

Posted by: Raymond Dull at Jul 24, 2007 8:21:28 AM

Post a Comment

Name:

Email Address: (required, not shown)

Remember personal info?

Comments:

(html not allowed)