TiVo Unveils New Series3 Video Recorder

Posted on Saturday, January 7, 2006 by MegaZone

TiVo unveiled the first working prototype of its upcoming CableCard-capable digital video recorder here at the Consumer Electronics Show. The new Series3 HD DVR will be the first non-DirecTV TiVo to record HD, and the first ever with CableCard functionality, which lets it record and playback encrypted digital cable broadcasts.

The Series3 is starting to hit the press, though there are some things in this article which contradict what I was told by the TiVo reps I spoke to. The unit does have a 250GB drive (though that could change before it finally ships, and it is possible that, like the Series2, there could be different models), but the capacity is up to 300 hours of SD and 30 hours of HD, not 250/25.

The article says this unit will not support MRV – but I was told by more than one TiVo rep that they do plan to support MRV, TTG, etc.

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MegaZone is the Editor of Gizmo Lovers and the chief contributor. He's been online since 1989 and active in several generations of 'social media' - mailing lists, USENet groups, web forums, and since 2003, blogging.    MegaZone has a presence on several social platforms: Google+ / Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn / LiveJournal / Web.    You can also follow Gizmo Lovers on other sites: Blog / Google+ / Facebook / Twitter.
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  • anonymous

    The latest rumor (stemming from a cnet article) is that this really is just a prototype, and not a sure thing…so this may not come to pass. Did you get that impression at all from anybody at the booth?

  • megazone

    Yeah, I saw the same CNet article. That doesn’t jive *at all* with anything I’ve heard from the TiVo folks. The unit is not *final* yet – the hard drive may change, etc. But what is on display at the show is almost certainly what will be on shelves later this year. It is in early testing now, which could result in changes, but by this point the hardware design is fairly well nailed down.

  • anonymous

    Did you hear if they expect to be able to support two way cc at some point (for vod, ppv)?

  • megazone

    To start the unit will be unidirectional only. Since the bidirectional spec is still the subject of violent debate, TiVo can’t say if the unit will be able to support it – what will be required is unknown at this time.

  • weaktwos

    Is this article is saying that we won’t be able to network our Tivo’s such that we can record shows on one and view them on another Tivo? That sucks.

  • megazone

    The article did say that – and note I said the article is wrong.

  • weaktwos

    Oh yes! Phew! I must have glazed over at the TTG part.

  • titanic

    It says it does have dual tuner support – so it hs multiple recording sources possible at the same time. Is it possible that the AV input jacks might be usable without having to go to the crap of calling them a satellite input?

  • megazone

    There are no A/V *input* jacks on the unit. The only two inputs are coax antenna and coax cable. All the other A/V jacks are output. It also lacks IR or serial jacks to control any external source.

  • anonymous

    Any word regarding Humax or other 3rd party vendors having TiVo Series 3 DVD burner units in the works?

  • anonymous

    Oddly enough, when I talked to Pony at the CES, he said it would support both multistream and multidirectional (once available). The only thing he stopped me in my tracks on was talking about MRV with HD content.

  • megazone

    No word on anything like that. And I don’t think it will be likely for a while, since DVD can’t handle HD content, or even SD digital cable content since it isn’t DVD compliant. We may see something with Blu-ray or the like down the road.

  • michaelts

    They did say that it would support multi-stream CableCARD, so I’m assuming that it would support the entire CableCARD 2.0 thing (“OpenCable 2.0″, to my thinking, since only part of it resides in the CableCARD). M-CARDs provide for authentication/decryption services for multiple simultaneous service streams and upstream communication. The other part is the OCAP engine running in the compliant STB or monitor. OCAP, the Open Cable Application Platform, is a Java-based applications engine which will allow cable providers to download their own interactive interfaces and the graphics assets the require into the box, so that they can produce the same custom look-and-feel that they have in the menus that they implement in the leased cable STBs today. They can create colorful multi-tiered VOD and PPV interfaces with inset video windows, etc, and well as apps like impulse subscribe-to-premium services and pay-your-bill with the cable box. The possibilities are endless.

    I suppose that TiVo could launch without this support so long as they could be sure that they could implement support for it with a firmware push

  • megazone

    I asked and TiVo has no current plans for OCAP. I also got it clarified – the current box will be unidirectional only, both single- and multi-stream. Multi-stream is being split off from 2.0 since 2.0 is so delayed, and cable MSOs will be distributing M-Cards based on 1.0+Multi-Stream soon. The Series3 will support 2.0 cards, but it may only support the 1.0 and M-Card functionality.

    One of the issues being argued is that OCAP requirement. The cable companies want it, the CE vendors hate it. That, and other disagreements, are holding up CC 2.0. CE vendors really don’t want OCAP, because they want to provide their own interfaces and functionality to access the features, not have every box have the same cable company interface. CE vendors want a standardized way to access the functionality – standard APIs, data formats, etc, instead. That would allow them to integrate the functionality into their product seamlessly instead of having to hand control over to a cable OCAP UI which will almost certainly be inferior, and definitely won’t be integrated into the rest of the product experience.

    Personally I think OCAP is a really poor idea and standardized APIs and formats is superior. Allow vendors to differentiate their products and provide different UIs while using the same data and accessing the same functionality. Cable UIs have always been terrible.

  • michaelts

    The OCAP concept has its pluses and minuses. CableCARD V1 actually had bi-directional communication in the spec (but no multi-stream authentication/decryption) and that part of the protocol really hasn’t changed. It had built-in APIs for VOD, PPV and EPG, with some HTML server support. Of course, since all of the latter stuff was rejected in favor of implementing something more extensive and general, bidirectional communication became moot for the initial version.

    The content providers and MSOs want to implement their own look-and-feel for VOD and PPV–this is independent of the built-in EPG UIs for “resident applications” like SARA, Passport and Moxi. These menus are, in part, advertisement for the services and the presentation counts; they certainly don’t want to leave it up to the CE OEMs. They also want to be able to offer other services through the boxes, which is something that they need OCAP to do. If forcing CableCARD on the providers takes that capability away from them, it arguably constitutes restraint of trade. Eventually all of their leased STBs will be CableCARD-based, by FCC regulations.