TiVo HD – aka Series3 Lite – announced and reviewed

Sorry, I don’t known a Kill-A-Watt to test the power draw.

aml – Yeah, I actually just posted a revision to the review and I need to update the FAQ next. The Philips/NXT chips aren’t the encoders, they seem to be basically the ‘tuners’ for digital content based on what TiVoCommunity.com has come up with. The ViXS chip is a dual-MPEG encoder, and it seems to handle the encoding for both tuners for analog content. The chip also has CableCARD M-Card support, and transcoding abilities. But right now it looks like it is mainly the encoder for analog content and the M-Card interface. Thanks for the pointer to the SATA controller.

I understand the frustration, but this has been covered many times since the original S3 was released.

Satellite is a *closed system*. 3rd parties, like TiVo, are not allowed to build receivers for DirecTV or Dish Network. The only effective way to record HD is to access the digital stream directly. TiVo *cannot* do that without access, which is not available.

The only way for a 3rd party to record from satellite is to take the signal from an external satellite receiver. This limits you to *SD* recording – and that’s what the S2DT, and the S2 before it, does. Encoding HD from component video is not feasible with current consumer level hardware. The only component capture devices that are in consumer price ranges first down-sample the HD content to SD, then encode the SD video – see the Slingbox Pro and various PC capture devices. Recording from HDMI isn’t possible because of HDCP.

It is not hard to understand *at all*, it is simply impossible for TiVo to do it – at least economically. Case closed. This is not a *choice* for TiVo, it is simple something they are not allowed to do by the satellite providers.

If you don’t like it, complain to the satellite companies and ask them why they don’t open their systems up to 3rd party vendors. It is NOT a technological problem. Or ask the FCC why they exempted satellite from the rules that forced cable to implement CableCARD to open systems up to 3rd parties. The FCC deliberately exempted satellite carriers from the rules, allowing them to remain closed systems.

Please show me how MythTV can record *HD* coming out of the satellite receiver. I would like a link to the source. Make sure it isn’t recording SD output from an HD receiver, or using a down-sampling card and only recording an SD version on the drive. Let me know when you have the link. (The only hope is FireWire output of the raw MPEG video – but then HD channels are generally 5C encrypted, making it a non-starter – and most receivers don’t have FW anyway.)

If you’re recording SD, then there is no reason to have expensive hardware like the S3 or even TiVo HD, because it won’t do any better than an S2DT will. So it would be foolish to raise the cost of the HD units by adding unnecessary hardware – just sell the S2DT.

Satellite providers sell DVRs that record HD because they have access to the digital HD data – they control the system and the DVR. The signal coming from the satellite is digital, it is recorded right to the drive as-is. That’s exactly how the Series3 and TiVo HD record digital cable too. And how the old DirecTiVo, including the HD DirecTiVo, recorded DirecTV satellite – before DirecTV stopped allowing TiVo to build them. If TiVo had access to the satellite data they could easily do it – but they are not allowed that access.

As for the TV – there is a HUGE, HUGE difference between displaying the data and recording it. The data flowing into the TV over component video or HDMI is not a highly compressed stream, especially not component which is analog. There is a world of difference between simply displaying that data on the screen and being able to compress it into a digital file for storage on a drive. A 1920×1080 image has 6.75 *times* the image data as a 640×480 image – double that if it is 1080p vs 480i. That’s a fire hose vs. a garden hose.

DVRs have to compress the image in real-time. Hardware capable of capturing HD and compressing it in real-time is very expensive, more than the cost of the entire TiVo HD, even the Series3. Maybe you can trim some costs by not compressing it as much – but then you get maybe 5 hours on a 160GB drive instead of 20 hours. It just isn’t economical to make hardware that does it today. Commercial encoding hardware that can do it costs thousands of dollars. You need much more capable encoders and a lot more memory.

There have been consumer devices that could record component HD in real time – W-VHS. This was a proprietary JVC system that recorded each of the three component channels individually on special VHS-style tapes. It illustrates how difficult this is.

Look around – try to find any DVR, or other recording system, that can record an HD signal from an external source like a cable box or satellite receiver. Then make sure it is really HD, and it doesn’t mention down-sampling HD input to SD before recording/encoding.

It has nothing to do with sour grapes on TiVo’s part – or do you think the *entire consumer electronics industry* has a grudge against satellite and therefore won’t make recorders? Or that all of the vendors that used to make tuners and recorders for DirecTV and Dish Network stopped at the same time because they felt like it? No, both Dish Network and DirecTV decided to bring everything ‘in house’ and they pulled the licenses for 3rd party units. That’s why they all vanished a few years back. Both of the DBS providers have become very closed and protective of their networks, branding everything under their own brands and disallowing 3rd party vendors to connect.

If you know the technologies involved, it isn’t hard to understand. There are solid technical and economic reasons why you don’t see products like this on the market.

Wow… that is so utterly and completely incorrect that I’m stunned.

That is absolutely NOT what happened in this reality.

1. DirecTV. TiVo and DirecTV were long time partners – and technically still are. DirecTV and TiVo extended their agreement to continue to support existing DirecTV customers. However, DirecTV dropped TiVo as their DVR supplier and no longer sells new DirecTiVos. Why? Because News Corp/Rupert Murdoch purchased a controlling interest in DirecTV a few years back. News Corp also just happened to own NDS, another DVR technology provider, which builds the Skybox for News Corps satellite system, BSkyB, in the UK. Instead of continuing to pay TiVo for the technology, Murdoch decided to bring it ‘in house’ and give the business to NDS. Now DTV pays NDS – but the money stays inside the News Corp umbrella. Hardly shocking, and fairly typical of Murdoch’s style.

TiVo did negotiate to remain a provider to DirecTV, but they were shut out by News Corp. It is hard for TiVo to compete with an in-house vendor. And DirecTV would never enable the more advanced features of their DirecTiVo units (NO networking features), even though the hardware and software were there. So TiVo couldn’t compete on features since they didn’t control the units – DirecTV did. There is a ray of hope – Liberty Media is acquiring News Corp’s share of DirecTV, and in fact may acquire the entire company. Liberty is a major corporate investor in TiVo, so there is a chance they’ll bring TiVo back as a DVR supplier.

2. Dish Network. Way back in the early days TiVo approached Dish Network to propose developing a DVR for their system. TiVo negotiated in good faith with Dish Network and even gave them a prototype to test. In the end Dish Network turned TiVo down, and a short time later they came out with an ‘in-house’ DVR.

The rest is a matter of public records. A jury determined that Echostar *willfully* violated TiVo’s patents in the development of their DVR systems. That they were aware of the technology due to their aborted negotiations with TiVo, and the prototype was never returned to TiVo. TiVo made repeated attempts to negotiate a licensing deal with Dish before going to court, and Dish refused to license TiVo’s technology or give them access to their network.

TiVo won the case and Dish was ordered to disable their DVRs in the field – that order was given a stay pending appeal. TiVo and Dish are heading back into court for the appeal, and if TiVo carries the appeal they’ll receive upwards of $100 million from Dish in settlement, and it is likely that Dish will be forced to license TiVo’s patents. That could mean licensing the TiVo software in its entirety, or simply licensing the patent rights for use in the own in-house DVRs.

I don’t know where you got the crazy idea that TiVo is ‘too arrogant to negotiate’, as it is open knowledge that TiVo has made several attempts to negotiate with both satellite providers. And did so in good faith. The court records from the Dish case make that clear, and both TiVo and DirecTV are open about their dealings and it is a matter of public record in the SEC filings for both companies.

The satellite companies have closed their doors to all comers, and TiVo can’t force them to use their software – just license their patents if it comes to it. (The DirecTV agreement covers the patent use in the NDS systems.) There is no point in TiVo banging on locked doors – the deals with Comcast and Cox, as well as the international deals in Mexico and Australia, hold much more promise than the satellite vendors at this time.

Some of the slowdown will clear up once the unit is fully set up. When first installed the unit downloads the next two week’s of guide data and it has to process it and that can take a day or so. Doing that in the background consumes some of the system resources, slowing it down over all.

There are some activities that can take a while, like re-ordering the Season Passes. Most things don’t take as long. The HD doesn’t seem to be as speedy as the original Series3, but some of that could be the software. S3 performance improved going from 8.1.x to the 8.3.1 software and the HD is currently running a branch of 8.1 – 8.1.7. Down the road the software branches will merge again and the HD will probably see another performance boost.

$599 is a decent deal on the S3, but I don’t think the S3 really offers $300 worth of improvements over the TiVo HD.

unknown – As bfdtv said, no. It is a doorstop without a subscription.

Snert – At this time TiVo says they have no plans to offer lifetime transfers to the TiVo HD. (Except for the special grandfathered S1 boxes – but that’s always a special case.) That may change in the future if they offer a promotion, etc. In the meantime, the lifetime S2 box would make a TiVo HD eligible for the MSD discount.

love hd – I think the performance of the TiVo HD is pretty good. Not as responsive as the original S3, but still pretty good. And as bfdtv said, performance may improve as the code bases are merged.

Bob – Yes, you can use it now. The TiVo HD supports analog and digital cable, as well as analog (NTSC) and digital (ATSC) antenna. So you can use it for OTA HD and don’t need a full HD cable service.

Raymond – actually it is there in all your posts, the markup was broken – the first time you didn’t put anything ‘in’ the link, just open and close ‘a’ tags, so it doesn’t show up. The second time you just had an open ‘a’ tag with everything – but no contents or closing tag. I’ll edit your post to make the first link work and delete the others.