These ads can work on live TV or prerecorded content, with Fox and Mercedes-Benz lined up among the system's first customers.

Luckily, the feature seems to be quarantined to pausing only for the time being, while unrolling only to Series 2 customers first, sparing those of use with Series 3 and TiVo HD boxes from the ads...for now. Evidently, asking customers to pay a reasonable subscription cost for small bits of publicly available data to be downloaded to proprietary hardware sold above cost is just not as profitable as it used to be.

TiVo, look at how Microsoft has fooled us. They've stuck ads all over the Xbox 360 in spite of subscription costs. But they haven't utilized those ads in a way that would distract from the system's core function: gameplay. We haven't seen these new pausing ads yet (anyone with a Series 2 at home, feel free to grab us a shot), but our initial inclination is that they distract from core function and are thereby even eviler than your standard ad whoring. [electronista]

From reader K.C.

Yes, we are nearing the end of production on this particular model of the Series3 hardware. However, we are not 'End Of Lifing' the product (EOL). Development continues on new features and capabilities for all Series3 platforms, including this specific model. There is no impact to current or future customers of this model, they can continue to expect and enjoy the TiVo Service on their DVR. Availability of the 250G model will vary from retailer to retailer throughout the year, and as a result we are currently recommending the TiVo HD model as an alternative solution for their customers.

[TivoLovers via TV Squad]

WeaKnees is asking $1,599 for the device, and that's after the $200 mail-in rebate. And while we can appreciate the modding they've done to slip in the extra internal terabyte drive, that eSATA requires all of one minute of user installation.

We'll pay for convenience all day long, but at that price, we'd rather just pony up for a full-blown media PC...or pay someone to invent this thing. [weaknees ] Thanks James!

Here's what TiVo platform product manager Andrew Morrison told us about the funky timing:

This was a stategic release for TiVo. We have been focused on shipping our HD platforms giving our customers what they have been demanding, while continuing to work on the advanced features our early-adopter customers value. By delivering MRV and TiVoToGo in November, we will be able to offer this advanced functionality not only to those purchasing a new HD TiVo for the holidays, but also to our valued long-time customers who have grown attached to the benefits of multi-room viewing and TiVoToGo.

This is what TiVo's Bob Pony recently posted to the TiVo Community Forum:

I know you've been anxiously awaiting TiVoToGo and Multi-Room Viewing on your Series3 and TiVoHD boxes.

I wanted to let you know that development has been progressing smoothly, and all is well. You can expect TTG & MRV to be available for Series3 and TiVoHD this November.

These features will provide support for video transfers between Series3 & Series2 systems and between a Series3/Series2 system and a PC. High Definition content will not be supported for transfer or playback on a Series2 system (Series2's just can't play HD), and copy-protected High Def or Standard Def content cannot be transferred (same as our current Series2 products).

But how does it perform? Hit the jump for our Frankenreview: a promised consensus, once and for all, on whether or not the new Tivo HD is pants-worthy.

BusinessWeek
Here's the relatively minor downside: The system lacks the premium THX audio output. It stores just 20 hours' worth of high-definition programming, compared with 32 hours on the Series3. And like all third-party Cablecard products, it cannot handle on-demand or pay-per-view programming.

PCMag
Users of older, standard-definition TiVos and some DVRs may find the TiVo HD a bit slower, particularly when the system is updating its two-week programming guide. This is a consequence of having to draw much more information for an HD screen. But common searches require fewer clicks on the remote than with the sometimes clunky interfaces seen on cable-company DVRs.

PCWorld
...the 5.1-channel Dolby audio that the TiVo HD captured when recording HD channels sounded really nice, even though the new model lacks the Series3's THX audio- and video-quality certification. I noticed, however, that the audio on a couple of HD recordings was slightly out of sync with the video.

CNET
...hard-core couch potatoes may be chagrined to realize that the TiVo HD can toggle between only any two live sources. So while you can record two programs simultaneously, you can't switch to or record a third live program, even if it's coming in off the antenna. You can, however, view a previously recorded program while recording two others.

Tivo Lovers
Interestingly, this chip seems to be quite capable. It can also do transcoding of digital content between MPEG-2 and MPEG-4, as well as other formats...There has been a lot of speculation since this was uncovered yesterday that the chip could be used for other tasks, such as transcoding HD video to SD video for MRV to S2 units. It could possibly transcode other video formats for playback on the TiVo, or even conceivably handle built-in place-shifting. It is certainly fuel for speculation.

Gizmodo
Everything we've discussed in the recent past is there: Amazon Unbox downloads, One True Media video and photo sharing, Yahoo! and Fandango. But most of all, it's a $300 way to unlock the HD cable subscription I pay a ridiculous amount of money for but can't navigate using standard cable boxes.

Now just me...
Most of the quotes here are (fairly) nitpicking a product that ends up being scored quite highly. My guess is that most of the minor complaints are firmware fixable, with some even ironed out by the time consumers can get their hands on the units in a few weeks.

The bottom line: if you wanted a Series 3 but were too cheap to partake, you made a good decision. Buy buy buy. And something tells us if Jason were holding a Tivo HD right now, it would be within the confines of his glorious, unwashed denim.

Thanks to PCMag for images.

Questions [Gizmodo]

Contest Questions [Gizmodo]

Contest Questions [Gizmodo]

Contest Questions [Gizmodo]

Mail all answers to contests@gizmodo.com (one big email, not one email per question) with the subject line "Eureka Trivia". Contest ends July 10. Here are the questions:

1. Which invention's name dropped an H because Americans are foul-mouthed and mostly illiterate?

2. What was invented when a guy couldn't get to his delicious, delicious ice cream in time?

3. What popular product could you make legally in your bathtub, as the formula has never been patented?

4. Jamie Lee Curtis, famous movie star and children's novelist, is the inventor of what?

5. What Utah native and aspiring Disney parks employee is the reason millions never got laid in the '80s (and probably still don't today)?

6. Bonnie Tyler and Celine Dion owe Roberto Del Rosario a huge debt of thanks. Why?

7. Why are we thanking Ed Peterson for our weight problems and wrapper-strewn car floors?

8. Who was the original scissor sister?

9. Why does Gloria Steinem hate May 9th, 1958, more than any other date?

10. What item patented in 1999 allows children (and Richard Gere) to keep their gerbils and hamsters close to them at all times?

11. We have a lumberjack to thank for what, er, handy invention?

More details here.

Product Page [Buy.com - Thanks Jody!]

Do you go with a cheap $9 a month rental from Comcast and put up with all its flaws to save money? Do you plunk down a couple hundred bucks and a monthly fee for a TiVo Series 3 because it just works the way you want it? Do you go all out and spend a couple grand for a Vista Media Center that has every single extra feature you could possibly want in a PC? Or do you go to the other extreme and build your own MythTV/SageTV/XP Media Center machine out of spare parts?

Here are the ten things you should know before you decide.

0) Do you have HDTV cable and an HDTV set? The pre-requisite to even getting an HD DVR is actually having high def cable and an HDTV. Make sure you're signed up for high definition cable from your cable provider (it's usually $5-$15 more a month) and have an HDTV to watch it on. The super-cheap EDTV sets you find at Costco won't support up to the 1080i resolution that HD cable brings, which means all those extra pixels are going to waste. Make sure you have the necessary equipment before you go and spend the money on an HD recorder.

1) Are you cheap? This is the biggest and most important question. Admit it, you're cheap. Hell, I'm pretty cheap too. Do you really need to spend $500 or $2000 for a system only to have to keep on paying rental or subscription fees of nearly $100 a month? Do you really want to watch that much TV? If not, then renting a HD DVR from your cable company or building your own Myth TV or XP Media Center Edition box with an over the air (OTA) HD recorder could be for you.

2) Are you familiar with Linux/PCs? If you are cheap (see #1), then you're probably contemplating salvaging an old PC and building a media center out of that. The only problem is that MythTV requires anywhere from slight Linux knowledge (installing some packages) to uber haxor Linux knowledge (recompiling kernels, fiddling with code and compiling), depending on what PC components you already have and which ones you can get your hands on. Even if you're going for a Windows XP MCE-based box, you might still have to go out and look for drivers and download updates to your current software. It's not nearly as easy as buying a TiVo or a pre-built Vista Media Center box.

3) Does someone nontechnical need to use it? If you or your wife/husband/roommates don't know the first thing about computers, you're going to want to go with TiVo. Although Vista's CableCARD HTPC is pretty easy to use (as we saw in our TiVo head-to-head), it's still a PC and still suffers from the same old PC problems like freezing or crashing. If you want the absolute simplest interface while still keeping features intact, you'll want a TiVo Series 3. Also, if you've already owned a TiVo before, you're going to want to stick with TiVo. Learning another system, even if it is easy like Vista's Media Center, is unnecessary if you're already an expert at one.

4) Do you need DivX/XviD playback? If you're often downloading TV shows and movies off of BitTorrent, you're going to want a way to watch them on your TV. And if you don't have an upscaling DVD player that supports DivX, a Vista CableCARD HTPC or a do-it-yourself Myth/XP machine can do the trick. However, most of the time HDTV encodes you find on BitTorrent are of poorer quality than the feeds you get from your cable provider—because they've been re-encoded, naturally. You'll want to watch most of your TV programming from your DVR instead of from BitTorrent if you can help it.

5) Do you have Satellite TV? If you have Dish or DirecTV, your own provider has a box made just to cram down your throat, so you're usually stuck with those. The DIY solutions like MythTV or XP MCE won't work with satellite, but Microsoft and DirecTV said they're going to integrate an app/plug-in into Vista Media Centers that allow reception of DirecTV. In this case, the receiver is your Vista HTPC, which brings with it all the benefits that HTPC systems have.

6) Do you need photos and music? Gaming? Internet browsing? Vista Media Centers trounce TiVo when it comes to viewing photos and playing back your music. To a slightly lesser extent, so do MythTV and XP MCE boxes. If you're going to want to play games or browse the Internet from your couch like some kind of non-shitty WebTV, a PC is the way to go.

7) Do you need On Demand? HD cable in general? This one's a little tricky. For On Demand, the only HD DVR that supports this is the one from your cable company. Both TiVos and Vista machines don't. Also, if you want HD cable, that totally rules out home-made machines like MythTV, which don't have CableCARD support and can only get cable over the air using an ATSC card. Depending on where you live, how big an antenna you use (yeah, you'll have to use an antenna), and what channels your local stations broadcast in HD, you may or may not have the same experience as HD cable.

8) Do you watch a lot of TV? If you record a lot of TV, you're going to need a lot of space. The DVRs from your cable company only have 120GB of space (the Comcast Motorola box), TiVo only has 250GB unless you upgrade it with an external hard drive, but Vista Media Centers and do-it-yourself solutions are almost infinitely expandable thanks to the fact that they're PCs. In fact, you could even store the recordings on another server over the network, or burn them to DVDs if you want to archive them.

9) Can you stand a PC in the living room? We're fine with it, but many people hate the sight of a PC in their home entertainment setups. This is a huge win for TiVo, since it looks like it belongs in your media center. However, you can technically get an extender like an Xbox 360 and get the exact same experience as if you had the Vista Media Center in your living room. This way, you can house your machine in another room and have a (relatively) quiet front-end. The same is true for MythTV systems, which can also be extended with smaller front ends and have larger servers in the back room.

10) Do you love Macs? Although we prefer to go with a TiVo 3 or Vista Media Center, we know of a couple people that are so tied into the Apple ecosystem of iTunes music and movies that they really want that experience in the living room as well. Using something like a Miglia TVMini HD+, you can turn your Mac Mini into a DVR that even records in DivX. Add to that the fact that you have a Mac with Front Row attached to your TV—so you can easily watch iTunes movies or listen to iTunes music—and you have the perfect setup for a Mac head who wants DVR features. The only caveat, like the issues MythTV systems run into on #7, is that you can only record over the air HD and not stuff from cable. (Of course, TiVo's desktop app is well supported on the Mac, so you can stream music and photos from your Apple, and a MCE PC can still run iTunes.)

With all these options, it's probably tough to decide which one is right for you. There's no perfect solution right now (neither TiVo nor Vista HTPCs are great for everyone), so you should pick the features you really, really need to have and choose the DVR that meets most of them. – Jason Chen

For people like Dave Zatz, the choice is clear—TiVo all the way. It's cheaper, has an easier-to-use interface, doesn't require a PC in the living room and people just like it more than a Windows machine.

But for others who want DivX playback, gaming, more than two TV tuners, larger storage and all the benefits of a PC, they'll definitely go with a Vista system.

But what do you think? The ease of use and lower price of the TiVo or the better customizability but higher cost of the Vista HTPCs? – Jason Chen

Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you're viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.

Head over to the forums to find out which drives and enclosures have been confirmed to work—which should be updated frequently—and various other gotchas you should look out for when doing your own upgrade. Brian will get right on it as soon as he's done cleaning the bodily fluids off. – Jason Chen

Series 3 Upgrade FAQ [TiVo Community]

TiVo has had hard times: the competition costs just $7 or $8 per month, no money down, and records HD without a Cable Card, or worse, the freakin' special permission you need from your cable provider to even get your hands on a Cable Card. TiVo says that it is in 4.4 million homes. According to a November 2006 eMarketer stat, DVR penetration will surpass 20% this year; that's over 22 million DVRs. You can bet the remaining 18+ million DVRs aren't ReplayTVs.

Today, TiVo puts on William Wallace face paint and shouts, "They can take our market share but they'll never take our playful, endearingly human personality!"

Launching the "My TiVo Gets Me" campaign, the company reminds us that we fell in love with it for a reason, a friendly user interface that has never been copied. The press release, excerpted below, seems targeted at those of us who have begun to ponder a return to the original DVR, especially since the Series 3 has begun to come down in price.

I know Lam is considering a Series 3. Soon, maybe I'll be ready to order one up too, then beg and plead for a Cable Card. The last time I asked, Time Warner Cable was my provider. The installation involved a "truck roll" plus a request for seemingly unnecessary info about my setup. Now I have Cablevision, so it might be different. If you have a Cable Card—either for a Series 3 or some other DCR product like a HDTV—please tell us if your experience has been positive or negative. Seriously, lay it on us, no matter how ugly (or pretty). – Wilson Rothman

From the TiVo release:

The vast majority of technology lacks essential human warmth and character. But there is a technology that represents a dramatic departure from this standard: TiVo, the original Digital Video Recorder (DVR), which its creators endowed it with a playful, endearingly human personality, in the tradition of beloved movie icons such as Kitt the talking car from Knight Rider. The result? People instantly connected with it.

Since its introduction, an entire pop culture movement has anthropomorphized the TiVo brand to the point where people regularly refer to the "TiVo man" as "him" and the company often hears examples of subscribers thanking their TiVo box as if it were a human being. Picture the average owner of a photocopier or standard VCR having that type of relationship with those devices. Then compare that to how passionate TiVo subscribers are. The difference is undeniable.

Today, 8 years after TiVo pioneered technology with the human touch, it stands at the forefront of an emerging new generation of technology distinguished for its unique ability to connect with people, inspiring enthusiasm and loyalty, rather than frustration. It has sparked a pop culture phenomenon and given birth to an incredibly passionate following eager to sing its praises, often in uniquely human ways. Parents have created home-made costumes to dress their children up as "the TiVo man" for Halloween. Mothers have written to TiVo touting its benefits as a tool to help them breast-feed and potty train. A fun-loving couple in the Bay Area named Tina Kwan and Andy Szeto are having their wedding cakes specially designed to showcase TiVo bride and groom characters on top. Their entire wedding theme is a celebration of their love of TV and of TiVo—and in the ultimate tribute, TiVo is "invited" to the wedding and will be given a place of honor just like a member of the family when they walk down the aisle on May 12.

Not only do 4.4 million households rely on TiVo to "get" them every day, but TiVo has spawned numerous blogs, including 237,000 entries, as well as popular fan-generated websites such as TiVoLovers.com. There are currently 535,000 references to TiVo on MySpace.com and 450 YouTube videos spotlighting TiVo. Google search yields 22 million TiVo hits. Over 12,300 references have been made to TiVo on TV within the past year alone—not paid ads, but editorial mentions, including thousands of organic references by everyone from Ellen DeGeneres to Carson Daly, whose creative team dreamed up weekly segments called "Fun with TiVo Freeze Frames" capturing everyone from Larry King to Paula Abdul. In the popular Colbert Report on Comedy Central, TiVo is practically a regular on the program—organically cited 54 times on the program since February 2006. The episode of the popular CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother which aired the day after the Super Bowl was a virtual homage to TiVo, featuring the main characters praying to the "TiVo gods" to capture every minute of the Super Bowl for them while they were obligated to attend a funeral on the day of the Big Game. This was not the result of a heavily orchestrated product placement campaign but instead a completely organic occurrence attesting to the extent to which TiVo has penetrated pop culture.

Combine this with a vague quote we found from TiVo's CEO back in March, and we've possibly got something brewing. The quote: "We will be highly focused this year on launching a lower-priced, mass appeal High Definition product." – Jason Chen

Product Page [TiVo]

TiVo also says a number of bugs and issues have been addressed, of which we've noticed few in our Series3 we bought six months ago. TiVo started trickling out the software this week, making sure there are no major problems before rolling out the update to everyone else beginning next week.

Although we're disappointed there's still no TiVoToGo or multi-room viewing support, the slight slate of new features and bug fixes are certainly welcome. – Charlie White

TiVo Series3 8.1 Software Rollout Begins [Zatz Not Funny]

When will I be able to use the Amazon Unbox on TiVo service? We are currently beta testing our new service with a select group of TiVo subscribers. If you'd like to be notified when the service becomes available, sign up at TiVo.com.

Which TiVos will be able to play videos from Amazon Unbox?
Any broadband connected TiVo Series2 and Series3 DVR will be able to download and play Unbox videos. Sorry, the service won't be available for DirecTV TiVo subscribers or TiVo subscribers who use a telephone phone line to access the service.

More...

How will the Amazon Unbox on TiVo service work? What will I have to do to set it up? Do I have to somehow connect my TiVo to my PC? You will go to www.amazon.com/gp/video/tivo and do a one-time linking of your TiVo to your Amazon.com account. From that point on, when you buy or rent Unbox videos from Amazon Unbox you will have the option of downloading them directly to your broadband-connected TiVo. Your TiVo communicates directly to the Unbox service through your home network, so there is no computer in between.

Where on my TiVo will my downloaded videos appear?
Your videos will appear in your Now Playing list with the rest of your TiVo content, just where you would expect it to be!

How will the quality of Unbox videos compare to the quality of shows recorded by my TiVo?
Unbox videos watched on a TiVo will be of better quality than videos recorded at the Best Quality setting on a TiVo Series2 DVR.

How long will it take to download Unbox videos to my TiVo?
Download times will vary depending on your actual Internet connection speed and the length of the video. With a fast broadband connection (5 Mbps), a movie can download in about an hour, while a 1-hour TV episode can download in about 30 minutes. However, on a slower broadband connection (less than 1 Mbps), a movie could take up to 5 hours.

Luckily, the Unbox RemoteLoad feature allows you to order from Amazon.com and download anywhere. So, you can order your video during your lunch break and itll be ready to watch when you get home from work.

Will I be able to use TiVos Home Media features with my Unbox videos?
Unfortunately, you won't be able to use the TiVoToGo or Multi-Room Viewing features with Unbox videos. However, using the Unbox RemoteLoad feature you can download your videos to multiple PCs or TiVos.

How many copies of my Unbox videos can I have downloaded at one time?
Your videos from Amazon Unbox can be downloaded on up to 2 PCs or TiVos and 2 portable devices at any one time.

If I delete my Unbox video from my TiVo is it gone forever?
Amazon Unbox stores all of your purchased videos in Your Media Library for re-download, so your videos don't have to take up all the space on your TiVo.

Today, a Gizmodo reader heard directly from a TiVo customer service rep that the mega expensive Series 3 DVR would receive a significant price drop by end of Q1. As always, we'll take it with a grain of salt, but the reader's wrote from a work email of a well known mega corp, so it weighs a bit more in my mind than the average random hotmail.

This could be good news for TiVo's sales of the series 3 boxes, and good news for the TiVo fanboys. (That's us.) Now, just get those Comcast TiVo boxes out into the marketplace, and DVR nerds will be gulping down the TiVo coolaid like it's 2001 all over again.

Tivo [Gizmodo]

We have one of these remotes in-house, and really like its shiny piano-black finish. However, we do wish it had a gravity switch to turn on the backlighting for the buttons, like the Logitech Harmony 880 does. This TiVo Glo Remote's backlight sometimes doesn't turn on when you want it to.

That said, it's still a first-class controller for TiVos, and it's a learning remote, too, so you can use it to control power, input, volume, and mute on TVs and A/V receivers. – Charlie White

Product Page [TiVo, via Zatz Not Funny]

A good indicator of a product's reception can come from the stock market. At the moment, TiVo stock is about $6.61, down significantly since the Series 3 was brought to market on September 13th and far short of analysts' median expectation of $9.50. Stock price reveals investor and analyst sentiment toward the fortunes of a particular company. Apparently, they're not crazy about TiVo's performance.

Another indicator of confidence is...

the number of shares corporate executives and other insiders are actually buying. While selling shares can mean any number of things, actually buying shares is a pretty fair indication of executive confidence. Over the last six months, the percentage of TiVo's net insider shares sold significantly outweighs the number of insider shares actually bought, according to Yahoo! Finance. And that leads me to question just how much faith company insiders actually have in its future.

The CBS deal does demonstrate the company's willingness to do something, anything that allows it to compete with cable providers and emerging video services like YouTube. The question is, will it matter? When TiVo first came to market I thought the best way for the company to survive was to become a software vendor that provided solutions to box makers like Scientific Atlanta or Motorola. To that end, TiVo is to begin supplying boxes to Comcast later this year. News on that front has been sparse, so who knows when (and if) it will actually happen. TiVo also recently announced an agreement with Cox cable. Unfortunately, these deals feel like too little, too late.

Then there's the issue of subs. Frankly, TiVo's 4.5 million subscribers can only take it so far. And the cost of acquiring new subs has increased by nearly 50 percent in the last year. Not good, particularly since the vast majority of its current subscribers came from the recently ended partnership with DirecTV. As a result, analyst Michael Kelman of Susquehanna Financial says TiVo's best long-term prospects are in advertising. Ah, sweet irony—the service that allowed you to skip ads now needs advertising to survive. All that remains is to convince media buyers TiVo really has found the religion.

Which brings me back to the Series3, an $800 box that to me, represents another shovelful of dirt on TiVo's grave. "It's a premium product," says NPD Consumer Electronics Analyst Ross Rubin. That's a problem, he adds, because three-quarters of DVRs are coming directly from the cable and satellite providers. In other words, TiVo is losing its bread and butter to bigger players with far deeper pockets.

In fact, I'll let this post from the PVRwire.com message board speak for the majority of TiVo fans. Keep in mind this is from a TiVo supporter:

"$799??? Are you serious? TIVO...what's up with that? I have a cable box that already has twin HD tuners and it only costs me 12 bucks a month...."

Alas, it seems that while TiVo fiddled, cable companies found box options elsewhere. As a result, says Gene Munster, Senior Analyst at Piper Jaffray, the outlook for the company is pretty grim. "They're using the legal system to try to protect what they invented," he says, but they face "an uphill battle."

So what is TiVo's future? "They still have 4.5 million subscribers," says Munster. "So I do believe they'll be part of a larger company." After all, he adds, both Microsoft and Apple are looking to the living room, where TiVo has a foothold. With Apple's announcement of downloadable movies and the January introduction of iTV, that speculation is likely to increase.

But should techno geeks consider dropping $800 on a box that may be useless a few years from now? I wouldn't, no matter what the company tells you. And I'm not alone. Says Munster, "I wouldn't be surprised, if you look three years down the road, and TiVo's part of the history books."

Adds Kelman, "Sometimes, the best product doesn't always win."

TiVo []

As much as we love the TiVo Series3, for $800 we would like a bigger hard drive than 250GB. Sure it's still almost 100GB more than most Cable Company DVRs, but we need more than 35 hours of HD goodness.

Proceed at your own risk, though. We would hate to hear you bricking (or cinder blocking?) your $800 Series3 TiVo. If you are still too chicken to try this on your own, Weaknees sells pre-upgraded Series3 TiVos. – Travis Hudson

How-To: Upgrade you Series3 drive [EngadgetHD]

– Jason Chen

Product Page [TiVo Community Store via Zatz Not Funny]

I was disappointed to find out that the eSata port on the new S3 was not yet active. So like the Glad Press n Seal, I decided to take matters into my own hands and increase the S3 recording capacity the old fashion way.

Tivo S3 upgraded to 1TB via external RAID [tivocommunity]

Sure beats having to download your TV shows via iTunes, which aren't even in HD! – Jason Chen

Transfer Page [TiVo - Thanks Michael!]

Looks like the TiVo Series 3 ball is starting to get rolling. Circuit City giving it a push of their own and putting up a product page for the HD-capable box already.

Best buy tipsters are guessing some real news next week. Here's hoping $800 somehow becomes $600. – Jason Chen

Product Page [Circuit City]

Here's everything we know to date about the TiVo Series 3 DVR. Click the link for even more pictures. – Jason Chen

Tivo Series 3 Unboxed [PVR Wire]

The ad itself is fairly ghetto and looks like it was done by someone with even less Photoshop skills than myself. We don't know if this is true, but if a reader in the area can hop down there and take a look, we'll give you something nice. Something...commenty. – Jason Chen

Tivo Series 3 Info [Tivo]

...once the tivo series 3 device are released we will be able to install a CableCARD for those devices as well as any other CableLabs certified devices...

Were they going to support it all along, or was this little bit of media exposure enough to send them back to the meeting rooms and switch their policy? We'll never know, but TWC customers should be glad that they'll get to TiVo the upcoming season of Nip/Tuck in HD after all. – Jason Chen

MP3 recording of call and apology

Time Warner Cable Will Support The Series 3 TiVo (Apologizes For Providing Misinformation) [TiVoBlog]

Time Warner Cable of Raleigh does not provide support for or allow TIVO devices on our cable network. Time Warner Cable provides DVR service and equipment for customers that would like to record programs and watch them later. Cable Cards will only be installed on Cable ready, Cable Card slot available television sets. This policy is subject to change at the discretion of Time Warner Cable of Raleigh.

Strange, but possibly just a low level tech guy not knowing their policies. But then a followup query resulted in this response, after the jump:

Thank you for your inquiry. You have reached the right person. No cable company is required to provide technical support or updates for equipment that they do not provide. As Time Warner's email response indicated, TIVO devices compete with some of the converters and/or "on-demand" type services they provide. Like all other businesses, video service providers are under no obligation to assist or support their competition.

They can choose to place addressable or updateable service cards in "cable ready" televisions. They most likely do so because it enables them to sell additional video services, and they do not compete for the sale, rental or leasing of televisions. I'm sure they feel that placing cards in televisions will help their business, and that placing them in TIVO type devices will harm their business.

We'll wait and see what their final stance on Series 3 boxes are when they're actually out. – Jason Chen

Consumer Fury [via PVRBlog]

The TiVo Series3 HD DVR product supports up to two CableCARD decoders. This product acts as two independent single stream UDCP CableCARD hosts within one set top box. It can also be configured to operate as a single CableCARD device.

This product is currently being tested by a small number of consumers in cable markets across the country, and will be generally available in retail stores soon. Thus, we wanted to ensure that you are aware of this product in time to make any necessary preparations to support customers who request two CableCARD decoders for their TiVo Series3 HD DVR.

Click on the image for a larger view. – Jason Chen

TiVo Confirms Series3 Testing, Hitting Retail "Soon" [Zatz Not Funny]

The preorder page for the upgraded Series 2 TiVo has vanished from Amazon. This is one of the few times that an unreleased product disappearing may actually be a good thing.

No TiVo Series 2, Series 3 approved by Cable Labs [PVR Wire]