The
word over at TiVo Community is
that new Series 2 TiVo boxes will be available this week (the photo to the right was posted on the TiVo Community
boards), although Amazon.com says you'll need to wait a couple months for one. The units will record simultaneously
from two basic cable channels or one basic channel and one digital channel. They'll be available in 80- and 180-hour
sizes and will have both USB and Ethernet ports.Amazon's listing for the 180-hour unit doesn't have a price but does have an availability date: May 15. "The world's first, best, and easiest-to-use digital video recorder just got better," the listing reads. "Now, record two shows at once!" You can't preorder the 180-hour box; I didn't see the 80-hour unit listed on Amazon.
Why TiVo is focusing on another Series 2 box when everyone is waiting for an HDTV unit is beyond me. But at least we'll have a dual tuner box now. Maybe the HDTV units will be so prohibitively expensive that TiVo is trying to avoid some of the potential future backlash by making available these two dual-tuner units that are more affordable to the masses.
1. Almost all companies offer products at different price points with different features, how many different TVs does Sony make? This makes total sense from TIVO perspective. Offer a reasonably priced, non-HDTV TIVO but with dual tuner - more or less on par with what cable offers its non-HDTV customers and a higher end TIVO for those with HDTV.
As much as we hear about HD every day, the vast majority of people still dont have it. I am sure websites like this skew to the early adopters who have HD.
Posted at 7:54AM on Mar 29th 2006 by elect