Less than a week ago, we posted news about a new Series 2 TiVo,
expected later this year along with some improvements to the basic specification -- including a ramped up 180-hour hard
drive.However, it now seems that you can no longer place advance orders for this new TiVo 2-and-a-half unit, as Amazon's pre-order listing for them has now vanished.
That's because the Series 3 has been approved by Cable Labs, and could be making its way on to the market much quicker than we've given TiVo credit for.
All TiVo needs now is to win that pesky EchoStar lawsuit, and things could be back on track.... or will they?
Via Endgaget.
1. I don't think that the CableLabs certifcation of the Series3 or really anything to do with the Series3 has anything to do with the info on the 4th Generation Series2 geing pulled.
The Series3 will shut out a large part of the market and TiVo needs to keep updating "for the rest of us" or risk losing customers. I suspect that the the newer, upgraded Series2 will come out regardless of the Series3.
As to why it disappeared parhaps it just wasn't supposed to be visible on Amazon as of yet, somebody goofed and TiVo had the information yanked. It's also possible that TiVo ran into technical issues that may force a delay.
In general I wouldn't be surprised to see that TiVo is testing out some of the Series3 technology in the new Series2, it's likely that the Series3 will have completely different hardware, a faster processor, more/faster RAM, we already know it will have SATA disks.. Putting some of these goodies into an updated Series2 would allow them to test the technology in a less demanding environment.
Posted at 4:49PM on Apr 4th 2006 by Robert Aitchison