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Costly, Sure, But It’s Nirvana for TiVo Fans
As any technophile can tell you, the best technology doesn’t always become the dominant one. Just ask fans of the Macintosh, Minidisc or Betamax.
So imagine how fans of the TiVo must feel. Here’s a machine that can time-shift, pause, and slice and dice TV broadcasts, simplifying lives and family schedules all over the country. It’s an elegant, refined device whose name, à la Google, has become a verb (“I’ll TiVo it”).
And yet most people considering a digital video recorder (DVR) these days don’t get TiVo’s. They rent generic boxes from cable companies.
Now, these boxes are to TiVo as an oxcart is to a Maserati; their creators, it’s painfully clear, do not share TiVo Inc.’s obsession with polish and elegant simplicity. But a cable company’s DVR costs about $5 a month, versus $13 a month for the TiVo — not including the purchase price.
TiVo has chosen not to fight the cable companies on their own lowball turf. The very long-awaited, high-definition TiVo Series 3, released last week, aims for the high end. It’s meant to be the ultimate DVR, the cream of the cream. The question is, How many people are willing to pay $800, plus $13 a month, to bask in its glory?
The biggest-ticket TiVo Series 3 feature is, of course, its high-definition tuner. Two, actually, so that you can record two shows at once — and even play back a third simultaneously.
Those tuners let you do everything earlier TiVo’s do, like choosing shows to record from a list (without having to know their broadcast time or channel), pausing or rewinding live TV, zipping past commercials, recording the same show every week automatically, and generally bending the broadcasters’ schedules to your whim. But this TiVo can also record both regular TV shows and gorgeous wide-screen high-definition shows. The 250-gigabyte hard drive inside can hold 32 hours of high-def video or 200 hours of standard-definition recordings (at medium quality).
The other big change, however, may not come as good news to everyone. The Series 3 has no video inputs. (I’ll wait while you read that again.)
In other words, you can’t connect a cable box, satellite receiver or any other video source. So how are you supposed to get all your channels? Either by connecting an antenna, attaching the cable without a box (fine if you don’t get premium channels) or by renting a CableCard — or two, for dual simultaneous recordings.
CableCard is a terrific technology. It’s a metal card, like the PC cards for laptops, that stores the account information previously monitored by your cable box, like which movie channels you get. All cable companies offer CableCard, although few promote it; a cable-guy appointment is generally required.
By replacing the cable box, you eliminate one remote control, reclaim a power outlet, reduce home-theater clutter and save money every month (the CableCard rental is around $1.50, instead of $5 to $7 for the cable box).
But today’s CableCard is a one-way device. It can’t send signals back to the cable company, which means that you can’t order pay-per-view movies. If you consider that a sacrifice, skip the new TiVo — or else keep a cable box on hand for pay-per-view use, connected to a different TV input.
Satellite customers, too, are out of luck with this machine, although DirecTV offers both a combination high-def TiVo/satellite receiver and its own homegrown DVR.
Even if the CableCard thing isn’t an obstacle, you may still be scratching your head. Who’d pay $800 plus $13 a month when the cable company’s DVR costs $5 a month?
Members of the Cult of TiVo wouldn’t even consider contaminating their entertainment systems with a cable-company-provided box. Here are just a few reasons — features that, in general, are available only on the TiVo:
REMOTE PROGRAMMING You can program your TiVo from the Web — a great trick when you hear about a great show but you’re not home to set up the recording.
ENHANCED DISPLAY The smoky-dark front panel identifies the name of the show(s) the Series 3 is recording, even when the TV itself is turned off. And the remote, which can also operate your TV, is illuminated.
MUSIC AND SLIDE SHOWS A TiVo can play the music (unprotected formats only) or slide shows of the photos that reside on a Mac or PC elsewhere on the network. Later this year, a software upgrade will permit the Series 3 to display those photos in high definition.
WISH LIST You can set up a Wish List, which makes the TiVo auto-record every show with a certain title, actor, director or keyword. When you hear about a great movie that’s in theaters now, plug it into the Wish List; you’ll get it as soon as it’s shown on TV.
PROGRAMMED SKIPPING You can program one of your TiVo remote’s buttons to skip 30 seconds — a much quicker, more precise way to skip ads. (Search Google for “tivo 30-second skip” for instructions.)
SORTING OUT OVERLAP With two tuners, recording overlapping shows is rarely a problem. But even if you have only one tuner, the TiVo doesn’t consider it a conflict when one requested show starts at 8 p.m. and another ends at 8:03 (a sneaky network audience-retention tactic); it just records as much of the overlapping show as it can.
TRACING PROBLEMS When you can’t find a show you requested, the TiVo can show you exactly why. It will tell you that your hard drive was full, for example, or that the show did get recorded, but someone in your house deleted it.
Now, all of this juicy goodness still doesn’t come cheap. There are, however, a few ways to soften the blow.
First, that $800 figure is the early-adopter price. It will soon fall, guaranteed, especially online.
Second, there are several ways to trim the monthly bill. For example, you can pay $300 upfront for three years of the service, which works out to $8.33 a month. (No expiration date has been set for this promotion.) Or, if you have one TiVo already, you can add another for only $7 a month.
Best of all, if you bought product-lifetime service for an older TiVo — a one-time-fee deal that’s no longer offered — you can transfer it to the new Series 3 for $200, and never pay another penny on that machine. That price includes one year of service for the older TiVo. (This deal expires at the end of January 2007, and you have to buy the Series 3 by the end of 2006.)
That’s only one way in which a recurring Series 3 theme is “coming soon.” For the moment, it lacks two great features of the Series 2. One is TiVo To Go, which automatically transfers specified recordings to a laptop, iPod, Treo and so on, for watching on the road. The other is multiroom playback, which lets you watch a show recorded on the downstairs TiVo on the TiVo in the bedroom. TiVo says that it will eventually restore these features in a free software upgrade.
Already the machine taps the Internet in clever ways; for example, you can call up today’s weather or local movie listings with a couple of button taps. Later this year, the Series 3 will offer TiVoCast, which means video clips from the Web (including CNET, the National Basketball Association and The New York Times).
One coming software upgrade will let you schedule recordings from a Verizon cellphone; another will activate the connector on the back where you can plug in an external hard drive to expand the Series 3’s storage (yes!).
All of this is future icing on an already delicious cake. But $800? Wow.
That price has, understandably, caused much derisive snorting online. Clearly, at that price, this machine will not be the choice for the masses. It will be precisely what the company claims it to be: a premium machine, with the most features, the most effortless software and the highest video quality. (TV geeks will be thrilled to note that the Series 3 is the only THX-certified DVR — meaning it meets certain technical standards for picture and sound quality — and that high-def recordings are stored uncompressed and untouched for maximum picture quality.)
So, yes, the TiVo Series 3 is the Lexus of video recorders, exactly as its manufacturer promises. Here’s to anyone who can afford to drive one home.
