TiVo Gains Features, Talks of More

After announcing a partnership with Rhapsody, and getting some tepid reviews, along with little interest, TiVo rolled out its newest features, certainly to cause a more emotional response from the faithful.

one of the most comforting screens on television!

The features come to the Series 3 and HD boxes, with release for Series 2 still uncertain. Support was promised for Series 2, but then nothing has been said about this in the interim, and now the feature gain may only be partial for Series 2.

For the two newer series, the most useful, and very cool feature is multi-room viewing. The multi-room view feature will allow owners of multiple TiVo units to share content, and recording capabilities. The sharing can allow even 2nd series units to share content, but only in one direction – sent from a Series 3 box, or non-HD content from an HD box. The control is said to extend the programming capabilities as well, so that with no one watching in the other room, 2 more things could be recorded for later playback, in either room.

Series 3 and HD units will also support what is called TiVoToGo, which means that the film you recorded on your TiVo last night after you went to bed can be sent to a laptop so that you can watch it on the plane flight today. It can also be viewed on any desktop computer running Windows with Desktop Plus, or (shock) be burned to a DVD. For OS X, Roxio Toast 8 or Popcorn 3 can be used.

TiVo Series 3 with Western Digital ‘MyDVR Expander’

Also new is the ability of the Series 3 and HD units to gain external storage capability, using an eSATA solution called ‘MyDVR Expander’. The Western Digital  drives will be able to be purchased from Best Buy for $200 for 500 GB. That’s a tad expensive for 500 GB, but it must be remembered that no fuss, nor muss, nor bother, is worth something.

For those who wish to avoid the extra baggage of an external box, a trip to WeaKnees will do the trick.

Oh, mighty TiVo, please bring the Series 3 goodness to all of us (including those with Series 2 boxes)!

Those of us with Series 2 units will have to supplicate to the powers that be TiVo for assistance with our meager models. For DirecTiVo users, we were promised this rollout coming in January 2008 – let’s certainly hope the plan doesn’t change.

Series 2 boxes have plenty of room for another drive, and WeaKnees is the place to get it!

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