Author: Michael

Rather than published a full-fledged “men of WeaKnees” calendar, we thought we’d put up a few pictures of some of the people here who you’re most likely to talk to if you call. Last night, the whole group went out to Izayoi in downtown LA.

OK, first up is Nicky “Turbo” Boost working on some shrimp chili fondue:

Then we have Max Power, still masticating on some pork belly:

And finally, the Kapster, obviously pondering the next DirecTV TiVo software upgrade:

Next time on Meet WeaKnees: who has upgraded more TiVos than anyone on the planet? We’ve got the answer. Stay tuned.

You may have not noticed, but our site inaccessible for a few hours last night. We moved our DNS servers and domain name registration to Network Solutions and the downtime was during the DNS propagation.

We moved our DNS and registration due to a DDoS at our previous host, Register.com, last week. That DDoS (distributed denial of service attack) left us with spotty service, so we opted for a transfer. We’re pretty familiar with DDoS attacks and we really wanted to distance ourselves from the target. We’re hoping that Network Solutions has DNS servers robust enough to withstand future attacks.

And a final note: throughout the process, Network Solutions had incredible support – the type of support that we always strive to provide to our customers. They answered their toll free number quickly, and provided clear, expert help. Thanks!

It’s been rumored for weeks, and it’s now here! The new, lower cost HD TiVo for cable is announced, and we expect to have stock and begin shipping on August 1. You can preorder one (in a variety of sizes) on our HD TiVo for Cable page.

The new unit is called the TiVo HD. It’s similar in a lot of ways to a TiVo Series3, but it does have some important differences. Based on what we know, here are the differences:

CableCARD slots on the front – Might make life with a difficult cable installer a bit easier. Since the eject button is something you can see rather than just feel in most cases, this should work better in general.

Composite outputs – The newer unit has only one set of composite video and L/R audio out. Probably not an issue for most since the composite doesn’t carry HD, and if you need secondary audio, it would likely be via optical out. Also, these connectors provide one-way analog signals and can easily be multiplied with a splitter.

Front Digital Display – The newer unit omits the digital display from the front. This is a pretty nice feature of the original Series3 unit. It shows what shows are recording currently. It also functions as a clock.

THX – The new unit has no THX certification, and the unit is likely to be louder than the original Series3.

Remote – The original Series3 TiVo ships with the TiVo Glo backlit, programmable remote. The newer HD unit ships with the standard TiVo remote.

Buttons on the unit: The new HD unit has only a format button on the front, while the TiVo Series 3 has navigation buttons as well.

Full info here on our TiVo Series3 v. TiVo HD comparison.

The HR20-700 was released by DirecTV last August as a replacement for the HR10-250. These two machines are pretty different, and each has its own advantage. The benefit of the HR10-250 is that it’s a TiVo – running the TiVo OS. The benefit of the HR20-700 is that it can get the MPEG4 HD channels that DirecTV is adding. These channels are largely local HD stations in areas outside New York and LA, but they are hinting that they’ll have 150 new nationwide HD channels by the end of the year, many starting in September.

Since the HR20-700 was released, people have come to us looking for upgrades. And now we’re ready to upgrade the HR20-700 units! We are now selling two upgraded HR20-700s: a 100 hour HD unit, and a 145 hour HD unit.

We’re still TiVo fanatics at heart, but since the TiVo HR10-250 is out of production and DirecTV’s new channels can only come through this new DVR, we’re upgrading it also.

Finally, if you already have an HR20, and you want to send it to us for an upgrade, we’re doing that too. Just find the HR20-700 upgrade that you want, and once you checkout, we’ll email shipping information. Send us your unit, and we’ll turn it around within two business days (most often the same day, in fact). Due to various complexities, we are not offering self-install kits.

Two pieces of site news today:

-First, we’ve added 1 Terabyte upgrade kits for the Series3 TiVo. These kits are based on the new Hitachi 1 Terabyte drive and provide 144 hours of space for HD or 1350 hours of space for SD at Basic.

1 Terabyte Upgrade Kit for Series3 TiVo

-Second, we have a pretty comprehensive troubleshooting and repair page specifically targeted toward DirecTV HR10-250 models. These models have some issues that differ a bit from other TiVos, so we made a special page to cover them.

DirecTV HR10-250 TiVo Repair and Troubleshooting Info