Author: Michael

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TiVo News

TiVo gets further in case against Echostar

TiVo is looking pretty good right now. It’s almost unimaginable, but a judge has ruled that Echostar (DISH) must shut off DVR features on its users’ DVRs within 30 days. Our guess is that something else will happen before a shut-off – maybe Echostar will make a licensing deal with TiVo.

But Echostar has let things get out of hand before. They refused to make a deal with Viacom and lost Viacom programming for a while. So maybe they’ll hit their customers with another round of that here.

More info is on the Bloomberg site and many other places this morning. And today should be a very, very interesting day for TiVo stock.

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WeaKnees News

Dual Tuner TiVo Brackets are in!

They came in today, and many are shipping out today. We have a page for the dual tuner TiVo bracket alone for those looking to do a self-install – maybe with a little TiVo upgrade help. And then we have complete TiVo Upgrade Kits for the 80 hour dual tuner TiVo and kits for the 180 hour dual tuner TiVo.

dt-bracket.jpg

Finally, we can now start shipping our huge 1800 Hour Dual Tuner TiVo.

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Product Information

New IR Blaster Enables More Control

Just in is our new 4 head IR blaster. Based on the 2 head IR blaster we’ve had for years (like the one included with standalone TiVos) we now have a model with 4 blasters.

4-head-ir-lg.jpg

Why would you need 4 ways to send our IR signals from one cable? Most likely, for the RF Remote Converter that adapts IR remotes to work via RF, and therefore go through walls. It’s a pretty neat product. And until now, you could only get it to control two components (via extra RF transmitters, lower on that same page). But now you can have four remotes with one base unit.

You might also find other uses for it – it’s a standard IR blaster with a standard 1/8 mono plug on one end.

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WeaKnees News

The Dual Tuner Bracket is Coming Soon

Our new Dual Tuner TwinBreeze bracket has been finalized and is in production now. Based on the previous designs, this bracket is the rigid, stable, and vibration absorbing way to install two drives in your Dual Tuner TiVo safely. As with other members of the TwinBreeze family, this bracket holds a second fan to get even more air through the unit and underneath both drives.

While the brackets are making their way to our door, we’re taking pre-orders on the “add” kits and dual-drive kits for these units. So if you’d like to be first in line to get an “add” kit for your Dual Tuner TiVo, start here:

80 Hour Dual Tuner TiVo
180 Hour Dual Tuner TiVo

We hope to be shipping these before 8/15/06, but that’s the date we put on the website just in case.

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WeaKnees News

Serial Control For DirecTV Receivers

Many of our customers want the best of both worlds – DirecTV, plus TiVo networking features and maybe even DVD. DirecTV TiVos don’t do networking or DVD, so these customers opt to use standalone TiVos or DVD TiVos with a DirecTV receiver. This has always worked pretty well. Until recently.

DirecTV ‘updated’ to their latest basic receiver model, the D11. The D11 doesn’t have a serial port, so the only way for a TiVo to control it is to use an IR blaster. While they certainly work, they aren’t the best option. The speed isn’t perfect, there can be IR interference, and, probably the biggest source of problems, the blaster can move.

DirecTV’s previous unit, the D10, has a serial port, and the TiVo (standalone or DVD) can control it directly, with a Home Control cable. This eliminates all of the problems listed above.

WeaKnees has sourced brand-new D10 receivers, and we are optionally bundling them with the Home Control cable.

D10 DirecTV Receivers for TiVo