Category: Product Information

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Product Information Site Change TiVo Upgrade WeaKnees News

2 TB Drives for More HD TiVos

Today, we’re debuting 2 TB single-drive internal kits for two very popular TiVo models: The TiVo HD and the original TiVo Series3.

With these kits, your TiVo will be able to record about 320 hours of HD, or just a ton of SD.

For several years we’ve had 2 terabyte solutions for the TiVo Series3 and the TiVo HD that consisted of an internal 1 TB drive and an external 1 TB drive. Now, we’ve got upgrades of a single 2 TB drive in the unit – no external needed.

This is the better scenario for several reasons including fewer cables, lower power requirements, simpler installation and setup, and, of course, a lower price.

The 2 TB single drive internal TiVo upgrade kits are now available for these two models:

TiVo Series3 TCD648250B

TiVo HD TCD652160

In addition, we’ve been selling single 2 TB upgrades for these three models for a while now – and we’ve lowered the price of these kits as of today:

TiVo HD XL TCD658000

TiVo Premiere TCD746320

TiVo Premiere XL TCD748000

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Product Information TiVo News WeaKnees News

DirecTV HD TiVo is Here – Sort Of

No, no, we don’t have the new DirecTV TiVo that both companies have been promising for more than two years now. But we do have the old one, the DirecTV HR10-250.

The DirecTV HR10-250 was, when it was initially released, the first HD TiVo, and pretty much the first HD DVR on any platform. It’s a great unit, and it works perfectly with OTA (over the air) antenna signals for pretty much the best quality HD broadcast streams available.

The big issue with the HR10-250 is that it can only decode MPEG2 channels from a DirecTV dish. So, while it will get almost all standard definition channels that DirecTV supplies, it won’t get any HD signals from DirecTV. They’ve migrated their HD channels to the MPEG4 format, and this unit just can’t read those.

But the DirecTV HR10-250 TiVo can receive, in HD, OTA signals, the signals that your local broadcaster sends out. Because the FCC gave local broadcasters so much bandwidth, these companies barely compress their signal at all (much less than DirecTV) and this results in the best quality HD broadcast available. We routinely compared recordings from OTA and DirecTV back when this unit could get DirecTV HD, and the OTA was always vastly superior.

So the HR10-250 can get HD from local broadcasters, and standard def local and premium channels from DirecTV. And, best of all, it’s a TiVo. That combination works for many people (myself included) and, until (or “if”) the new, promised unit ships, this is the best mix of interface and programming.

We now have a page dedicated to purchasing this unit from us, refurbished. See our DirecTV HD TiVo page for more info.

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DirecTV Product Information TiVo News

DirecTV TiVo HD DVR Delayed Yet Again?

Here’s a disturbing tweet from @DIRECTV:

“Details are still being determined, launch maybe in late 2011. DIRECTV.com or TiVO.com for up-to-date info.”

See it on their Twitter page.

I’m certainly hoping this is just some uninformed rep over there, but this is their official feed. It’s the first time frame I’ve seen beyond the “early 2011” promises that are rapidly proving to be mistaken.

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Product Information TiVo News

iPad App is out for TiVo Premieres

Two great products that go great together?

If you’ve got an iPad and a TiVo Premiere, you’re in luck.

If you’ve got a TiVo Premiere, you may want to get an iPad. And if you’ve got an iPad . . . I’ll leave it there.

Here’s the link: TiVo’s iPad App

While we really like the TiVo Slide Remote, and we also like the regular website, this app has just tons more features and polish, and makes a true companion to using your TiVo Premiere. And, best of all is the price: free.

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AppleTV Product Information WeaKnees News

BIG AppleTVs – 1 TB of Storage

Yes, our timing is impeccable. Just as Apple announced the new, streaming-only AppleTV, we put the finishing touches our our first generation AppleTV with 1 TB of external storage.

We’ve been upgrading AppleTVs to 320 GB of storage space for quite a while, but we’ve never gone beyond that, since no compatible internal drive has been released larger than 320 GB. But there was enough demand for more storage space that we developed our AppleTVs with external storage, using our single-drive external cases.

Beyond getting more space by going external, this also keeps the temperature of the AppleTV way, way down.

So why would you want the older AppleTV? The big difference is whether you want your storage local, and thus more dependable, or streaming, and therefore reliant on either a fast internet connection or a server elsewhere on your network.

If you want to just dedicate storage to the AppleTV, and make sure it’s always there when ready, this is the unit for you. We hear from customers in many situations who prefer the local storage approach for these reasons:

  • The main computer in the house is a laptop, so if the laptop isn’t there and storage isn’t local, the AppleTV has nothing to stream.
  • The AppleTV is in a business like a doctor’s office, so it can play songs endlessly with local storage, and doesn’t use internet bandwidth.
  • Many use an AppleTV to store digital camera images for use in a home theater.

So what’s the drawback to the original AppleTV? So far, it’s that it doesn’t stream Netflix. And, since the new AppleTV is based on the iOS platform used by the iPhone/iPod/iPad, Apple is likely to develop more features for it down the road. But if you’re looking for a great way to store music, photos, and video right at a unit in your living room, with a great Apple interface, the original AppleTV with 1 TB of storage is the perfect product.

And, if you already have an AppleTV, we can upgrade it!