The TiVo "Series3 Lite" must be ready to ship soon, because info on the new $300 unit showed up on a bunch of retailers web pages today, only to be withdrawn. But if you search Google for "TCD652160" and then check the cached results, you can still find a few juicy details about the new HDTV TiVo box.

• Records two HD channels at once
• Has a 160GB hard drive for recording 20 hours of HD or 180 hours of standard programming
• Support for 480i, 480p, 720p, and 1080i resolutions
• Record Digital Cable (CableCard) or analog (ATSC/NTSC/QAM) sources
  
• No THX certification
• No OLED display
• Standard TiVo remote

The main reason this unit seems to be $400 cheaper than the standard TiVo Series3 is that it uses cheaper parts. I doubt TiVo plans to replace the high end version with this cheaper model. It's just not as classy looking all around. But you could buy a Series3 Lite (probably not its official name), upgrade the hard drive, buy a Series3 remote, and rent a whole lotta movies from Amazon Unbox for less money than it would cost to buy a Series3.

Hopefully today's leak means these boxes will be ready to ship within a matter of days or weeks. At the very least, I think it's a safe bet that we'll see the Serie3 Lite hit the shelves sometime this summer.

[via HDTiVo Blog]

Amazon is advertising the TiVo Series3 for $490 after rebate. There's just one problem.

While Amazon has dropped the base price of the high definition TiVo from $800 to $660, you need a $170 rebate to take you the rest of the way. And when you click on the rebate, you get a notice saying that it is not valid for Serie3 units.

I'm going to chalk this one up to someone at Amazon misreading the rebate for now, rather than maliciously trying to lure customers into buying a TiVo with unrealistic promises of a low price. But I could be wrong.

Update: It looks like Amazon has discovered the mistake and removed the rebate. Still, $660 isn't a bad price for the Series3.

[via Gizmodo]

Gizmodo has a rather appropriately titled "Apples and Oranges" article comparing the AppleTV with the TiVo Series3. Sure, the AppleTV's not a PVR, but both boxes let you watch high definition TV, play music, and view pictures.

So who wins? Umm... nobody. It's apples and oranges, remember? Basically, neither does a great job of displaying downloaded HD video content. TiVo records and plays high definition TV, while Gizmodo prefers the AppleTV when it comes to photo and music playback.

eHomeUpgrade, on the other hand decided to compare apples to apples today, and has a nice chart comparing the AppleTV to the Mvix MX-760 media streamer. While this isn't a hands-on review, it's still worth taking a look. The MX-760 features upgradeable storage, support for many more audio and video codecs, and higher resolution video.