Your TV is filled with burning debates that demand a serious answer.

Could the Dick York "Darren" kick the ass of the Dick Sargent "Darren," or vice versa, and without Samantha's help? Could KITT beat the car from My Mother, the Car if Top Gear's James May was driving him? Does anyone watch The Cougar and if so, is TV Land holding them hostage?

So here's another flaming question to throw on the mystery pyre: do you actually let your TiVo play its trademark sound effects?

TiVo has announced that Canadians will finally be able to purchase TiVo branded personal video recorders soon. According to a press release, TiVo units will be available north of the border "in time for the holidays."

There's just one catch: you can only get a last generation box. TiVo is launching its Canadian service with the TiVo Series2 dual-tuner box only. That means Canadian customers will not be able to watch and record HDTV, since you need a TiVo HD or TiVo Series3 to handle high-def.

A Series2 dual tuner box will set you back $199 Canadian, plus subscription fees. You'll be able to pick up a box at Canadian retailers including Best Buy, The Brick, London Drug, and Future Shop, as long as you don't live in Quebec. TiVo won't be available in that province right away. I'm guessing the company needs to translate some menus into French before launching a version for Quebec.

[via Engadget]

It seems like adding an eSATA port to personal video recorders is the thing to do. Enabling that port so that you can actually slap an external hard drive onto your PVR is another story.

TiVo recently issued an update that enables the eSATA port on TiVo HD boxes. But you can't just plug in an external hard drive and expect it to work. Rather, you'll need to install TiVo software on that drive before your TiVo will recognize it. Dave Zatz speculates that this means TiVo will begin selling hard drives under its own brand name soon. Makes sense to us.

At the same time, it seems that a growing number of Scientific Atlanta set top boxes have working eSATA ports. If you got your PVR from your regional cable company, odds are you have either a Motorola or Scientific Atlanta box. WeaKnees has a list of SA boxes that may work with external eSATA hard drives.

Sure, those newfangled TiVo Series3 and TiVo HD boxes can do one thing the old fashioned Series2 units can't: record HDTV programming. But so far, two of the most useful TiVo features have been absent from the newer boxes: TiVoToGo and multi-room viewing.

Well, the wait is almost over. TiVo marketing rep Bob Poniatowski (aka TiVoPony) dropped a post in the TiVo Community Forums announcing that you will soon be able to:

• Transfer recorded shows from a TiVo Series3 or TiVo HD box to your PC
• Record a program on one TiVo unit and watch it using a TiVo in another room

The new features are currently in beta, so your box probably won't receive the update immediately. But Poniatowski probably wouldn't be posting in a public forum if TiVo weren't ready to launch these features soon.

Oh yeah, in other TiVo HD/Poniatowski news, TiVoPony has announced there's a new software update for TiVo HD users that fixes CableCard problems reported by some users.

[via Engadget and TiVo Lovers Blog]

TiVo held its quarterly earnings call yesterday, and there's mixed news. Okay, that might be overstating it. Rather, there's bad news and reason for cautious optimism.

TiVo took a product inventory $11.2 million write-down. In a nutshell, that's because the company has more standard definition set top boxes than they need while the marketplace is clamoring for high definition boxes. On the bright side, TiVo did finally release an affordable high definition box this quarter, which could help turn things around in the future.

As you're probably aware by now, the new TiVo HD offers most of the same functionality as the $800 TiVo Series3, for about $500 less. TiVo upgrader and reseller WeaKnees has put together a handy chart showing some of the differences between the two boxes.

In many areas, the two boxes are functionally identical. Wherever there's an obvious difference, WeaKnees has highlighted the changes in bold. If you're still left scratching your head after reading through the descriptions, you're not alone. It's really not clear where TiVo's saving all the money on the new boxes, but we're not complaining.

In fact, in some cases, the cheaper TiVo HD has the edge. For example, the unit is a little smaller and it has two CableCard slots in the front of the box, for easier installation.

[via TiVo Blog]

We just saw a post on the WeaKnees blog announcing that the TiVo retailer is shipping upgrade kits for the new TiVo HD. In a few more days the company will be ready to ship pre-upgraded TiVo HD units as well.

The other day we told you that the new boxes include a slight change to the TiVo file system which means that the old software tools for preparing hard drives weren't working. But the hacker community doesn't take that sort of new sitting down, and sure enough, a member of the TiVo Community Forum has posted an alpha version of a new tool that works with the TiVo HD.

If you're the handy sort, you can use the WinMFS tool to replace the 160GB hard drive that comes with the TiVo HD with a larger disk on your own or order an upgrade kit from WeaKnees or DVRUpgrade. Or if you can hold out a few days longer, both companies should receive shipments of TiVo HD units which they will be upgrading and selling.

Shortly after TiVo announced the TiVoHD, 3rd party TiVo upgraders like DVRUpgrade and WeaKnees began taking preorders for upgraded units with larger hard drives. The stock unit has a 160GB hard drive, which is just large enough to store 20 hours of HD content.

There's just one problem. It turns out the MFS Tools software that has been allowing users to upgrade TiVo drives for years doesn't work with the new box. That's because TiVo made a slight change to the file system, which apparently could enable hard drives larger than 2TB. It's not clear whether that means you could slap a 3TB drive into a TiVoHD right now (assuming one existed), but support may be enabled in the future.

Anyway, it looks like a member of the TiVo hacking community has been hard at work developing a new tool called WinMFS that allows you to prep an upgraded hard drive using Windows. Previous tools required a Linux box. Anyway, he's managed to throw a 500GB hard drive into a TiVoHD, and plans to publicly release WinMFS soon, which means you may be able to upgrade your box by the time it arrives. Or order one from a 3rd party retailer.

[via TiVo Lovers]

Marketwatch snagged short interview with TiVo CEO Tom Rogers. Not surprisingly, most of the interview concerns the recently launched TiVo HD. But there are a few other juicy tidbits.



A few takeaway points:

• Rogers acknowledges that TiVo's lack of an HD box with a consumer-friendly price tag was hurting the company's subscription numbers.
• Rogers says Comcast customers will be able to get TiVo software on their existing set top boxes starting "quite soon."

[via Troy on TiVo]

It's official. You don't have to pay $800 to pick up a high definition TiVo. The new TiVo HD is available from TiVo's website for $299.

All the details are pretty much what we had expected:

• Dual CableCards, located at the front
• M-Card support for tuning two channels with one card
• Support for analog cable (standard definition) and ATSC over the air high definition recording
• No OLED front display
• No THX certification
• Comes with the standard Series2 remote control, not the Series3 remote
• 160GB hard drive for recording 180 hours of standard def or 20 hours of high def programming

You can also pre-order upgraded units with larger hard drives from DVRupgrade and WeaKnees.

Dave Zatz has been playing around with one for a few weeks and he's impressed. He also managed to grab a video of the new opening sequence, which you can check out after the jump.

Our sister site Engadget has scored some juicy tidbits about the new low-cost HD TiVo we've been hearing so little about.

Apparently the new box will not follow TiVo's Series1/2/3 naming convention. Instead it will be known as the TiVo HD. Actually that's pretty much it for the new stuff. The rest is all pretty much as we'd expected based on some leaks last week. The TiVo HD will have a 160GB hard drive for recording 160 hours of standard definition or 20 hours of high definition TV. There will be two CableCard tuners, and there may or may not be an ATSC tuner for capturing over-the-air signals.

Engaget reports that TiVo also plans to bring TiVoToGo to Series3 boxes, although you'll only be able to transfer standard definition programs from your set-top-box to your computer. While the move is mostly aimed at placating copyright holders who are worried about high quality digital copies of their shows being loosed on the internet, it would also take most users a pretty long time to transfer HD quality programs from one box to another even on a speedy home network.