Supersized TiVo XL: 1 terabyte hard drive
When TiVo discontinued its high-end cable-ready high-def DVR, the TiVo Series3, it was really just making room for a new product in the line: the TiVo HD XL. The new TiVo is a near twin of the existing TiVo HD, but for three changes: it’s got a much larger 1 terabyte hard drive (enough capacity for 150 hours of HD programming); it’s THX-certified; and it includes the premium TiVo backlit remote. The package costs $600–about the price that the TiVo Series3 was going for, and twice that of the “standard” TiVo HD. As with any TiVo, of course, you’ll also need to budget money for a subscription fee: $13 a month, $129 a year, or $399 for the lifetime of the box. True, you can do a DIY upgrade on the standard TiVo HD by adding the improved remote ($50) and a 500GB expansion hard drive ($150), but that will cost nearly as much and still leave you with less recording capacity–and a lot of extra wires.
The bigger question is whether you want a TiVo at all, when you can get a “free” high-def DVR from your cable company. And the answer comes down to whether you find TiVo’s superior design and laundry list of extras worth the additional cash–and whether you can live with some of the compromises. Among the TiVo features that go beyond recording TV shows: YouTube videos, renting and buying Amazon Unbox videos, Rhapsody music, online scheduling, copying recorded programs to PCs or portable devices (TiVo To Go), access to video and audio podcasts…the list goes on and on. Whether or not those features–and the TiVo’s corresponding dearth of access to your cable system’s video-on-demand functions–are worth the price of TiVo’s hardware and subscription is a question that only you can answer.
Source: Cnet
Comments(8)
You can preorder a 1.5TB drive on Buy.com for <$200. I guess they’re betting on people throwing out their old DVRs instead of upgrading it themselves.
Or you can be like me and have lifeline cable tv for $12 a month and download all the other shows I watch off the web. (Roadrunner = $34/mn)
I like the TiVo interface but I really just use the box to transfer downloads from the net to my TiVo box so that I have a VOD from my computer. I curretly have 1TB drive in my computer so there is really no need for me to have a 1TB TiVo unit.
Rapid Share link please
there is nothing like that here in my country, and we still watch tv at 240 lines.
“…The bigger question is whether you want a TiVo at all, when you can get a “free” high-def DVR from your cable company.”
Except most of the DVR’s from the cable companies are crap.
Check your bill son, that DVR from your cable company isn’t free.
You pay a monthly fee for
+Cable Box
+DVR
+HD