Last week I reported that WeaKnees had started to ship upgrade drives for the TiVo HD. Well, if you’re thinking about getting an upgrade drive, you might want to check out DVRupgrade as well. TiVo HD upgrade drives cost about the same from either company (WeaKnees, DVRUpgrade).

I’ve yet to upgrade any of my TiVos so I’m interested to hear what other people think about these two companies. Which company do you prefer? WeaKnees or DVRupgrade?

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As a side note, I would like to thank Douglas for putting me down as his TiVo rewards referrer. If you’d like to put me down as your referrer, all you need to do is enter my email address (raianoat AT gmail DOT com) when you activate your TiVo. Thanks Doug!

TiVo has officially launched the much anticipated lightweight HD DVR that I’ve been blogging about since March of this year. The DVR is pretty much as we expected. In terms of the specifications, the TiVo HD includes two CableCARD slots, an ATSC tuner (so that you can record OTA content), 180 GB HD, HDMI output & an eSATA port. In my opinion, the TiVo HD is essentially a Series 3 with a smaller hard drive and without the features that you really don’t need like a glo remote and a LED front display. The TiVo HD is currently selling for $299.99 on TiVo’s website.

If I didn’t own a Series 3, I would definitely pick this DVR up. $299.99 is a reasonable price for a HD enabled TiVo.

If you decide to purchase a TiVo HD, I would appreciate it if you put me down as your referrer (raianoat AT gmail DOT com) when you activate your TiVo.

Engadget has published a post which states that they have some reliable information about upcoming TiVo hardware as well as some new features. According to Engadget, the lightweight TiVo DVR that I reported on last week may in fact be released as early as this week. Engadget states that the DVR will cost $300 and that it is expected to have the following features: 160 GB HD, two CableCARD tuners and possibly an ATSC tuner.

Along with this news, Engadget is also reporting that TiVo has plans to enable the eSATA on the Series 3 and that Best Buy will be the exclusive provider for external drives.

In case that wasn’t enough TiVo news for you, Engadget is also reporting that TiVoToGo will be enabled on the Series 3 sometime in the near future. There is one caveat however, TiVo plans on enabling TiVoToGo for SD content only :(.

I would be I’m extremely excited if just one of these rumors ends up being valid. I’d love to see TiVoToGo on my Series 3 even if it were only for SD content. I currently use my Series 2 mainly for TiVoToGo. As far as the eSATA rumor is concerned, I’d be delighted if TiVo were to officially enable this feature. You can never have enough storage when recording HD content. The “TiVo HD” sounds like a nice DVR especially since it won’t cost $800. I’ve always thought that $800 was too much for the Series 3 and it prevents a lot of people from buying one.

What do you think about these rumors? Do they seem legit to you?

Remember back in March when Tom Rogers mentioned TiVo’s intention to release a lightweight version of the Series 3 TiVo? Well, last week Gizmodo published some pictures of the much anticipated DVR and just yesterday, somebody over at TiVoCommunity.com released some unofficial specs. Along with the unofficial specs, several websites have the product listed for purchase (they’ve since been pulled).

Unconfirmed Series3 “Lite” Specifications (TCD652160)
- BCM740x DVR CPU w/ integrated MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 decoders
- 1x dual MPEG-2 encoder (BCM7041 or possibly an encoder from LSI)
- 2x Samsung S5H1411-based tuners (analog/QAM/8VSB)
- 128Mb DDR SDRAM
- 160Gb SATA HD
- Smaller, lower-cost PCB
- Cheaper power supply
- No THX certification
- No OLED display
- Standard Tivo remote
- $299 MSRP

Based on all this “chatter” it looks as though we may hear an official announcement of the Series 3 lite any day now. If I remember correctly, the same kind of thing happened with the Series 3 before it was official released. Stay tuned for more news and information….

Spotted on HDTiVo and TiVoLovers.