Western Digital unveiled external hard drives that can be hooked up to Tivo’s Series 3 DVRs and Tivo HD. Its “My DVR Expander” was launched in June 2007 for the Scientific Atlanta 8300 series of HD DVRs for $200 and they are now available for Tivos. The product was Tivo verified and is even on sale on Tivo’s web site.

The 500GB model provides 300 additional hours of SD content or up to 60 hours of HD.

I have a Tivo Series 2, so this isn’t available for me. That’s ok, since this is really for hard-core users that want more space for their HD content. Although 60 hours of HD content still doesn’t seem like enough space for a TV junkie like me.

[Via Gizmodo, TivoLovers]

Technorati Tags: Western Digital, Tivo, HD DVR, DVR, HD

Sony said that it is dropping support from regular DVDs from its DVRs and only supporting its Blu-Ray format. This is for their upcoming DVR lines in Japan.

Dropping support for DVDs means that consumers will have to upgrade and buy the new Blu-Ray discs if they want to archive shows that they’ve recorded. Now that’s great news for those looking to store more movies in each disc and good news for the growing number of HDTV users. But it’s bad news for people still clinging to their DVD collections.

Coolest Gadgets says that support Blu-Ray offers much more storage:

“[a] …50GB Blu-ray disc is capable of holding slightly more than 4 hours of HDTV whenever one records over-the-air MPEG2 stream, but transcoding this stream to MPEG4 AVC makes it possible to cram in up to 16 hours of HDTV onto the same disc. “

It will probably also raise prices since the new recordable HD drives are more expensive than regular DVD recordable drives. I guess it’s great that Sony is very forward thinking, but here in the U.S. many people are still using regular DVDs and haven’t made the transition to HD discs.

But what about support for HD-DVD? Looks like the battle between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray is heating up.

Research from The Leichtman Research Group found that about 20% of U.S. households own digital video recorders. That’s a big jump of 8 percentage points from last year when it was at 12% of households.

What’s driving this surge?

Popularity of HDTV. Would you really bother to buy a regular VCR after purchasing a $2,000 TV? No, you’d probably want a DVR. You’ve already invested in HD, ordered HD service from your TV provider so you’ll probably want an HD DVR. Liechtman found that 53% of DVR owners had an HD set but there were no numbers on how many were HD DVRs.

Availability of DVRs. Tivo and ReplayTV used to be the only DVRs that you could buy. But now cable and satellite providers offer their own DVRs. And at prices that are cheaper than buying a standalone Tivo and paying monthly Tivo subscriptions.

Higher Household Incomes. According to Leichtman Research Group, the mean household income for DVR owners is 33% above average. If you’ve got higher income, you can afford to pay for HD, and buy a DVR.

Skipping Past Commercials. Well, not quite. Although most DVR users say the ability to skip commercials is very important, only 8% say it’s the main benefit of owning a DVR.

Consumer Acceptance of DVRs. More people know and understand what a DVR is and how it can change how you view TV. However, only 45% of respondents said that they record five or fewer programs per week. Perhaps, I’m a TV junkie, but I record over 20 hours (Ok, maybe it’s closer to 30 hours) of programming every week. Of course, I can’t watch it all but I watch a lot of it. Plus, Tivo records suggestions for me all the time. It seems my Tivo is always recording something no matter what time it is.

Finally, Leichtman also predicted that the number of U.S. households with DVRs will grow to over 60 million by the end of 2011.

[Via TV Squad]

Technorati Tags: Liechtman Research Group, DVR, HD DVR, PVR, digital video recorder, personal video recorder

In response to market and customer demand, Tivo announced a new lower-priced HD DVR TiVo that will sell for $299 rather than the Series 3 which retails for $799.

Along with the lower price, the new HD Tivo comes with a 160GB hard drive which is a lot smaller than the 250GB of the Series 3. The new Tivo HD can store just 20 hours of HD or 180 hours of standard definition TV. Even with 250GB, the Series 3 only can manage 32 hours of HD content. I need more storage!

Twenty hours of content isn’t much. Frankly, that’s still not enough for me to switch to an HD Tivo. I currently own a 180 hour Series 2 dual tuner and don’t own an HD TV set so I’m not in a hurry to switch. But once I switch to HD, I would probably still choose Comcast’s HD DVR over the new HD Tivo. I can’t imagine going from 180 hours to 20 and not affecting my TV viewing and recording experience. I may even decide to pay $799 for the Series 3.

Having just 20 hours of content isn’t a bad trade off however, since you can install a larger hard drive that you buy separately. Sure it means opening and tinkering with your new Tivo, but it’s not too difficult and just a little harder than installing a new hard drive on your PC.

Like the Series 3, the new HD Tivo also has dual tuners, and can do many of the same things as a regular Series 2 or 3 DVRs such as photos, music, TV and movie downloads via Amazon Unbox, TivoCast and more.

The HD Tivo comes with support for CableCARDs, as well as HDMI but it doesn’t come with a nicely brushed metal box, front panel display or a back-lit remote control. It also doesn’t support satellite programming at this time.

A major downside is that TiVoToGo and multi-room viewing are not available on the new TiVo HD although Tivo said that a version will be made available in the future.

Clearly, Tivo is going after the people who are currently opting to go with their cable’s HD DVR and don’t a small hard drive. A Series 3 Tivo is still the dream machine for those serious about HD and getting the full Tivo experience. In fact, Tivo’s FAQ says that Tivo HD is “designed as a universal cable box replacement that works seamlessly with any cable provider…” It’s made for people that have HD and want their Tivo at a lower cost.

Tivo is accepting pre-orders today with boxes shipping in early August. After August, you can find Tivo HD at your local retailer as well.

Update: If 20 hours or even 32 hours of HD content isn’t enough for your Tivo, why not buy a Tivo from Weaknees? They do the hard work of adding a bigger hard drive, so you can choose from a 65 hour Series 3 Tivo for $699, or a 144 hour Tivo for $1,049.

The Wall Street Journal posted an article on Friday about DVRs and new features–like programming shows via cell phones and movie downloads from the Internet.

Although the article is mostly a re-hash of current DVR features and some recent news, one interesting tidbit is that Cablevision is looking to do away with a set-top DVR and give subscribers storage space within its network for recording shows.

This would cut costs and make DVRs more invisible and accessible to users. But the WSJ says that Hollywood doesn’t like network DVRs because they violate their copyrights.

How can this be? Does where and how you store content affect the legality? Or is it just another battle between Hollywood content providers and cable/satellite companies?

I don’t know if I would like the networked DVR. I enjoy having complete control of my content on a set-top-box that I own and have in my house. Having my cable company in control seems like they might dictate what I can and cannot do with shows that I record.

And how about using my DVR as a media hub? I like being able to watch Internet content on my TV with Tivo, or watching photos from my networked PCs on my TV. Would I lose this ability with a networked DVR?

Still, I can think of a few good things about a networked DVR:

1. Unlimited Storage Space. Hopefully, my cable company wouldn’t limit how much storage I have. One way to make money from this is to offer consumers tiers of storage space, so those who save lots of TV shows can pay more per month, for example.
2. One Less Box Under the TV. If I didn’t have my set-top DVR, I’d have less clutter and more space for something else. Like a new Xbox 360 or Wii, for example.
3. Not Having to Upgrade to New DVR. Tivo Series 1 users wouldn’t have to upgrade to a Series 2 or 3. They can just upgrade to the next tier. The same thing should be possible when you upgrade to HD and don’t want to spend $800 on a Tivo Series 3.
4. Backups of DVR Content. I’d hate to lose shows that I’ve been saving for weeks or months. Having them stored off site would be great in case my DVR suddenly conks out and loses all my shows.
5. Not Buying Multiple DVRs for Every Room. This can save consumers lots of money if they don’t have to buy a separate DVR for every room. Renting an extra set-top box, for example, is much better than buying another HD DVR.

Even with a networked DVR, I’d still like to download shows to my home computer, and save them on DVDs. Perhaps the cable company will be forced by Hollywood to charge a fee for users that do this. If the fee was affordable enough, like a few dollars per show, I wouldn’t mind.

So what do you think? Are network DVRs the future? What are the plusses and minuses? Will Tivo remain viable if cable and satellite companies turn to network DVRs instead?