# Tivo Series3 Lite (Spy Photos)



## TiivoDog (Feb 14, 2007)

I just came across the following link, which are spy photos of the Tivo Series3 Lite unit and based on the hardware, it seems to have everything the S3 has, as well it has improved on the placement of the Cablecards - they have been moved to the front of the unit, which will greatly aid in CC handling as you don't have to pull the unit out to install them and/or pull them for replacement/repair.

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/giz-undercover/first-spy-pics-of-upcoming-tivo-series-3-lite-277118.php

Anyways, unless there is some unique functionality that can not be discerned by view the spy photos, it looks like this unit will provide the same features as the current S3???


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## dig_duggler (Sep 18, 2002)

Is that a led display up front? Two slots? Is anything downgraded on this?


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## TiivoDog (Feb 14, 2007)

You're right - It appears they existing display is not present on this one, but I would have to believe they would at least have red, green, orange and blue lights in lieu of them and the clock in the current state on the S3 unit. Regarding the rest of the possible hardware downgrades, there does not appear to be anymore, but it is hard to tell from those pictures...


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## jlb (Dec 13, 2001)

The main picture looks like a box with black construction paper wrapped around it.......

But, boy, if this unit comes in at "sub- $300" I bet they will sell a lot of these. This would likely pull me to S3-L more quickly than going with the ComcasTiVo. Hel....er....heck, at that price, I would get one without yet even having an HDTV or HD cable service. I am just upgrading now to an S2DT, but I figure by the time I have to worry if Comcast will still carry the analog cable signal in Feb 09 after the OTA cutoff, this unit should be very affordable, if not almost free if rebates are available.

Can't wait to hear more!


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## dig_duggler (Sep 18, 2002)

jlb said:


> The main picture looks like a box with black construction paper wrapped around it.......


I agree, could be fake. It will probably shake out what's what by the end of the week. Seems plausible for a prototype though.


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## HDTiVo (Nov 27, 2002)

TiivoDog said:


> I just came across the following link, which are spy photos of the Tivo Series3 Lite unit and based on the hardware, it seems to have everything the S3 has, as well it has improved on the placement of the Cablecards -





> Regarding the rest of the possible hardware downgrades, there does not appear to be anymore, but it is hard to tell from those pictures...


I don't think the Giz info indicates any such things. The benefit of upfront placement of the CCs may be a matter of opinion.

http://hdtivo.wordpress.com/2007/07/11/series-3-lite-pictures-etal/


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## HiDefGator (Oct 12, 2004)

Odd that DirecTV has moved the access cards to the rear of the unit from the front where kids and relatives frequently yanked them out. And now Tivo is moving the cable cards to the front to make it easier on the installer.


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## HDTiVo (Nov 27, 2002)

HiDefGator said:


> Odd that DirecTV has moved the access cards to the rear of the unit from the front where kids and relatives frequently yanked them out. And now Tivo is moving the cable cards to the front to make it easier on the installer.


Kids and relatives may be more agile than the installer.


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## FrodoB (Jan 3, 2005)

I don't believe I saw an eSATA port in the pictures?


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## A-1 (Mar 12, 2007)

These pictures are fake.

The back side of this is an S3 with the esata, cable card, and other items whited out.

Also, if you can get this close to the thing why would you take such horrible pictures


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

A-1 said:


> These pictures are fake.
> 
> The back side of this is an S3 with the esata, cable card, and other items whited out.
> 
> Also, if you can get this close to the thing why would you take such horrible pictures


They could be fake, but your reasons for suspecting it aren't compelling. It makes sense to use the same back panel as another model, if possible. And some people just can't take very good pictures with their cell phones. 

But these pics could very well be fake anyway. The white-out stuff on the back panel looks very suspicious.


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## jlb (Dec 13, 2001)

I want a Pony!


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

A-1 said:


> The back side of this is an S3 with the esata, cable card, and other items whited out.


Not quite. The cable/antenna inputs are arranged horizontally rather than vertically. It's also missing one row of composite/audio outputs, and the eSata port isn't missing, just moved. The HDMI port is also moved. Viz:









"S3 Lite"









Original S3


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## drew00001 (Jan 13, 2007)

A-1 said:


> These pictures are fake.
> 
> The back side of this is an S3 with the esata, cable card, and other items whited out.
> 
> Also, if you can get this close to the thing why would you take such horrible pictures


The Antenna & Cable in are verticle on my S3.


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## HDTiVo (Nov 27, 2002)

A-1 said:


> These pictures are fake.
> 
> The back side of this is an S3 with the esata, cable card, and other items whited out.
> 
> Also, if you can get this close to the thing why would you take such horrible pictures


No, the cableCard area and FCC and Model info are covered, but the eSata and HDMI ports and coax inputs are in different locations; and a set of outputs are missing.

The front of the box is very different.

I agree that the box looks like its the same form factor as the S3.


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## ebonovic (Jul 24, 2001)

HiDefGator said:


> Odd that DirecTV has moved the access cards to the rear of the unit from the front where kids and relatives frequently yanked them out. And now Tivo is moving the cable cards to the front to make it easier on the installer.


Reverse that for DirecTV units.
All the latest generation units (D10/D11/D12, H20, HR20, R15, and Series 2 and beyond DTiVos) the Access Card is inserted in the front. (basically any new receiver over the last 4 years)


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## Bierboy (Jun 12, 2004)

that's one ugly piece of equipment


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## pkscout (Jan 11, 2003)

A-1 said:


> These pictures are fake.
> 
> The back side of this is an S3 with the esata, cable card, and other items whited out.
> 
> Also, if you can get this close to the thing why would you take such horrible pictures


+1

They're not even good fakes. My cats could photoshop pictures better than that.


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

pkscout said:


> +1
> 
> They're not even good fakes. My cats could photoshop pictures better than that.


The reflection of the CableCARD slot text is pretty well done....


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## jayladdin (Sep 20, 2004)

pkscout said:


> +1
> 
> They're not even good fakes. My cats could photoshop pictures better than that.


Dude, your cats know how to use PhotoShop??


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## supasta (May 6, 2006)

The comment about the remote threw me off. Why would TiVo ship a Lite S3 with a completely new remote? Why not just ship the Glo Remote, or ever a standard TiVo remote....No, a completely new remote? Sounds off to me.


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## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

Guys, don't worry about the looks. The units pictured are meant for beta testing, not retail. The retail cosmetic will be very different.


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## HDTiVo (Nov 27, 2002)

bkdtv said:


> Guys, don't worry about the looks. The units pictured are meant for beta testing, not retail. The retail cosmetic will be very different.


Cosmetics? Will this be the girly man's HD TiVo?


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## WeBoat (Nov 6, 2002)

Personally, I'll go for they are real. Tivo HAS to have something like this in development. The S3 is just too expensive to make to sell at a mass market price point, so the must be devloping a new cheaper version to fight off the copy cat devices coming out at the end of the year. 

Personally, I've held off, and I always pay to much for these things. At $300, I'll buy 3..... Just my opinion of course.


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## PaulS (Sep 16, 2002)

I kinda think they're for reals also, although I'm surprised (in a good way) that the eSATA port is still there.

Also, the fact that the photos show that the demo unit being very similar to the existing S3 is probably a good sign. I believe that TiVo won't have to go through a complete CableLabs recertification if they only make minor changes to the already-certified S3. TiVo had to do a full pass on the S3 rev "A", but was able to do a self-certification for the S3 rev "B". If TiVo can self-cert this unit, that means they can get it to market that much quicker.


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## 1003 (Jul 14, 2000)

*Makes sense*
to use a S3 shell for a test sample. Light weight could be from revised faceplate and no finished shielding internally. Mock ups can be very crude in early test stages, no question there. Progress has no patientce...


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## raygundan (Oct 29, 2003)

My Cox installer here in AZ hasn't been able to get my S3 working, so when he came back today he had instructions "for the new Tivos" thinking that the reason mine was failing was that it was one of these. 

Since it was a black-and-white manual for installers, it had only line drawings, but the pics were of a cablecard tivo with both cablecard slots on the front of the unit, and it will supposedly work with a multistream card in one slot, according to his instructions. I didn't have it in my hands long enough to see much else.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

The current S3 units will work with a single multi-stream card as well. That's why one of the slots (I believe it's the bottom one) says "use this slot first". However at this point the TiVo software doesn't support multi-stream cards, so for now even if you install a multi-stream card it will act like a single stream card.

Dan


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## raygundan (Oct 29, 2003)

I also didn't see an antenna jack in the docs, so they've probably scrapped OTA to lower costs. Hard to tell from the B&W pics, but there are some LEDs and maybe a clock on the front.


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## pkscout (Jan 11, 2003)

jayladdin said:


> Dude, your cats know how to use PhotoShop??


They are very talented and love playing with mice.


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## mattn2 (Mar 23, 2001)

raygundan said:


> I also didn't see an antenna jack in the docs, so they've probably scrapped OTA to lower costs. Hard to tell from the B&W pics, but there are some LEDs and maybe a clock on the front.


There is an OTA antenna input, look right of cable input.

Since the same decoder chipset does QAM+ATC+NTSC, there is very little cost savings in removing it.

# Matt


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## rodalpho (Sep 12, 2006)

I don't understand; what did they rip out of the S3 to make it cheaper? I can only see two major differences; it only has a single set of composite outputs, which can't cost more than a dollar, and it doesn't have the sharp OLED front display. It still has two cablecard slots, which are expensive. I guess it could come with a smaller drive, but 250GB is a sweet spot in pricing. It even has the eSATA port. 

Where are the cost savings here? If they can release identical functionality at a lower price, wouldn't this model just obsolete today's S3 entirely?


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## danieljanderson (Nov 19, 2002)

It probably will not be THX certified. That will save money. It may not have all the noise dampening of the current S3.


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

rodalpho said:


> I don't understand; what did they rip out of the S3 to make it cheaper? I can only see two major differences; it only has a single set of composite outputs, which can't cost more than a dollar, and it doesn't have the sharp OLED front display. It still has two cablecard slots, which are expensive. I guess it could come with a smaller drive, but 250GB is a sweet spot in pricing. It even has the eSATA port.
> 
> Where are the cost savings here? If they can release identical functionality at a lower price, wouldn't this model just obsolete today's S3 entirely?


Lots of little cost savings add up. If something is not even included, it doesn't need to be tested, documented, no software has to be written to handle it, and so on.
If you remove $50 worth of stuff on a unit, maybe you can lower the price by 3x that amount (a figure I saw somewhere I think, but can't confirm). An input here, a display there, and all of a sudden you got your savings.


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## rodalpho (Sep 12, 2006)

I don't think many consumers care about those things, they just want a HD TiVo.


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## WeBoat (Nov 6, 2002)

Again just guessing, most of the weight in the unit is power supply. Less items, different design, might be a much lower power unit. That would explain the weight and some of the cost. Just a "cheaper" build also in the metal of the case.


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## Corran Horn (Feb 12, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> The current S3 units will work with a single multi-stream card as well. That's why one of the slots (I believe it's the bottom one) says "use this slot first". However at this point the TiVo software doesn't support multi-stream cards, so for now even if you install a multi-stream card it will act like a single stream card.
> 
> Dan


So that is only a software fix?

(blood pressure goes back down)


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## Gloftoe (Jun 14, 2004)

Dan203 said:


> The current S3 units will work with a single multi-stream card as well. That's why one of the slots (I believe it's the bottom one) says "use this slot first". However at this point the TiVo software doesn't support multi-stream cards, so for now even if you install a multi-stream card it will act like a single stream card.
> 
> Dan


Are multi-stream cards the ones that will allow the use of on-demand features, and "switched digital video" channels? If so, WHY would Tivo only allow the use of ONE of those cards? That doesn't make much sense.


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## Saxion (Sep 18, 2006)

Gloftoe said:


> Are multi-stream cards the ones that will allow the use of on-demand features, and "switched digital video" channels?


No. Multi-stream cards can simply decode 2 streams at once. They are functionally identical to a pair of single-stream cards. There is no such thing as a "card" that will enable on-demand or SDV, and there never will be. Today's CableCARDs are perfectly capable of such things. It is the _design of the host device_, not the cards, that needs to change to support such things.


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## inaka (Nov 26, 2001)

Anyone remember the Apple iWalk?


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## Justin Thyme (Mar 29, 2005)

Don't the whited out areas interest anyone? Look at the area immediately adjacent the inputs. This is where analog inputs are located on the S2's. And lo and behold- copy pasting the connectors, they would just fit in this whited out space exactly.







Meethinkest the S3 Lite hath some tricks in store and may smite more dragons than the S3 can.


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## jfh3 (Apr 15, 2004)

Justin Thyme said:


> Don't the whited out areas interest anyone? Look at the area immediately adjacent the inputs. This is where analog inputs are located on the S2's. And lo and behold- copy pasting the connectors, they would just fit in this whited out space exactly.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Interesting possibility. A "one size fits all" Tivo box could be interesting - Tivo could drop the DT box all together. I doubt it though - how many people would try to use the inputs to record an HD stream and be p*ssed when it wouldn't work?

And they would have to add some logic in the code to know when TTG and MRV could be used and other types of conditional processing.


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## Justin Thyme (Mar 29, 2005)

I don't understand why you think the logic will be any more complicated than the S3's will be (I assume that CableLabs will never agree to allow Tivo to MRV or TTG digital content). 

Logic is simple- Anything that the Tivo encodes is ok to TTG or MRV. 

Second advantage. If cable companies renege on whatever SDV provision that Rogers suggested before Congress that the cablecos would be making- customers could still use the input for SDV/ even if it were somehow invisible to the Cablecard (which it shouldn't be). 

Third. Anyone pissed off about not being able to MRV an HBO show due to flags can just slap a GODVD between the digital cablebox and the analog input.

Isn't analog wunnerful?

These pix would have to be showing up now if Tivo were going to hit Christmas, but really, their cards are still being held pretty close to the chest. I really would have exchanged all these pix for a shot of the Mobo and triple word score awarded if the chip numbers were legible. If Tivo is going for lowest cost HD unit, there may be no surprizes there, but what the heck. Maybe Santa will have a nice video post processor upscaler/ artifact reducer, or the main CPU will have tons more memory & Speed for the use by future applications (assuming this unit will at some point be the mass market baseline platform with minimum specs for advanced software).


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## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

Saxion said:


> No. Multi-stream cards can simply decode 2 streams at once. They are functionally identical to a pair of single-stream cards.


They can provide authentication and decryption for up to 6 simultaneous streams.


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## SugarBowl (Jan 5, 2007)

Corran Horn said:


> So that is only a software fix?
> 
> (blood pressure goes back down)


The owner's manual that came with the S3 says something about multistream cards will work, but they are not yet available.


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## SullyND (Dec 30, 2004)

Corran Horn said:


> So that is only a software fix?
> 
> (blood pressure goes back down)


The S3 will do multi-stream at some point (at least it is hardware capable) however do not confuse multi-stream with two-way communication.

What are the odds the S3 gets an upgrade at the same time? (i.e. if the "lite" is an S3.5, there's a S3.5+ that replaces the current S3 (bigger standard drive, plus the S3 niceties)


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## HDTiVo (Nov 27, 2002)

Justin Thyme said:


> Don't the whited out areas interest anyone? Look at the area immediately adjacent the inputs. This is where analog inputs are located on the S2's. And lo and behold- copy pasting the connectors, they would just fit in this whited out space exactly.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


What are you suggesting this would be for?


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## jmoak (Jun 20, 2000)

HDTiVo said:


> What are you suggesting this would be for?


Input from a dth satellite settop? (is that an IR Blaster connection I see?)
Input from a premium or encrypted digital cable settop on a system that has cablecard waivers?
A camcorder, maybe?


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

Justin Thyme said:


> Don't the whited out areas interest anyone? Look at the area immediately adjacent the inputs. This is where analog inputs are located on the S2's. And lo and behold- copy pasting the connectors, they would just fit in this whited out space exactly.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Can't be as pctured. TiVo, since the Series 2, has had vertical aligned jack sets.

Not to say there won't be SD box support in the finished product though.


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## HDTiVo (Nov 27, 2002)

I suspect we are talking out of school here. This box needs to be cheap.


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## wolflord11 (Jan 17, 2007)

Remember this is supposed to be a Series 3 Lite. Costs are supposed to go down.

But here you all are adding more and more to a S3.

Why not just take a Series3, add whatever features you want? Oh wait, that would mean the cost would go up would it not?


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## Justin Thyme (Mar 29, 2005)

HDTiVo said:


> This box needs to be cheap.


Also it needs to hit christmas. For that to happen you need a lengthy Beta test. (When that happens you get leaks of pictures like this.) Hardware has to be gold long before July so that large numbers of product can be manufactured in the far east and shipped to the distributor warehouses by September/October. You can download a new software upgrade in October November when they hit the shelves, but the software that initially ships has to be stable enough to get through a numbskull cablecard installer ordeal. So you have to be gold on that level of software by oh say... August or more probably July.

And here we are in July seeing pictures like this.

My crackpot theory is that we are looking at a prototype box with common mobo for two different models. At retail, there will be a bare bones unit and a premium unit both based on a nearly identical motherboard. The S3 premium gets the analog input and blasters and the economy model gets blank metal where we see the whited boxes. They may both really be econo models with a $50 price difference between them. Folks that don't know why they need an analog connector have the choice not to get that option. No electric windows, radio, white wall tires. Folks like choice even if 90% of them choose the electric windows. Marketing weasels understand that sort of weird psychology. That's why they sometimes make them CEOs.

But the premium/sat unit has too many new test paths and won't be ready / may not even be announced by Christmans. All prototypes in the early beta tests shipped with these- they don't work for the folks testing the econo model, they work for the few testing the premium model.

As for Classic Sat's (Sorry- I finally read your sig properly) theory, I think you pull our legs. Tivo engineers weren't burdenned by such constraints after they discovered their wrists can rotate 90 degrees and they sucessfully rotated the coax inputs. The UI folks might have raised a stink, except that it is harder to mistake inputs for outputs when they are oriented differently- especially if you are doing it in a darkenned cabinet- or worse- by touch.


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## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

SullyND said:


> What are the odds the S3 gets an upgrade at the same time? (i.e. if the "lite" is an S3.5, there's a S3.5+ that replaces the current S3 (bigger standard drive, plus the S3 niceties)


I can see them possibly adding hardware support for two-way comm, but not the larger hard drive. Early adopters will piss and moan about any upgrade--adding more storage might spark a class action suit (I'd join ).

One very bad thing about SDV right now is that all of the protocols for it are proprietary and different for every manufacturer's set of cable network equipment. It badly needs to be standardized. Of course, that would take at least another 18 months .


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## Justin Thyme (Mar 29, 2005)

Early adopters won't care for the low end look of the unit.

Nor will they care about SD input.

A class action based on what? A company came out with more features for less price? How unfair that I bought a 128K Mac that was nearly totally useless due to memory constraints when shortly later the 512K Mac comes out and no one wants the 128K Mac. Was I unhappy? No. I sold the 128K Mac and eventually got a MacII while folks still highly valued the 128K Macs.

Wish I would have kept it. It was a piece of history.

And I was there. That's what being an early adopter is about. We take the arrows. We plant the flag first. The church ladies roll into town and run the fancy ladies out of town. We move on. With technology- the westward expansion is infinite. Lots of room for real cowboys.


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## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

A class action suit not about "S3 Lite" with advanced features (which ain't gonna happen), but about them replacing the original S3 with an upgraded model. It can be argued that they were fully cognizant of the emerging SDV problem and that they could have at least add the hardware part of two-way communications. The reverse data channel specs from a CableCARD host has been virtually unchanged since CableCARD V1 (those specs had 2-way comm and built-in support for interactive services based on a fixed API and HTML; the industry rejected the latter in favor of waiting for OCAP to be done, making support for bidirectional comm temporarily unnecessary). They sold S3 with the full knowledge that SDV would become an issue. Of course, I bought it with that knowledge, but not everyone did.


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## danieljanderson (Nov 19, 2002)

mikeyts said:


> A class action suit not about "S3 Lite" with advanced features (which ain't gonna happen), but about them replacing the original S3 with an upgraded model. It can be argued that they were fully cognizant of the emerging SDV problem and that they could have at least add the hardware part of two-way communications. .


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## HDTiVo (Nov 27, 2002)

Justin Thyme said:


> Wish I would have kept it. It was a piece of history.


Would you like mine?

I think I am being rather kind to TiVo by saying the cheapo-S3 is coming out around October, especially if you consider when it sounds like they figured out $799 was a lot of money.


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## Justin Thyme (Mar 29, 2005)

mikeyts said:


> It can be argued that they were fully cognizant of the emerging SDV problem and that they could have at least add the hardware part of two-way communications.


It could be argued, but the argument would be shredded rapidly. Whether the blame lays with the CEA or Cablelabs regarding the lack of an FCC approved standard for two way communications, the point has no bearing on the fact that CableLabs will not certify a box for two way communications without adherance to the Cablecard 2.0 spec. If I understand you correctly, you are not saying they should implement the CC2.0 spec which includes a requirement to support a kitchen sink of difficult to implement and unrelated technologies such as OCAP that are totally irrelevant to the ability to change a channel. You just want them to have put in a circuit that would allow support of changing channels on Switched video (SDV) systems.

What you are advocating is that Tivo put out a box that did not have CableLabs certification for two way communication.

Say you got your wish. Would you next sue Tivo because they know that no cable companies would be obligated to allow such boxes to be attached to their networks, much less support their correct operation?

It seems like a nonsensical blame the rape victim kind of argument to me, but yeah someone could argue it. Are you? If you think Tivo somehow conspired in a plot to see that their customers would not to be able to change channels, then fine- where's the facts supporting the argument. If there is some spec that Tivo could build to that cable companies say they will support- which spec would that be? Do cable companies support it? Do they have concensus among cable companies for supporting it, or is it just the majors? Are there any working systems today that support it?

If you ask these questions, you will see that this situation is engineered by the cable companies, not Tivo. But I think you know that. Other readers may not.

Communications companies like to form vertical monopolies, so that the device they put in your hands is their money machine which only sells their goods. They are entitled to attempt to maximize their profits. They are not entitled to tie one product- delivery of data- to another- rental or purchase of the navigation device.

Imagine a world where car companies owned gas companies and the fuel and engines were special so that they would only work if you bought fuel from the same company. It's euphemistically called a walled garden. It's also called a vertical monopoly, and it's illegal. It's like not being allowed to connect phones not made by the phone company to the telephone network.

What the cable companies are doing is illegal. What they are doing is against the law- specifically the 1996 Telecom law that required them to allow third party devices to have full access to their networks. They are not in compliance now, nor does it appear they will every be brought into compliance under the current FCC leadership.


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## MichaelK (Jan 10, 2002)

wmcbrine said:


> ... I think they just cover up some "proprietary information" (who knows what).


at first I thought it was to white out the TSN so the leaker wouldn't get nailed for violating hte NDA but seems there can't be that many serial numbers ont he thing can there?


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

Damn, I was quoted before I got the deletion in. I looked again, and it's not tape. So who knows?


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## MichaelK (Jan 10, 2002)

wmcbrine said:


> Damn, I was quoted before I got the deletion in. I looked again, and it's not tape. So who knows?


how's that?


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## slimoli (Jul 30, 2005)

In my view, the "S3 light" is coming too late to the game. If we want HD, we want programming in HD and very soon most channels (the ones we care) will be in highdef from Directv, Dish and few cable companies. Here is where the problem is: Cable companies can't compete with satellite HD unless they use the switching (SDV) which doesn't work with cablecards. People like us, who spend time in boards like this, want the best and that's why we chose the S3 but it's going to be very difficult to watch FX, SPEED, most movie channels in standard definition when our neighboor with satellite gets all the good stuff. 

Bottom line: We will face a tough decision soon: The best DVR (S3 or S3 light) or MUCH more HD availability. 

Sergio


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## jmoak (Jun 20, 2000)

slimoli said:


> In my view ... If we ... we want ... we care ... People like us ... that's why we ... when our neighboor ... We will ...


Oh, my.....


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## AbMagFab (Feb 5, 2001)

slimoli said:


> In my view, the "S3 light" is coming too late to the game. If we want HD, we want programming in HD and very soon most channels (the ones we care) will be in highdef from Directv, Dish and few cable companies. Here is where the problem is: Cable companies can't compete with satellite HD unless they use the switching (SDV) which doesn't work with cablecards. People like us, who spend time in boards like this, want the best and that's why we chose the S3 but it's going to be very difficult to watch FX, SPEED, most movie channels in standard definition when our neighboor with satellite gets all the good stuff.
> 
> Bottom line: We will face a tough decision soon: The best DVR (S3 or S3 light) or MUCH more HD availability.
> 
> Sergio


Or both. Get FIOS TV with no SDV ever, and a S3.

Or believe me, a S3.5 or something will support SDV. It's not like they're going to stop.


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## sirfergy (May 18, 2002)

I just wish FIOS was in my area! I've got crappy Qwest as my local telco.


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## mike_camden (Dec 11, 2006)

slimoli said:


> In my view, the "S3 light" is coming too late to the game. If we want HD, we want programming in HD and very soon most channels (the ones we care) will be in highdef from Directv, Dish and few cable companies. Here is where the problem is: Cable companies can't compete with satellite HD unless they use the switching (SDV) which doesn't work with cablecards. People like us, who spend time in boards like this, want the best and that's why we chose the S3 but it's going to be very difficult to watch FX, SPEED, most movie channels in standard definition when our neighboor with satellite gets all the good stuff.
> 
> Bottom line: We will face a tough decision soon: The best DVR (S3 or S3 light) or MUCH more HD availability.
> 
> Sergio


Not really Tivo-related, but...
More isn't always better. Good luck with the pic quality of HD on DirecTV (HD Lite); I don't have any experience DISH, so I can't omment on that. I was a DirecTV for about five years aabout two years ago before I switched to Comcast. I watched the quality of the HD channels on DirecTV degrade more and more as they offered more channels (pixelation, soft pictures, lots of lip sync issues, blocking, etc). I finally had enough of how poor their HD channels had become in May 2005 and ordered a Comcast box in the house so I could compare the two. As soon as I plugged the Comcast box in, I could see a major improvement in HD channels with Comcast. I did A and B comparisions between the pic quality of DTV and Comcast on the same HD channels -- the pic quality of the DirecTV HD channels was very, very poor compared to Comcast. I hated losing my HD DirecTivo that I had with DirecTivo, but picture quality with Comcast was so much better, that it made the decision more palatable.

Given DTV's track record with over-compressing and announcement of large number of number of HD channels, I don't see them improving the quality of their channels with MPEG-4; I just see them keeping a miserable compression ratio so they can add more and more channels.


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## rmassey (Sep 5, 2002)

^^^ +1


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## BobCamp1 (May 15, 2002)

mike_camden said:


> Given DTV's track record with over-compressing and announcement of large number of number of HD channels, I don't see them improving the quality of their channels with MPEG-4; I just see them keeping a miserable compression ratio so they can add more and more channels.


Actually, there was an article in TivoCommunity that provided a link that said that DirecTV DID improve the quality on the MPEG-4 channels. For now anyway.

It wasn't like the HD quality on MPEG-2 was horrific. It was very good. Just not spectacular.


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## sfhub (Jan 6, 2007)

Could you provide that link? I would like to read more about it.

Last I recall, they were still doing 1440x1080i instead of 1920x1080i.

The competitor, Dish allegedly just reduced HBO to 1440x1080i as well.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=866189


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## vstone (May 11, 2002)

sfhub said:


> Could you provide that link? I would like to read more about it.
> 
> Last I recall, they were still doing 1440x1080i instead of 1920x1080i.
> 
> ...


I think I read an interview with Mark Cuban recently in which he said or implied that nobody was downrezzing his signal.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

DirecTV does 1280x1080i, not even 1440x1080i.

There were times when it got horrific. (Mainly due to low bitrate rather than resolution.)


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## mike_camden (Dec 11, 2006)

wmcbrine said:


> DirecTV does 1280x1080i, not even 1440x1080i.
> 
> There were times when it got horrific. (Mainly due to low bitrate rather than resolution.)


Many times on Sundays during the football season when they were pretty much maxed out (with multiple games on Sunday ticket), my observation was that PQ took a nosedive across the board. I've not seen DTV with MPEG-4, but I heard from a friend that his HD feed is no better than it had been when he had the old MPEG-2 dish and receiver, so it doesn't sound like they've made too many improvements.


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## Justin Thyme (Mar 29, 2005)

AbMagFab said:


> Or both. Get FIOS TV with no SDV ever, and a S3.
> 
> Or believe me, a S3.5 or something will support SDV. It's not like they're going to stop.


And how do you propose to change channels on FIOS to VOD or PPV channels? Well oops. They can't. Nor will any dongle fix that works with Cable systems using RF upstream communication work with FIOS.

I think horrific describes what Video distributors are doing with HD-lite. It is the same with DTV. It used to be that there was a Wow factor with DTV over analog. Now? DTV is sometimes even worse than analog due to the overcompression.

So long as there are walled gardens in video distribution, there will be no competition on quality.

Truth in labeling in program guides is necessary, so that we can know what we are getting. And these aren't small differences








above is Mpeg2 8.3Mbps








above is Mpeg2 12.5Mbps**​
Ok. Picture B is Dish. Picture A was Direct. Big difference. The fact is, HD-lite is only marginally better than upscaled DVD SD.

But in a walled garden, it doesn't matter because consumers are helpless to do anything about it. Consumers have to shut up and take whatever the distibutors deign to call HD and SD, so the satcos and cablecos do whatever they please. And what pleases them is to squeeze all the other channels as hard as they can so that they can offer more premium channels.

What does it take to excercise consumer choice? How many people are going to pay for ripping out the old dishes and put in the new ones especially when they find out that Direct used to have stunning HD pictures and there is no guarantee that Dish won't degrade them just as Direct has done?

That is why third party DVRs like Tivo that can access multiple sources of video are important for competition. But to do that, we need a standard so that a single DVR can record digital video from multiple sources (including Sat, FIOS- not just cable using cablecards).

OTA HD is up to 19 Mbps, and oftentimes is, because there is no benefit to overcompression as with all other distributors.


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## mike_camden (Dec 11, 2006)

Justin,
Great response. I'm not a huge fan of Comcast as a company, but in our area at least, their HD picture runs circles around Direct's. If my wife, who sometimes says she can't tell the difference between DVD and HD, can see an immediate and significant difference between the exact same program from the exact same channel on DTV's HD-Lite and Comcast's HD, then it must be about as tangible as the pictures you used in your example.


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