TiVo is reported as saying they will introduce a very spiffy TiVo Series 3 system this year. The current model, TiVo Series 2 has the following limitations: only one channel at a time can be watched/recorded, no HD resolution record/play capability, cannot record digital television broadcasts - only NTSC analog). Since US TV stations will stop broadcasting in analog NTSC analog in 3 years, and they already broadcast in the new ATSC digital television format - with many shows shown in HD (High Definition resolution mode) - TiVo had to do something. Well, it seems they did. TiVo unveils Series 3 HD DVR says the unit will ship in mid-2006. Not only does it support receiving/recording/playing/viewing these new broadcast standards (i.e. HDTV) - it has a lot of new features to make the system more powerful than ever before. Capacities have been raised and new capabilities have been added. In addition, there is a front panel display that will let you see what is going on. No more little red/green round LED: it has a full digital/alphanumeric readout on the front panel. The feature set seems pretty juicy: [list=a]

modem (for those who lack broadband connections to the Internet)

Ethernet (new feature)

2 USB ports (doesn't say if they are USB 2.0 yet or still 1.1)

external serial ATA (SATA) so you can connect external storage (in theory)

2 audio outputs: digital optical for home theater connections and RCA cables for connecting to old-fashioned stereos

2 NTSC digital tuners that can handle HD (up to 1080i)

2 ATSC tuners

2 over-the-air tuners for receiving broadcast

HDMI video output (see Wikipedia definition of HDMI for more)

S-Video output

component video output

composite video output It also mentions the unit will support the CableCARD 2.0 standard. So, if your cable company gives you a CableCARD card, you should be able to plug it into the unit and not need a set top cable box. PVRBlog says in HD TiVo Series 3 @ CES that it will still record in MPEG-2 - but it will now be able to play back in MPEG-4! The blog also points out that although there are 6 tuners in the system, it will only be able to record two shows at once. Probably that will not disappoint many home users. Two seems to be the magic number. A lot of people have been asking when TiVo systems would have this capability. Well, [color=red]TiVo Series 3 systems can record two channels at once[/color] - so, if that is what you have been waiting for, now you know what system to get. The Engadget blog reports that TiVo announces Series 3 HD TiVo, due this year. They add a few juicy tidbits of information. [list=1]

can use one CableCARD 2.0 cards or 2 CableCARD 1.0 cards

TiVo will be offering an extern SATA (serial ATA) drive to store your shows

300 hours of recording space comes built in Just so you know, if your job was to watch TV 40 hours per week, it would take you just a fraction of a week less than two months to watch all those programs!