(Credit:
TiVo)
There may be some sweet justice in the air for longtime TiVo holdouts. If you purchased the company's old lifetime service for a one-time fee years ago--and have refused to upgrade your box for fear of the dreaded monthly payments--you may want to take note of this new deal.
TiVo is now offering an HD recorder for $300 and will let you transfer your lifetime service for $199--that's just $20 more than a single year of prepaid annual service under the standard plan offered to new customers. We're still trying to sort out the details, but the offer appears to apply to its so-called HD DVR box, which provides fewer hours of high-definition recording than its Series3 model (20 hours vs. 32 hours). Still, it's cheaper ($300 vs. $600) and, if you get it by November 8, you can transfer that precious lifetime service.
Of course, TiVo needs to stay in business for this to pay off, but that's the subject for another item.
Digeo's upcoming DVRs have a pretty slick interface.
(Credit: Digeo)Digeo dropped by the CNET offices this morning to give us a demo of their upcoming HD DVR, Moxi. We first saw Moxi many a CES ago and were definitely impressed, but since then only certain areas have had access to the hardware through their cable company. Now Digeo is looking to bring Moxi directly to consumers, in two flavors: the Moxi Multi-Room HD DMR and the Moxi Home Cinema Edition HD DMR.
The Moxi Multi-Room HD DMR is for cable subscribers that want to ditch their current cable boxes and use the Moxi with a CableCard. So what does Moxi deliver that your cable company's box doesn't? Here's a quick rundown of the features:
- Large internal hard drive
- Ability to add additional space via an eSATA port
- Built-in DVD player, can rip CDs to the hard drive
- Can stream any programming (including DVDs) to a smaller second-room unit called Moxi Mate, which is included in the package
- Can stream music, movies and photos from a networked PC
The Moxi Home Cinema Edition HD DMR is geared more towards those that get their programming high-def via over-the-air ATSC broadcasts. It has basically the same feature set as the Multi-Room HD DMR, with a couple important differences: it has both digital and analog tuners, and it lacks the multiroom functionality.
All these features are great, but perhaps the most impressive aspect was the Moxi's interface. The onscreen menus are all in slick high-def graphics and in the upper right hand corner there was a window that was always showing what was playing while we browsed. The interface as a whole navigates very much like Sony's Cross Media Bar menu system--you browse the different functions by scrolling on the horizontal axis and then the options within a function are available on the vertical axis. The best thing we noticed about it was response speed--it was extremely fast and you could scroll through your thousand-plus lineup of digital cable channels in just a few seconds.
Digeo says these boxes will be coming this fall but haven't announced pricing yet, although with all the functionality packed into this box, we're guessing it won't be cheap. It's also worth noting that buying a CableCard DVR from anyone but your cable company is going to remain a risky venture if we see more cable companies moving to switched digital video, because you'll miss out on the extra channels they should be able to provide. And remember all the standard CableCard caveats still apply--you won't be able to take advantage of any video-on-demand or pay-per-view services.
We're already on the list to get a review sample when it comes out, so stay tuned for our hands-on review.
LG announced three new series of plasma TVs at their press conference at CES 2007 yesterday: the PC5D series, the PB4D series, and the PY3D series. The press release lacks specifics and availability, but we were able to get a good outline of their upcoming plasma TV product lines.
The PY3D series is LG's 1080p line of plasma TVs, and consists of both a 50- and a 60-inch model. Along with their 1,920x1,080 native resolution, this series also has three HDMI inputs as well as a USB port. Models in the PY3D series--and all other LG plasma series--feature a built-in ATSC tuner. No pricing or availability was announced for this series.
The LG PB4D series
(Credit: LG)LG also introduced the PB4D series, which includes a built-in HD digital video recorder. We've seen this feature previously from LG on the LG 42LB1DR, which we looked at in October and felt was a little lacking. The built-in DVR has a 160GB hard drive, which can handle 14 hours of HD programming or 63 hours of standard-definition programming. Although it doesn't state it explicitly, the press release implies that the sets have a built-in EPG, which might be the TV Guide EPG that was on the 42LB1DR. The PB4D series also offers the ability to display from external high-definition sources via component video inputs, but only in 480p. Unfortunately there's no indication that they've fixed our major beef with these integrated DVRs--it's only possible to record one show in HD at once. The PB4D series consists of three sets: the 42-inch 42PB4D, the 50-inch 50PB4D, and the 60-inch 60PB4D.
The PC5D series
(Credit: LG)The PC5D series features two new models, the 42-inch 42PC5D and the 50-inch 50PC5D. Although the press release didn't specify the native resolution, we imagine this series will have a native resolution of 1,366x768 because it wasn't listed as a 1080p TV.
Along with these series, LG rolled out its flagship 71-inch plasma monitor, the 71PY1M. Of course, the big screen costs big bucks. The 71PY1M will retail for $15,000.
- prev
- 1
- next
