TiVo Series3 and HD get (official) external storage support

TiVo is rolling out system software 9.2 to those HD-friendly Series3 and TiVo HD boxen, which brings official eSATA external storage at last. Of course, the adventurous among us have been able to pull this off with a pretty simple Series3 hack for ages, but official support means a whole lot more users are going to be taking advantage of that extra room for hiding away Gossip Girl episodes and all their other CW faves. The rolling update hasn't hit everyone's boxes yet, but keep your fingers crossed -- the update should also address some of those 9.1 bugs, and allows for progressive playback of Amazon Unbox downloads as they download.

[Elizabeth V @ Oct 16th 2007 11:05PM]

It's not official. If you go to Tivo forum's then you would see that this is just a test roll out. When it is released more information will be available.

[charlie @ Oct 17th 2007 7:52AM]

It is officialy released software, it is not a Beta release. TiVo always rolls out new released software to a small random sample of users to gage the level of support they may need. Then they roll it out to everyone.

[Fruition @ Oct 17th 2007 1:20AM]

Ew. Did I just experience a Time-Warner ad INSIDE an Engadget article?

[Alexander @ Oct 17th 2007 10:44AM]

You see ads?

http://www.google.com/search?q=adblock+plus

[Fruition @ Oct 17th 2007 12:08PM]

No, no, no, I mean this:

"...for hiding away Gossip Girl episodes and all their other CW faves."

CW is owned by Time-Warner. Which owns AOL which owns Engadget. It's a web of lies! and Marketing!

[Timothy @ Oct 17th 2007 12:42PM]

Oh. Admit it. You have Gossip Girl on your TiVo. Where else are you going to catch a good field hockey fight on a major network?

[kelliot @ Oct 19th 2007 10:11PM]

Well,TWC doesn't allow add-on HD for the Moxi.

[Hollywood Ron @ Oct 17th 2007 2:32AM]

Now to find out what the port on the back of my DVR-less cable box is for.

[Mattazuma @ Oct 17th 2007 9:18AM]

What is a "verified eSATA drive"?

[Bill @ Oct 17th 2007 12:33PM]

Whaddaya mean? It says right there on the screen: check out http://www.tivo.com/expand for more details! It'll obviously tell us everything we need to know right there on that page that they-

...

(looks at http://www.tivo.com/expand )

...

Oh. It's a placeholder. Lovely.

I had an external drive running quite nicely for a couple of months there, but then lately the Tivo started freaking out, sometimes freezing and othertimes restarting randomly. Wonder if it's safe to try hooking it up again.

I had a Seagate ST3750640SCE, which is a 750GB drive certified for 24/7 use, in an Apricorn EZ Bus DTS external eSATA enclosure. It was great having the extra space, but not at the cost of freezing and restarts...

[Benjamin Duranske @ Oct 17th 2007 2:13PM]

Great. Just as soon as they PARTNER WITH DIRECTV AGAIN I'll buy one.

I love TiVo more than any other product I've ever purchased, and I hate my current DVR more than any product I've ever purchased. Something has to give -- either I lose NFL Sunday Ticket (via DirecTV) and go with my local cable company, or I break up with TiVo. Both options suck, and I'm bitter at these companies for being unable to get their deal worked out again (though I keep hearing rumors).

[coyotej @ Oct 17th 2007 2:47PM]

Benjamin, while I sympathize with your unhappiness, the cable & satellite providers and content providers have made universal access to content difficult... for example, you can blame the NFL for forcing Sunday Ticket to be exclusive to DirecTV (not to mention having Madden NFL be the only video game that is NFL-licensed). As long deals like this exist, it makes things difficult (and/or expensive) for consumers.

[Benjamin Duranske @ Oct 17th 2007 3:35PM]

That's a very fair point. I just can't believe that a) TiVo management let DirecTV get away, and b) that DirecTV thinks customers will stick around.

Mostly B, I guess, though I realize that's off topic. Given that I don't get HD locals where I live (so I have an OTA antenna on my house again, like it's 1978) and the DVR they gave/sold me is so excruciatingly bad, NFL Sunday Ticket is literally the only thing keeping me around... and just barely.

At some point, I'm likely to throw in the towel and go to cable, just to get a real TiVo again. Every time I see posts like this it makes me long for my six year old Series 1 Sony SAT-T60, which is *still* better than the truly awful DVR DirecTV is currently selling (though, of course, my old SAT-T60 does not have HD so isn't really useful anymore).