Time-Warner refuses to provide CableCards for Series 3 Tivos

[MrBond]

Saw this at Engadget this morning.

http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/26/time...provide-cablecards-for-series-3-tivos/

Tivo apparently sent letters to the FCC and cable content providers alerting them of their upcoming Series 3 rollout. There are reports now of beta testers in Raleigh who called Time-Warner to get CableCards for their Tivo Series 3's, only to be told that "Time Warner Cable of Raleigh does not provide support for or allow TiVo devices on our cable network... CableCARDS will only be installed on cable-ready, CableCARD-slot-available television sets"

If the FCC doesn't rule that they must provide CableCards for devices other than TVs, this could severely hurt Tivo. Other cable companies would love to blackball the Tivo from their networks, forcing customers to use their DVRs if they want to record high-def programming.

I really hope the FCC doesn't let this stand, I like my Tivo and hope the company is around for a long time.

 

[CPA]

Or it will give viewers another reason to switch to satellite.

 

[MrBond]

Originally posted by: CPA
Or it will give viewers another reason to switch to satellite.

The Series3 Tivo doesn't support satellite programming. I think there's a DirecTV reciever that has Tivo built in and will record HD content, but you won't be able to use the standalone Series3 to record HD content like you can use a Series1 or Series2 right now to record satellite programming.

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: CPA
Or it will give viewers another reason to switch to satellite.

Still will hurt TiVo. DirecTV is phasing out TiVo support (I don't even think you can get a new TiVo based DVR through DirecTV anymore). DirecTV's own HD-DVR is supposed to be coming out in the fall and it supports MPEG-4 whereas the HD DirecTiVo only supports MPEG-2. That means when DirecTV rolls all of its channels to MPEG-4, the HD DirecTivo is useless.

 

[MrBond]

I just saw this on engadget:

http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/28/time...r-does-doesnt-support-cablecard-tivos/

Higher ups are saying they will be supported, CSRs are still saying no.