So TiVo goes and releases it's 8.1 software for Series3 hi-def boxes, and everything's just peachy, right? Now Series3 owners can do almost everything with their expensive TiVo units as Series2 owners can do with the boxes that TiVo had been pretty much giving away for free.KidZone? Check. WPA support? Check. TiVoCast? Check. TiVoToGo? Umm... still waiting on that one. But let's back up for a second here. TiVoCast is pretty cool, right? Now you can watch your web video in high definition right?
Well, as our friends over at EngadgetHD point out, there's a few problems with that. First off, most web video is not in HD, so it looks horrible on a HDTV, TiVo or no TiVo. And second, even when content is available at a reasonable bitrate and in 16:9 aspect ratio, TiVoCast adds letterboxing and pillar bars.
It's great that TiVo went and brought TiVoCast (belatedly) to the Series3. But didn't it occur to anyone that you might want to upgrade it to take advantage of the Series3's main selling point: HD?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
3-01-2007 @ 1:11PM
Kap0w said...
Um... not really. Remember where those videos come from? The web. Remember how much bandwidth it takes to transfer movies? Now imagine doing it in HD. It's true that TiVo really should have thought about the aspect ratio of the files they're sending, but faulting them for not sending HD copies shows you're not thinking very hard. I'd love to have everything in high-def and looking wonderful - but when it's a web video, I don't expect the world.
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