It didn't take the third-party upgraders very long to come up with upgrade kits for the new dual-tuner TiVo, which is officially available starting tomorrow at Circuit City, Best Buy, Amazon.com and at www.tivo.com. For example, WeaKnees is offering four upgrade kits. They come in 160 GB, 250 GB, 400 GB and 500 GB hard drive sizes. That means you can record anywhere from 180 hours to 560 hours in basic recording mode on the new TiVo units. Prices range from $159 to $499 with free shipping. You can let WeaKnees do the dirty work for you from between $49 and $79, in addition to the upgrade kit's price.
The Series2 DT comes in 80- and 180-hour sizes. For my money, and I don't have much of it, the 180-hour unit would be more than enough, even with two tuners. I'm comfortable with my 80-hour unit that I currently own (albeit with a single tuner) and I always record at the highest recording level. But to each his/her own. If you want 560 hours of basic-quality recordings, go for it. I would like one of those 500 GB hard drives in my desktop PC, though!
If you haven't already, check out Engadget's hands-on review of the Series 2 DT unit that was published last week. It pretty much says that the unit isn't any different than a single-tuner TiVo except for the dual-tuner functions and a built-in Ethernet port. And it suggests that you look at things like the Microsoft Media Center PC if you want to fill the gap before the TiVo Series 3, in all its HDTV glory, arrives.
1. If I will buy tuner on weaknees, what warranty I have? Will I get fully support from TiVo?
Posted at 7:55AM on May 1st 2006 by Abraham