Tivo drops the HD gauntlet

How I wish I was at CES. I'm a big fan of the show but of course, no one around here invites the one guy who loves and knows more about various gadgets around here than just about anyone within a 2 mile radius. Sigh. Maybe I'll drop my own cash to go next year (let's see how much MSFT stock rises hehe)....back to meat of the story:

Tivo (finally) announces a stand alone HD box. Yes you've read correctly. Tivo has seen the light. It'd be nice for Tivo to REALLY see the light and just port their UI over to Windows and Mac OS X, sell the remote for 50 bucks and let you install their stuff on your own PC, drop the monthly fee in return for periodic (and interesting) video ads, and just make everyone very very happy (On my knees praying for the surprise announcement from Tivo now...).

With the Tivo Series 3 (that's QUITE the creative name, I know), my only complaint is no Wifi built-in (c'mon man!) which seems lame at first, but really is a good idea since you wouldn't want to transfer the gargantuan files around on a piddly little 54Mbps wifi connection. Maybe it'll be compatible with some super high speed broadband or wireless USB connection? (Saying another prayer now...).

The details:

250GB & 320GB drives combined give you 70 hours of programming (Awww man...MPEG-2 again??!!)
OLED Front display shows show names being recorded.
Tivo will sell (probably overpriced) external drives you can add on.
Woirks with WMV (and other codecs yet to be announced, more praying for Xvid, Divx, Ogg, MP4).
Dual cable card slots, dual tuners.
720p or 1080i
Component and HDMI ouputs

Man I'm glad I didn't pay for "lifetime service" on my old Series 2 boxes (not that I can afford an HD Tivo, HD TV, or even digital cable, but hey). I'll still probably build my own Media Center box (but after Vista ships) but still make secret offerings to the gods for Tivo on my PC.

See For Yourself [via Gizmodo].