Rich Fiscus
17 Oct 2007 22:57
TiVo Series3 owners will finally by able to use the eSATA ports on their DVRs with the release of the newest version of the unit's software. Although some TiVo owners have been able to use these ports for some time now, until this update it required some OS hacking.
eSATA is a connection used for external SATA drives. It's supported by a variety of external hard drives and enclosures, and potentially makes adding storage to a TiVo, or even copying files to some other location (like a PC) much easier. However, the feature isn't going to be without limitations. Using the port with the official TiVo software will apparently require a "verified" hard drive. It's not clear yet exactly what that means, but additional details are expected soon.
The new update is also expected to include improvements to compatibility with Amazon.com's Unbox video download service. Support for Unbox was added to the units earlier this year.
More upgrades are expected in November, including TiVo to TiVo transfers, also known as multi-room viewing, and the addition of Tivo2Go support, which was previously only available on Series2 units. Tivo2Go allows the transfer of TiVo content to a PC across a network connection.
Sources:
PC World
Cnet News