Click to viewA tipster sent us these spy pics of what he says is the upcoming cheap version of the TiVo Series 3 personal video recorder, which is rumored to be a sub-$300 HDTV digital recorder to be available this fall. We don't know for sure if this is for real or not, but the spy tells us this is a prototype of the forthcoming box, and if you squint, you can see two CableCARD slots, with one slot labeled "Multi- or Single-stream CableCARD." Take the jump for commentary from our mysterious tattler.
This is a demo unit we have been provided so the actual units they put into retail may differ (they haven't said one way or another) but for their sake, I certainly hope the actual units look better than this. I personally have a current S3 box at home and can say that this unit is SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper looking and is lighter in overall weight (feels substantially so for some reason). Just my first impressions though&mdas;haven't fired this unit up yet to see what other differences might be. The remote that came with it is also
'cheap'—is lighter and not as good looking as the original shiny unit that comes with the current S3.As you can see the cable card slots have been moved up front and one slot supports the new m-card while the other supports only the traditional s-card.