What I would love to see in a next generation Tivo is the ability to add on DVD carosels like the Sony Mega Changers. The difference being, that Tivo would manage the library and make it searchable like their guide currently is. It should not be prohibitively expensive to add USB 2.0 or Firewire connectivity to these changers. I would easily spend $400 or $500 for a changer that I could plug in and access via Tivo. Cases cost about $0.30 each anyway - for about $1.00 a piece I could store DVDs burnt on my Tivo burner and access them without any hassles.

If you could "stack" them, that would be even better - imagine 4, 8, 1200 DVDs all available on your Tivo. If you used Firewire you could gang 120 of them together - a maximum of 48,000 DVDs at the touch of a button. I think you can do half that with USB 2.0. Realistically - if you had 5 of them, you could store 2000 movies as cheaply and more compactly than buying shelves for them.
-- trekbody, Jan 25 2005

Sony DVD MegaChanger http://www.sonystyl...roductSKU=DVPCX985V
Sony DVD MegaChanger [trekbody, Jan 25 2005]

My Movies for Windows Media Center 2005 http://www.binnerup.dk/mce/mymovies.htm
If you are willing to buy enough hard disk to store copies of the DVDs on your computer, you can do it right now with this. [krelnik, Jan 25 2005]

Kaleidescape video servers http://www.kaleidescape.com/
This company has baked it for you, but it is not cheap: $27,000 to store 180 DVDs on a file server. [krelnik, Jan 25 2005]

There are a number of ways to do this now (see links) some including searching, but not integrated with TiVo.

TiVo does need to start innovating with ideas like this, though, or the cable and satellite companies are going to commoditize them out of existence. Sad, really, that the innovator ends up getting out-done by far inferior imitations.
-- krelnik, Jan 25 2005


I think this is a very good idea. An evolutionary step. You might be able to brew a facsimile with something like a Media Center PC and some codework as the newest Sony MegaChanger has an RS-232 port for control. You could even do it with the older one if you didn't mind using IR blasters (icky).

<just noticed [krelnik]'s link> Or that solution.
-- bristolz, Jan 26 2005


I understood that Kaleidescape was being sued by the MPAA for circumventing the CSS copy protection on the discs (that you own) and making copies. And it's friggin' pricy. I think the carosel is the way to go right now - simpler and greater storage at a lower cost.

My Movies is interesting Krenik, but I wonder if it will have the same copyright issues? It still runs into the HD barrier - 200GB (180GB formatted) drive costs $100 and fits only 28 movies (6.5GB average x 28 = 182GB) and you have a very limited amount of drive bays without going external or adding ATA cards.
-- trekbody, Jan 26 2005



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