TiVo is bringing out the HD Series 3 "Lite," and at a target price of $299, hopes it will appeal to a wider range of consumers. Specs follow: BCM740x DVR CPU with integrated MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 decoders, 1x dual MPEG-2 encoder, 2x Samsung S5H1411-based tuners, 128Mb DDR SDRAM, and a 160Gb SATA HD (down from the Series 3’s 250GB drive).

There’s been a leak of the new TiVo set that is rumored to come out this fall.  Priced out at around $300 it’s said to be a HD digital recorder and this photo just might be a prototype. The TiVo Light Series 3 has two CableCARD slots, one for Multi- or Single- stream slots, and it doesn’t look that bad, even if it is a cheaper version.  Remember to record the hilarious Making the Band 4 on it.

When are these crazy capitalists going to learn? People don’t want to buy their video, they want to pirate it. It’s so much more avant garde.

Just kidding. Actually, I believe that most people are just fine with easy, reliable methods for purchasing or renting music and video, and I’m darned pleased to see Tivo and Amazon get their acts together. Literally. If you have a Series2 or Series3 Tivo box, you can now rent or purchase videos directly through Tivo. Seems quite reasonable to me.