20 Questions with Ira Bahr - TiVo's Chief Marketing Officer

We do not currently have any plans to support external ATSC 3.0 adapters in our existing STBs. Non-CableCARD IP implementations can be done several ways including an app, similar to Netflix or the OnDemand apps that we already have on our platforms. We are currently in discussions with partners about these platforms. We hear you on color schemes and personalization. This is also why you will notice some tweaks to the color scheme of the UI between Roamio and BOLT product lines. Agree that it would be even cooler if our users could choose and customize their colors.

 

We currently do not have a wireless Mini on the roadmap. We deliver the highest quality MPEG2 without major compression. The TiVo Mini is truly an extention of our core product, and as such should work with the same quality as you experience from your main TV. Pet peeve BTW on DTV commercials advertising wireless: they overtly suggest that there are no wires at all running from the client to the TV.

 

TiVo has always stood behind its products. It's part of our culture and it's key to our brand. We never had a plan to to EOL ANY of our platforms, and we have no such plans today. The data transition was a one-time event.

 

Great question. To understand the behavior you described, it's helpful to understand the architecture behind TiVo's Host DVR tuner behavior and how the Mini client device interacts with it, as well as Live TV caching on the selected tuner.

Host DVRs that are compatible with the TiVo Mini require at least four tuners. The host DVR is always utilizing a tuner for Live TV caching. This is done whether the user has explicitly set a recording or not on this tuner. If you happen to have selected a tuner on the host DVR that is recording, it will also be counted as the Live TV cache tuner. This in turn will free up a tuner to be used otherwise by a client device (TiVo Mini).

Live TV caching always occurs on the tuner feed on one channel regardless of the box's current use, even if you are watching Netflix or viewing a recording locally from "My Shows." Live TV cache allows you to pause live TV and rewind to catch parts you may have missed even without setting a recording.

In your two scenarios where the Mini was able to watch Live TV in one instance and not the other—both with three recordings on a four-tuner Host DVR—had to do with whether the Live TV channel cache was watching one of the three recorded channels or the fourth tuner.

So to put another way, if you share the Live TV cache with a tuner that is also recording and are recording a total of three simultaneous recordings, then you are using only three tuners. If you are recording three shows and watching Live TV on the fourth tuner, then it is technically recording as well, as a cache. In this second scenario, you are using all four tuners of a four-tuner host and have no available tuners for the Mini to borrow. The Mini would still be able to access Netflix and previously recorded shows over the network, it will just have no available tuners for Live TV viewing. Hope this helps.

 

We have tested this and believe that all Series 1 boxes will be able to still use manual recordings (time and channel) as a mechanism to record. However, the box will NOT be dialing in and you will have no program data. We have no official support for this which is why we have the $75 offer and box discounts for impacted customers. In addition to the recording limitation, there are other limitations and error screens that will appear on the Series 1 boxes. Do manual recordings still work if your're willing to deal with the inconveninces? The answer is a qualified "yes." Just know that it is not the intended use of the box for our customers.

 

We originally released the Mini in 2012 and it's definitely due for a refresh. Look to the first half of next year for an update to the Mini that will be UHD 4K compatible.

 

Personally, I felt that $50 seemed trivial and that $100 was way too much for a product of this age. Definitely more art than science here. But, you should also be wondering why we're giving away money at all. Why not just provide a new box? Among the things we had to consider were that: 1) a material number of S1 users have signal sources — DBS, ATT — that do not support CableCARD, thereby making ANY current product upgrade offer unusable; 2) a non-trivial number of users do not have broadband, further complicating the upgrade option; 3) given a choice between money and upgrade/install we believed that most customers were going to be happier with the money as our email marketers have been flogging this base with valuable upgrade offers for much of the last decade. As important, we have to weigh what we're doing to fulfill our brand promise against the fact that we do run a for-profit business here. Balancing these interests is not easy, but in the end we do think we have something for everyone. Again, if you're not getting an outcome you like, please phone our S1 hotline at 1-877-407-1983, and tell us your situation.

 

We do not have any short-term plans to add channels or hours. However, during the Olympic coverage we were able to expand our coverage beyond normal primetime. Glad you seem to be enjoying SkipMode. It was a long fight with our legal department!

 

As far as the impact on those using TiVo Desktop software, some programs recorded before the guide data update (using Gracenote data) that are restored afterwards (using Rovi data) may see odd metadata changes. This will happen mostly for less popular shows. This isn't ideal, but the PC transfer is no longer a supported feature on our platform. As for the mobile app, this continues to be a supported platform and will be transitioned fully as with all of our existing software platforms.

 

We've definitely been late on delivering this feature to our online offering. Happy to tell you that OOH streaming on TiVo Online is slated for Beta testing next month. Not clear yet when we'll launch commercially.