Rovi/ TiVo deal approved

Time to release the retail eBox now, right NashGuy?

 

It's coming. Any day now...

(Seriously, though, if TiVo is to put out any new retail hardware this year, whether it's a new pro-level CableCARD DVR or some new type of product, I'd think it would be announced in the next 90 days.)

 

I wonder if the Bolt Pro will ever see the light of day. The TiVo folks at this past CEDIA said to look for it during the first quarter. I guess the Rovi acquisition of TiVo put the new model on hold, perhaps......indefinitely.

 

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The online chat that TiVo's head of marketing did here on TCF late last year after the introduction of the Bolt suggested that a replacement for the Roamio Pro would likely come to market in the typical new hardware timeframe of Aug. to Oct. of this year. So the jury is definitely still out as to whether we'll see it or not.

There are, of course, reasons to think that TiVo has changed their mind and decided against it. One is, as you suggest, top management is changing given the newly merged organization. Rovi management may not want to ever introduce any additional new TiVo hardware. That was the case after they bought Fan TV; they kept the Fan TV software alive in certain ways but killed the Fan TV set-top box.

The second reason is that cable TV is changing. CableCARD is still around and all the cable companies still support it but there's uncertainty as to how many more years that will be the case. I think I'm correct in saying that new CableCARDs are no longer being manufactured and the industry sees it as old technology that's being phased out. And as major cable companies like Comcast begin transitioning at least some of their TV service over to IP (a technology that CableCARD does not support), consumers using CableCARD-equipped TiVos may find that they cannot access all of their cable company's channels or features. (Actually, this is already true in some cases; if you're not on Comcast or Cox, you can't use your TiVo to access OnDemand.)

 

That just got me thinking (I know, dangerous right! ). TiVo developed a way for the TiVo to connect to the MSO's headend using IP from its Ethernet port to act as its own Tuning Adapter with its new software versions. Couldn't that same IP Ethernet connection be used to also deliver IPTV from the MSO's headend as well, with a new software load? Of course it depends on whether the TiVo has the proper hardware too, but I'm thinking maybe the Roamio and Bolt lines could very well have this.

Interesting times!

 

Yeah, I'm pretty sure you're right about that -- to make any current TiVo compatible with IP-based cable would simply be a matter of putting the necessary software on the TiVo for communicating with the cable co's servers. (For that matter, the same is the case for IPTV from AT&T Uverse.) But without a forced standard in place for that (which is what this whole Unlock the Box push from the FCC is about), that would mean each individual cable company must voluntarily agree to cooperate with TiVo to make that happen and separate TiVo software solutions may have to be created for each individual cable company.

Given cable's opposition to Unlock the Box, I'm not sure why they would say, "Hey, never mind all that stuff we said, we're happy to create a customized solution just for our buddies at TiVo." I mean, anything's possible, I guess, but I don't know why that would happen.

So unless Unlock the Box is implemented, I tend to think that TiVo's future lies as a player inside the cable industry, as a provider of software and data for MSO-provided hardware, rather than outside the industry as a retail solution.

 

It is pretty clear that without a FCC mandate (Unlock the Box) Pay TV providers are not going to play nice with TiVo or any other hardware company that wants anything more than an app controled by the Pay TV provider. If anyone thinks otherwise just look at those that are not currently required to comply with cable card requirements (ATT Uverse, Dish, Direct, and the OTT linear IP TV cable services) none of them have allowed TiVo (or anyone else) to build stand alone STBs/DVRs. As cable companies/FIOS transition to IP TV I expect they will do the same and lock third party STBs/DVRs out of their IP TV systems.

And just to repeat myself Unlock the Box isn't just for traditional cable, it is for all Pay TV providers regardless of the tech they use to deliver the linear channels.

 

Right. And I tend to think that, while it's fair that Unlock the Box should, if it happens, apply equally to all pay TV providers, doing so makes it more complicated and therefore less likely to happen. I don't see any way that satellite could be incorporated into the scheme on a software-only basis, so that probably means a hardware gateway would be necessary. (Dan has written about such a gateway many times; perhaps such hardware would be required to implement UtB even with cable?)

Now, all that said, I guess one could hold out hope that, should UtB fade away and not get implemented, perhaps Comcast and Cox (and others) would eventually voluntarily work with TiVo to develop a non-CableCARD TiVo retail box that offers an updated TiVo UI and can work with their IP cable services (all linear channels, on demand, cloud DVR). Who knows what concessions (in UI and features or payment-sharing) that TiVo might have to offer to make such a box reality or whether TiVo would have any desire to make such a retail box. We do know that there's a precedent of both Comcast and Cox going beyond the minimally enforced support for CableCARD with TiVo to develop their existing on-demand software for the platform. And, at some point in the past, TiVo had announced that they were working with Comcast (and maybe Charter?) on individualized software-based post-CableCARD solutions. So who knows...