By way of TVPredictions we learn that TiVo recently passed a “Mavrik” trademark filing through the USPTO. Fortunately, a quick Google search turns up all sorts of goodies… including the photo above and the Mavrik configurator. Based on these supporting materials, including the smoking gun URL, it’s fairly clear that the unannounced, unreleased TiVo Mantis has gone through something of a rebrand. Perhaps they had an easier time picking up mavrik.tv (not yet live) or they just didn’t want us praying for a better solution. In any event, Sarah Palin’s sure-to-be favorite streamer looks to be something of a Tablo TV clone.
Like Tablo, I presume Mavrik both records and streams over-the-air (OTA) antenna television to a variety of clients. However, while Tablo may appeal to the DIYer, it is relatively mature and proven after several years on the market, featuring apps for a number of platforms including Roku, Fire TV, and Apple TV. Whereas TiVo’s lone set-top app, for Fire TV, app is pretty bad and hasn’t seen an update in over a year. On the flip side, TiVo has always been more of an appliance — despite that USB port above, I suspect TiVo would go ahead and integrate a hard drive unlike Tablo’s BYO approach. And speaking of appliance, could the TiVo Mini also act as a Mavrik end-point?
This being TiVo, of course the Mavrik will require a subscription. However, rather than a single offering as we see from their traditional DVR line, the Mavrik looks to offer varying tiers of service given the setup wizard imagery. As to what this entails, I’m not quite certain… more/less guide data or something really progressive like Aereo-style cloud storage?
Given TiVo’s generally leisurely development pace and the numerous moving pieces, likely exacerbated by the recent Rovi guide transition, I’m guessing the earliest we’ll hear anything official is from CES in January.
UPDATE: TiVo Mavrik is confirmed to offer cloud recording options!
Nice one.
Personally, I’ll kinda miss the whole Mantis/head-less association.
Nice
Those monthly fees are what keep me away from TiVo. I don’t care if it’s a $1/mo fee, it’s not right to take a free service (ota) and layer a proprietary paid service on top of it.
Thats why Tablo’s lifetime option is so great – it’s good for the life of the person, not the box. So I’m with Tablo for life, and I don’t even have to think about it.
If they sell the Mavrik for a one-time, all-inclusive price with no recurring charges, I’ll seriously consider it as an option. But given TiVo’s history, I’m not optimistic.
Us cord cutters know what we want! It just feels like no one’s listening most of the time.
I hadn’t noticed it earlier, but I find it interesting that there is ZERO TiVo branding on the product in that image.
@Mike F,
You know TiVo sells the Roamio OTA for a flat, all in price of about $360, with no recurring fees, right? And it previously sold for $300 with a smaller HDD. So there is precedent over the last couple years of TiVo selling their devices to OTA users at reasonable prices, even with lifetime service.
If its a cloud DVR though there’s going to be a stiffish monthly service fee and the box itself will be cheap. Not the direction I want to go either…
Lots of guesses from people that don’t know. It’s like once you drive a Lexus or a Cadillac you never want to go back unfortunately getting someone to actually get into and use all the amazing features that TiVo offers does cost a little bit. Sorry not everything in life is free especially if it needs regular updates. I like nice things even though I can’t always afford all of them. There is no comparison in their past products but it is sad that people are already making assumptions that are negative, do you guys work for a competitor. Without TiVo the DVR world would look so much different, you have so much to thank this company for. But I’m old I’m not under 30 so what do I know right? How’s that free healthcare working as well? If you want something really good you’re going to have to pay a little bit because someone has to make that. What I’m looking for in the future is that TiVo has been very quiet about sling app questions making me think they are developing their own platform can you imagine all the people that have Tivos from Premier or Romeo out all be able to watch live TV over the top box wise like sling is on Roku. Except it will be integrated and the interface should be more like TV already with the possibility of maybe recording streaming content. This is more of a wish butt I think TiVo being bought by this larger company means something larger like a competitive sling service.
Seeing how slow the Tivo Premiere is when opening Netflix menus, it’s a miracle they can exist at all.