Last week, cypherstream tipped us off to all sorts of details on the RCN-branded TiVo Premiere, posted by a company rep and beta testers on DSLReports.
Come Summer, RCN will offer TiVo Premiere hardware “rentals” in lieu of the generic DVR. ($20/mo?) As such, one would hope a cable-co issued and supported box would result in fewer CableCARD annoyances. At the very least, this will be the first TiVo to feature video on demand services direct from a cable provider (powered by SeaChange)… provided one also subscribes to RCN Internet services. Unfortunately (or is that fortunately?) RCN’s offering will launch with the original 10 year old TiVo UI.
We are launching on the classic UI, this was done for a couple of reasons, Time to market and stability. The new HDUI is wonderful but we based all development to start early against the classic UI. The goal is to roll out the HDUI by end of Q3 across all markets.
It certainly appears that this has much more momentum than the moribund Comcast-TiVo initiative. However, in light of the HD UI’s current state and given TiVo’s historical development pace (slow), I wouldn’t bank on that Q3 target.