TiVo’s gone ahead and inked themselves another deal with a cable provider:
Charter Communications, Inc. and TiVo Inc., today announced that Charter is setting its strategy for the next generation of television into motion with TiVo Inc. Charter and TiVo have finalized a multi-year agreement that will leverage the TiVo user interface to bring a new and enhanced entertainment experience to customers using a hybrid platform that leverages traditional cable and next generation IP technologies.
This shouldn’t come as any surprise given the US cable market and TiVo’s telegraphed strategy. But, unlike the sputtering along Comcast-branded TiVo service, Charter will be following in RCN’s footsteps when they offer customized Premiere hardware later this year.
Multi-room viewing during the “initial phase” of Charter’s collaboration sounds quite similar to existing MRV functionality found in retail TiVo DVRs:
View a common list of recordings and playback recorded content throughout the home, pause a recorded program in one room and resume playback in another, use trick-play functions on recorded content and delete recordings from any room. Only video programming without copy restrictions may be transferred using multi-room viewing or TiVoToGo.
The recording deletion feature may be a slightly beefed up version of what we see now. Or, it could merely refer to deleting a copy of a recording from the DVR you happen to be sitting at. Also unclear is the transport mechanism… have we graduated to MoCA or does this utilize the existing Ethernet and wireless connectivity? Given the “initial phase” terminology and short lead time (for TiVo), I’m going to assume it’s basically MRV and connectivity as we know it. However, it appears a more sophisticated whole-home TiVo offering is under development that Charter intends to leverage…
upcoming multi-room and non-DVR platforms