We haven’t heard much out of TiVo and Best Buy since they announced their intentions last spring to deliver an Internet-connected TiVo television:
The new Insignia televisions will provide Best Buy customers with an exceptional, intuitive user experience for accessing online content by utilizing the latest TiVo non-DVR software and advanced television service. TiVo’s easy-to-use platform will give the viewer a one-stop-shop for delivering and searching content right on the television.
Given the reported logs from a networked TiVo game, it seems that the TiVo TV or another non-DVR device may very well be in testing:
tsn = AF0************
version = 14.8.N2-01-3-A90
has-recording-storage = false
The evidence is minimal. However, we regularly accept unfamiliar web browser user agent strings as indications of new products. So, why not? Given the state of most current TiVo Internet apps, I’d prefer this mysterious new notation refer to a DVR extender rather than just another Internet-connected television. Yet my gut tells me it’s the TiVo TV.
Years ago, I’d hoped for non-DVR TiVo products given their brand recognition and how much I enjoyed TiVo’s UI in a DVD player. But, back then, TiVo was concerned such a strategy might dilute their core DVR competency… and they obviously chose to limit focus. Yet at some point TiVo changed their train of thought given the Nero PC software experiment (not good) and their Internet-connected TV initiative.