As TiVo turns the software corner, not only have they banished the poorly performing and ill-supported Adobe framework in favor of Haxe, but they’re leading the charge (as proposed by RCN and given the FCC’s apparent indifference) to replace unwieldy, antiquated cable hardware with a more sensible digital approach… with a little help from their cable allies. How TiVo hopes to evolve beyond the dastardly CableCARD and SDV tuning adapter:
Comcast, TiVo Working On Non-CableCARD Approach
TiVo and Comcast have agreed to collaborate on a two-way, non-CableCARD security platform that would enable TiVo boxes bought at retail to access Comcast’s full lineup of linear programming as well as the MSO’s video-on-demand service.
TiVo Crafts ‘Embedded’ Switched Digital Video Tech
the embedded SDV implementation uses a proxy in the network, enabling the TiVo box outfitted with the updated software client to communicate through an IP channel and access channels in the switched tier […] is initially in place to support TiVo devices deployed by the company’s MSO partners
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The question for us current CableCard customers is, will this solution be backwards-compatible with existing Premiere and Roamio hardware?
hypothetically- Would you still need the cable card in existing retail Tivo devices or would a software download allow you to operate the old retail devices without cable cards?
Yeah, I'd think the benefit of this sort of solution is that it's all software-based with Roamio and Premiere models capable of being updated to communicate with Comcast's also updated infrastructure (and whomever else licenses their tech). But there's no telling how long development and integration could take...