While TiVo focuses their resources on serving smaller and international television providers, as retail customers defect, the larger US cable and satellite companies continue to crank away on their own compelling in-house DVR services.
Although DISH may have given up some ground in the Hopper’s ability to, you know, actually hop (over commercials) they just completed a nationwide software update that brings one-button access to Closed Captioning and the ability to watch an in-progress “live” show from the beginning should you have gotten a late start and the programming is resident within the On Demand catalog. But way more interesting, given our collective shift in scripted television viewing patterns, is the new Binge Bar (as shown above). Once you’ve finished watching an episode, any remaining episodes on your DVR or in the VOD catalog are presented – as pioneered by Netflix and similar to Comcast’s X1 “Next Episode Suggestion.”
Speaking of Comcast, TiVo has felt free to publicly bash their so-called partner… despite upcoming improvements to that Xfinity X1 HTML5 platform — including deeper Pandora and other “web site integration,” along with a few other features TiVo doesn’t possess. From the Donohue Report:
Its Share2TV app will allow X1 subscribers to stream personal videos recorded on mobile devices with any X1 subscriber in the country. Comcast is also developing an app called Family Point which will allow subscribers to view the locations of family members on TV by tracking smartphones that are connected to X1, and family members will also be able to leave messages through “sticky notes” that will be displayed when a television is turned on.
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Pretty sure Comcast is just humoring TiVo to avoid costly licensing... the joke's on TiVo.
I think the joke is on Comcast's X1 customers. While its miles ahead of their old moto boxes, it still isn't nearly as refined as Tivo and the only offer them with a tiny 512GB hard drive. I have one sitting in my spare bedroom and its slower than Tivo, less intuitive compared to Tivo and just lacking in features.
Nevertheless, I'll prbably keep my Tivos for as long as they're in business. I like being able to download what I want to my computer or iPad. Commercial skip is another benefit I just won't give up on. I'm probably in the minority but I don't care.