While TiVo has seemingly given up on Aereo branding and an OTA-only Bolt, they’ve clearly still got eyes on the cord cutting contingent… as a TiVo Mantis has just passed thru the FCC:
TThe TiVO Inc. model TCD84A000 (Mantis) is a network DVR that is designed to receive OTA broadcast video and transcodes and send it out as a network stream either wired or wireless. The EUT incorporates an 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac transceiver.
Based on the description and limited ports (of Ethernet and USB) in its 5″ x 5″ x 1.5″ enclosure, the Mantis is more a headless Tablo or HDHomeRun-esque solution than a traditional DVR… as it lacks video output. Given the “transcode” I’ll go ahead and assume TiVo is working on Roku, Apple TV, and Fire TV clients vs forcing folks into a TiVo Mini. Whether or not DVR storage is integrated, vs the competition’s bring-your-own-drive, remains to be seen. As does tuner count (I’d guess dual) along with pricing and associated fees.
In any event, the Mantis and TiVo’s “New Way To TV” appear to have been pushed into 2017 (presumably given the Rovi guide transition) as TiVo CMO Ira Bahr foreshadows:
In order to grow, we definitely want to break the trajectory of traditional DVR. We do expect to announce something around CES in January though I don’t think we’re going to try to compete with the streamers directly.
(Thanks BigJimOutlaw, Elias!)
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Is this the first legit competition for the HDHomeRun OTA space? Might work out pretty nicely what with the Plex DVR functionality.
Is it like a sling box?
Any chance that, in addition to OTA and OTT content, they also attempt to provide their own streaming service a'la SlingTV (or what was rumored to be attempted by Apple at one point)? Or would that be TiVo suicide by competing with their broadcast partners in the cable industry?
I'm still not ready to be a cord cutter, but the idea of possibly leveraging AppleTV as a receiving source of content (without using the clumsy AirPlay function from an iOS device) would be interesting.