As TiVo brings on new leadership, encompassing their consumer portfolio, Google has surfaced an almost treasure trove of Mavrik imagery. The majority of the photos, originally published way back in July, have been removed or relocated… leaving us with just a small selection of gadgety goodness. We anticipate the presumably delayed TiVo Mavrik will ultimately be revealed as an OTA network tuner, somewhat akin to the HDHomeRun or Tablo, with cloud DVR capabilities and, at the very least, streaming video output to Amazon Fire TV. I’d also hope TiVo is busy retrofitting their existing iOS app for Apple TV support. Assuming the project hasn’t been or won’t be scrapped.
I don’t understand the fascination with cloud DVR capabilities from a CE company. I can understand the appeal from a remote viewing standpoint, but it is simply less effective for local viewing considering the bandwith realities of HD video. Give me local storage and a cloud option for mirroring, sure, but not storage exclusively residing in the cloud.
Yeah, seems like additional complexity and risk. Perhaps justified via a potential subscription fee profit center.
Yeah, the racks of storage arrays and transcoding servers, and the HVAC….goodness. Are their focus groups asking for cloud storage, or where is this demand coming from?
Yeah, I’m beginning to think that maybe the Mavrik has been scrapped all together. They had gotten far enough along with the project to have all those marketing photos done nine months ago (still a couple months before the Rovi merger closed, yes?) and still nothing? Didn’t their head marketing guy hint over at TCF last fall that a new product (presumably Mavrik) would be unveiled at this year’s CES, at which nothing got unveiled? We know the Rovi leadership isn’t really interested in retail hardware, so they may have killed this. That said, who knows, maybe it’ll still roll out later this year, in their typical Aug to Oct timeframe for new hardware. (TiVo was asking for beta testers in the SF Bay area on TCF for *something* earlier this year — maybe that was for this.)
But come Q4, the big news among OTA-watching cord-cutter types will be the FCC’s final approval of the ATSC 3.0 broadcast system, which the Mavrik presumably can’t work with. Granted, relatively few stations will likely begin broadcasting in ATSC 3.0 in 2018. But I still think that news about the shiny new “next-gen broadcast TV” standard around the same time Mavrik possibly debuts would pose a bit of a marketing challenge. Who wants to buy what’s positioned as a cutting-edge tech device if it’s immediately outdated (or at least non-future-proof) due to changing broadcast standards?
I highly doubt TiVo will be hosting the DVR service. Think AWS ?
TiVo pulled the link… which I didn’t mind revealing as it was pretty barren.
Will/would Mavrik be a TiVo Mini replacement or is that a separate project aimed for release this year?
Mavrik is its own thing. The better/different question might be – can Mavrik stream to Mini? As far as an updated Mini, I have no new/current info…
“Yeah, I’m beginning to think that maybe the Mavrik has been scrapped all together.”
Nah. They’re just planning on releasing the Mavrik simultaneously to the Mega.
“But come Q4, the big news among OTA-watching cord-cutter types will be the FCC’s final approval of the ATSC 3.0 broadcast system.”
Big news indeed! As Alan Wolk recently noted, cord-cutting has gone fully mainstream in way that even luddites like me can no longer ignore. Cord Cutting On The Rise, Now At Whopping 0.8% of Pay-TV Subscribers. Will the last cable-subscriber please turn off the lights?
Well, Chucky, if you’re implying that cord-cutting may be overhyped relative the extent it’s actually happening, I won’t argue with that. Although it is happening and appears to be on the rise — see this article stating that 13% of US homes now subscribe to broadband internet but not to a traditional pay TV service. This report by SNL Kagan projects that the figure will rise to 22% of homes by 2021. It obviously paints a different picture than whatever unnamed source Alan Wolk is using. I tend to think SNL Kagan is probably more reliable, but who knows.
At any rate, cord-cutters are definitely the target market for the Mavrik, should it ever see the light of day. As one myself, I definitely wouldn’t buy a new OTA DVR that doesn’t have ATSC 3.0 tuners. (And I have no desire to pay fees to store my recordings in the cloud either.)
“Although it is happening and appears to be on the rise — see this article stating that 13% of US homes now subscribe to broadband internet but not to a traditional pay TV service.”
Sure. But 1) Broadband is close to being essential, and Pay TV is not 2) Pay TV has never had anything close to 100% penetration, of course, and indeed the penetration has been very slowly declining.
I don’t think we’re in much disagreement. “Cord-cutting” is massively overhyped. Pay TV will slowly decline over time. Our only disagreement is likely on the rate of that decline.
Why is it that broadband is “close to being essential”? Do you think those 13% of US homes are using their internet connection just for email and looking at webpages (i.e. the kind of stuff that dial-up internet could handle)? Of course not. They’re streaming video from Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, etc.
It’s true that some of those folks are “cord-nevers,” i.e. folks who never had cable or satellite TV to begin with. But a growing number are “cord-cutters” who dropped their traditional pay TV package. This study shows that traditional pay TV penetration in the US dropped from 87% of homes in 2012 to 82% in 2016. That’s still a lot of home but a trendline like that isn’t what you want to see if you’re a shareholder of a cable TV company. I see no reason why that figure won’t continue to fall, and perhaps accelerate, as the younger YouTube phone-watching generation leaves the nest and accounts for an increasing share of US households. Traditional pay TV packages aren’t going away, I guess, but eventually most linear channels probably will because that’s increasingly live TV just isn’t the way people consume video any more…
It’s the cost of the local DVR box + the cost of the included HDD; it’s the cost of maintaining a continued care program just to replace HDD’s including shipping and labor. There used to be a video on YouTube of just ONE of Dish’s centers that did NOTHING but RMA STB, mostly for dead HDD’s. It is an entire cottage INDUSTRY! IT IS STAGGERING the numbers and the COSTS. But cable and sat can afford it because they have revenue from the programming subscriptions and all those fees, but at the same time they would LOVE to dump all that cost.
Mavrik or cloud DVR is much less expensive to produce and, as Dave pointed out, cloud DVR can be a stream of revenue, especially if tiered. But servers, etc. MUCH LOWER COSTS and much FEWER HEADACHES from users at home complaining or dealing with dead HDD’s.
Our nation is more urban and suburban than ever; companies know the real money is in the urbs and ‘burbs (as it always has been), so they don’t care about rural parts with little or very expensive internet access, and they don’t care about caps, either; they are just looking at their lower costs and projected adoption sufficient to make money, more money than they do now, and local DVR’s and their costs is something TiVo can no longer afford. From their view it is an elegant soloution and appeals to the younger set who are the people all these companies want, not the old foggies like us on this website who prefer local DVR’s (meself included). The new money wants to watch TV on the GO–ALL the time on MOBILE, not sit back in the puffy chair at home with a big UHD TV. These folks can’t afford that stuff anymore. They use public transit and a bicycle as primary transportation and have never head music on anything more than trashed MP3’s and chep earbuds. They can’t know what they are missing if they don’t know what that missing thing is in the first place.
Welcome to the future, my friends, and it aint that far off. Both Dish and DirecTV have morphed into OTT MVPD’s with cloud DVR (at least SlingTV currently offers it to all–at a price, but DTV NOW will also have cloud DVR, soon). Have we not already said our teary goodbyes to our Compact Cassettes for music and Walkman’s, VHS, DVD’s, DVD recorders, CD’s, (heck, many laptops/notebooks don’t even come with CD/DVD readers anymore) and LP’s (the resurgence is just nostalgia; it won’t last), and Palm Pilots, and Blackberries, and on and on and on. The world is a changing–to suit THEM, not us. Please prepare your teary goodbye to TiVo local DVR’s as we know them today. The Bell for whom it tolls is fore WE. It’s called inevitable change, except now it occurs weekly, not over a few decades. :). I don’t want to give up my local DVR, either, but it will be dead and buried sooner than we think.
As for cord cutting: yeah, it is still TINY, but both DirecTV offers access to YouTube, and Dish has offered access to Netflix for some time using its Hopper boxes. I know people who are crazy about Netflix, but had Dish. Yes, they lowerd their programming tier, but they no longer use thier Roku, but their Dish box to access Netflix exclusively. I really do think that has had some impact on people no cutting the cord. From their view, they are getting low priced package at Dish (and they have some really well priced skinny bundles), with all the benifits of Netflix. In other words, it keeps them tethered to the Dish box. I think DirecTV is planning for access to Netflix, at least. If the MVPD’s are willing to offer access to OTT’s, along with more skinny bundles, it could really slow down the already slow cord-cutting movement. Of course, if someone does full “cut the cord” they will still be putting money in the MVPD’s pocket by subscribing to SlingTV or DierecTV NOW :).
I am an OTA person who never had any issue paying for TiVo DVRs with lifetime (I have 5 of them including a base Roamio & Bolt). However there appears to be a core of OTA users that will not pay much if anything for a DVR and who hate monthly fees. I fail to see how this product is superior to a Bolt or even a Roamio OTA, fail to see how it will be much cheaper, and fail to see how TiVo is going to get the no fee crowd to buy into it.
I like the idea of a TiVo network attached OTA tuner/DVR. I have no use for this product based on what is being said about how it is going to work. Seems to me that this product could be so much more, I hope all this information is wrong and TiVo wakes up and provides some type of pricing without on going fees, adds support for local storage, and full support for TiVo DVRs and Minis.
Regarding ATSC 3.0 – a TiVo network attached ATSC 3.0 tuner that we can use with the Bolt DVRs is exactly what TiVo should be releasing at some point. If fact they should commit to it now that way OTA people could buy Bolts without worrying about it not working with the new broadcast standard.
Tivo died! It was the Betamax, the laser disc of set top boxes. Best of breed. Now that Rovi bought it. Who knows what it will become. It’s dead. Let’s give it a proper burial and not prolong its decline with heroic measures.
@Bye Tivo: Nope, it’s functioning well, thank you, and I’m using it very happily right now.
+ one million