Over on Earth 2, cord cutters are loving the wireless, dual-tuner TiVo Mavrik. Yeah, like most TiVo products, it needed work at launch (channel changing was so slow back in 2017), but it’s finally become a viable Tablo competitor and then some. The “headless” network tuner with cloud DVR service pipes live OTA and recordings both around the house and beyond (via the quite nice Fire TV app) And the cloud storage is reasonably priced with nicely optimized video.
Of course, here on Earth 1, the unannounced, unreleased Mavrik was immediately scrapped by the post-merger Rovi management and TiVo’s retail business is currently hanging on by a thread — pinning its ongoing viability on consumer-unfriendly practices. So it was quite surprising to see a number of Mavrik listings hit ebay yesterday. Given the dead configuration page, lack of client apps, like Roku, alongside a cloud storage service that never launched, I hope the purchasers are well-intentioned collectors or industry competitors as this will be largely, if not entirely, unusable.
From the product packaging:
Mavrik
Free TV. Now Wireless.Watch and record free TV channels through your streaming devices. Enjoy on any screen.
Watch live and recorded TV on your compatible mobile devices, laptops, and Amazon Fire TV.
- Connect Mavrik to your HD antenna
- Record your shows in the cloud and watch from anywhere
- Store 5 hours of programming in the cloud, included with your purchase
- Upgrade to one of three optional storage plans, up to 100 hours
(Thanks tarheelblue32!)