Our very own Adam Miarka stumbled upon a notable TiVo Stream 4K display at Wal-Mart earlier this week. And, although this isn’t TiVo’s first retail rodeo with the Bentonville behemoth, it’s been awhile. Further, a sizable endcap display like represents a significant financial investment by the DVR pioneer, in addition to signaling they still have skilled folks around able to work such a deal. Not to mention Wal-mart’s taking something of a flyer here and must similarly see value in cord cutters and TiVo’s content unification dreams. Lastly, what was originally marketed as $50 Stream 4K launch pricing last spring is clearly here to stay. Given the (subsidized) competition, TiVo really has no choice – irrespective of universal aggregation aspirations as a differentiator.
As to the TiVo Stream 4K device itself, the company recently released Android TV and Stream app updates with a number of fixes and a few enhancements, including Locast guide integration. As of this week, Starz content is now also available in unified discovery and a firmware update is in the pipeline that will finally expose HDR settings.