TiVo Bolt Sees $100 Price Drop (also drops free year of service)

Just seven months after launch, TiVo has gone back to the drawing board on Bolt pricing. While we don’t yet know every detail, based on new packaging Best Buy shipped out prematurely, the included year of TiVo Bolt service is no more. New white box: TiVo service subscription is required and sold separately. Prior black box: First year of of TiVo … Read more

TiVo is Dead. Long Live TiVo!

Patent Trollvi rises…

Yes, the leaks were true. Rovi intends to purchase TiVo.

While TiVo creates amazing products and has successfully deployed their solution to numerous cable operators around the world, beyond patent litigation and licensing, they haven’t found much financial success. Basically, the writing was on the wall.

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Fitbit Poised To Refresh Flex and Charge?

By way of the USPTO, we learn that Fitbit has applied for Fitbit Charge 2 and Fitbit Flex 2 trademark protection. So, while Fitbit has beefed up the top end of their fitness tracking line with Alta band and Blaze watch additions this year, it appears they also plan 2016 revisions to their lower and mid-end … Read more

TiVo Roamio OTA Update Announced (larger hard drive, favorable pricing)

After blowing a 2015 holiday launch and abandoning their $1m “Aereo” acquisition, the TiVo Bolt OTA is seemingly shelved as an updated OTA-only Roamio DVR has been announced, featuring a generous 1TB of storage and favorable pricing, running $400 — that’s “all-in” with lifetime service, no recurring fees. Available May 2nd, this larger capacity Roamio OTA includes all the classic features you’d expect and a few … Read more

Digital Media Bytes

A periodic roundup of relevant news… After being featured in Comcast press release, Roku lobbies against unlocking the box Comcast press release announcing Roku app with X1 interface and cloud DVR acess Comedy Central, BET, MTV, more Viacom networks will hit Sling TV Amazon launches website with interactive guide for streaming video apps

Google Cast confirmed for Google Fiber hardware

I’ve been alerted that Google Cast technology will be hitting existing Google Fiber television hardware in the very near future… making subscriber’s “cable” TV set-top boxes that much more interesting, as tons of over-the-top Internet audio and video apps become available, via smartphone control, in a far more efficient manner than, say, TiVo’s approach of negotiating development of individual apps … Read more

TiVo Bolt Out-Of-Home Streaming Nearly Here

As with TiVo’s last software update, version 20.6.1 will primarily resolve additional open issues as the bulk of development and testing cycles are likely reserved for the upcoming OTA-only Bolt variant. So this isn’t exactly the most dramatic or blog-worthy topic and I didn’t really dig deep into what, specifically, this revision provides for Premiere, Roamio, and Mini owners. However, we’d previously … Read more

Digital Media Bytes

A periodic roundup of relevant news… Amazon Echo on sale for $153.71. Amazon Prime Video, now available as a stand-alone service for $8.99/mo. Will Verizon replace FiOS TV set-tops with OnCue IPTV hardware? As Netflix subscriber growth slows, company considers offering downloads.