TiVo

TiVo Surpasses 2006 Subscriber Count

In conjunction with the opening of The Cable Show, that Mari is attending, TiVo has fired off a press release trumpeting a record 4.5 million subscribers — the majority of which originate from cableco-deployments. TiVo Inc., a leader in the advanced television entertainment market, today announced that it has more than 4.5 million subs who are now enjoying the TiVo … Read more

Netflix Comes To RCN (by way of TiVo)

Well that was quick. Netflix had informed investors that their streaming video service would be available via US cable operators “this quarter” … and, just a few days later, here we are with RCN, Grande, and Atlantic identified as the first partners to serve up Netflix via customer-leased TiVo hardware. At this stage of the game, … Read more

Boom! Netflix Coming To US Cable Operators This Quarter

While investor calls generally bore us, Netflix dropped quite the bombshell this afternoon: This quarter we will launch the first MVPD integrations in the U.S. As we did in Europe, we will start with U.S. MVPDs that use the TiVo set-top box and try to extend to non-TiVo devices after that. From an MVPD point-of-view, they would … Read more

How Bad Is CableCARD Support?

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As the story goes, CableCARD support has deteriorated since the FCC inadvertently relaxed the requirement last year. Indeed, Tim Gibbons reached out this weekend regarding his inability to tune Fargo … and ignorance (at best) or deception (worst case) from Time Warner Cable’s first line phone support agent. What makes this especially ironic (or depressing) is Tim’s role in the cable television industry. If the producer of Curb Your Enthusiasm can’t keep his TiVo’s CableCARD going, what hope do the rest of us have?

Beyond public shaming, we currently have a rare and unique opportunity to influence the FCC as they evaluate Big Cable’s push to end CableCARD … without having identified a successor. But you better fire up those word processors post-haste as today, April 21st, is the deadline. Hit this FCC link, click Reply To Comments, and make sure you reference Proceeding Number 14-16. For comparative purposes, you can review previously submitted comments here.

Tim’s TWC transcription follows:

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TiVo "Program Shortcuts" Patent Details Social DVR

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A few weeks back, the USPTO published TiVo’s latest patent: Program Shortcuts, which is effectively an update to their 2009 filing. As a non-patent attorney industry observer, I’ve seen substantial resources wasted litigating a variety of obvious, generic functionality that perhaps should be free of protection. Indeed, generally speaking, “bookmarking” isn’t new or unique … across a variety of platforms, including a long history of favoriting set-top channels, setting upcoming show reminders, and tagging On Demand video content for future viewing.

With the soap box behind us, TiVo’s Program Shortcuts patent does indeed provide some interesting clues as to their upcoming direction. And, given the refiling, beyond reassigning the patent from TiVo employees to TiVo itself, one can assume the company is both serious about the described functionality and presumably closer to implementation. From the abstract:

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RCN TiVo Update On The Way

RCN TiVo rentals are poised to receive an iteration of the (glitchy) TiVo Spring Update. Whereas us retail owners have been receiving version 20.4, RCN TiVo hardware in DC and PA will be pushed 20.8 beginning next week – with their entire footprint expected to upgrade within a month. Both updates focus on under-the-hood improvements … Read more

Minor TiVo Spring Update Deployed

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The TiVo spring update has been released to TiVo Roamio, Premiere, and Mini owners who registered their boxes via the priority list. Sadly, there doesn’t appear to be a lack of network intel as 20.4.1 primarily addresses open issues versus deploying dramatic new customer facing features (that I often learn of prior to release). Some highlights from VP Margret Schmidt’s release notes:

  • addressed issues where customers were seeing V112 errors when trying to stream between boxes
  • improved interaction with HDMI, and fixed cases where TiVo Mini was rebooting due to HDMI issues
  • improvements to Netflix stability
  • improvements to Roamio WiFi connectivity
  • created a new V311 error message when an app requires 720p support, and the box has that resolution disabled
  • improved handling and messaging of C133 errors
  • VOD and apps can now be launched in C133 mode

In conjunction with those dastardly C133 errors, which have been seen with far more frequency in the last year, TiVo has also

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