Apple TV Inherits OTA DVR Capabilities (via Tablo)

With Apple presenting Sling TV at WWDC this week, it’s safe to say their Apple TV television service remains on hold. Unfortunately, Sling TV still features a problematic interface and doesn’t provide access to “the locals” — like NBC and CBS. Further, while Sony’s PS Vue does include broadcast networks (in some regions) and a 28-day DVR, that service is currently limited to Playstation and Amazon Fire TV hardware. Well, today, Tablo has made good on their CES promise to deliver both live and recorded DVR television to Apple TV.

As a refresher, Tablo is something of a roll-your-own DVR. It’s a small headless box (starting at ~$200, plus service), featuring 2-4 tuners, that you attach a hard drive and an antenna to — with streamers like Roku, Fire TV, and Nvidia Shield delivering the video to your television. Of course, you can also view and manage Tablo from smartphones and tablets.

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Amazon Alexa Speaks To Logitech Harmony

Despite some hopeful announcements, Apple HomeKit continues to limp along. And many have turned to Amazon as the voice-controlled switchboard of their smart homes. Indeed, after originally unloading two Echoes as a novelty, I’m back on board with one Echo and an Amazon Dot — happily barking commands at Alexa. Amazon’s platform is far more inclusive, interoperating with just about anything, sometimes … Read more

Virgin Media TiVo Customers Lose Spotify

Like other smart television platforms, TiVo’s had something of a revolving door policy when it comes to over-the-top services. Apps come, apps go – dependent upon business relationship, cost of upkeep (on aging platforms), etc. While TiVo has managed to keep the Netflix and Amazon tentpoles around, others such as Yahoo Weather, Dominos, and Rhapsody have all joined the … Read more

Microsoft Shelves Xbox One DVR

To deflect the bad news, ahead of what sounds like a number of interesting reveals next week, after crunching the numbers Microsoft has announced their intention to pass on the messy, potentially limited but free Xbox One DVR functionality: After careful consideration, we’ve decided to put development of DVR for Over-the-Air TV on hold to focus our attention on … Read more

Philips Hue Will Finally Offer White BR30s

It was inevitable. After years of pining, as soon as I purchased additional, colorful Philips Hue BR30 bulbs, a white variant was sure to be released. And, sure enough, here we are. While FCC docs indicate we’ll shortly see a tunable white BR30, the lumens still clock in pretty low at a reported 680 (compared to the bright WiFi Lifx Wi-Fi bulbs that periodically … Read more

TiVo Preps “Next Gen” Interface

While perusing the merger-related deluge of regulatory filings for notable nuggets, we learn that TiVo is developing a “Next Gen UI” (in addition to reinforcing another consumer product is coming, which we’ll discuss next). For color, Virgin Media indicates they “will be updating the existing TiVo set-top box to make its menus slicker and more picture-based.” Vertical lists of text are inefficient in many … Read more

TiVo Scores Major 4k Renewal With Virgin Media

virgin-tivo

While perusing the merger-related deluge of regulatory filing for notable nuggets, I came across two fairly significant TiVo developments that I’d previously missed… in that Virgin has contracted the company to power its next-gen 4k set-top box (that probably isn’t a traditional DVR) in the UK and has extended their partnership through 2020.

Virgin Media is TiVo’s largest customer, by far, and the continued relationship surely assuages investors (and Rovi) over the short-term. Although, you have to wonder, at what point does Virgin’s parent company, Liberty Global, go for presumably more favorable pricing and corporate synergies by integrating their own Horizon platform?

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The Verizon FiOS TV IP STB That Never Was

Back in 2014, Verizon was working on a number of FiOS hardware offerings with Greenwave Systems… most of which have never seen the light of day. While the Quantum Router made it out of the labs, the heir apparent to their scrapped Home Control service did not. Further, the unannounced FiOS TV STB, pictured above, was another casualty. Beyond never being released, what … Read more