TiVo strengthens whole-home DVR, iPad app pitches

TiVo, in timing with The Cable Show in Chicago this week, is announcing two new set-top boxes with new capabilities, including integration with Multimedia over Coax (MoCA) home network technology to support a broader whole-home DVR experience.

Whole-home DVR is that rare portion of the pay TV sector in which the telcos have been taking the lead, though TiVo reportedly has been working on a MoCA-enabled solution for cable TV players for at least a year.

The new boxes include TiVo Premiere Q, the company's first quad-tuner gateway set-top box for the whole-home set to support an array of video-on-demand content, and TiVo Preview, its first non-DVR HD set-top box, which will extend TiVo's relationships with pay TV providers down toward the opposite end of the set-top spectrum. The TiVo Preview box also could be used as one of the thin client devices in a household ruled the multi-room DVR.

The quad-tuner box, which is to be deployed first by RCN, could help cable TV operators to rival what AT&T in particular has been doing with its own whole-home service capability to record four shows simultaneously. The initial box in the Premiere family, launched last year, had been criticized for a lack of capabilities given a relatively high cost.

TiVo also is announcing this week that its iPad app, announced earlier this year, will be more deeply integrated with cable TV listings to support browsing of more VoD and linear content. That should help rectify criticism that suggested-similar to the earily Premiere reviews-that the app simply did not do enough.

For more:
- see the TiVo release on whole-home DVR
- see the TiVo release on the iPad app

Related articles:
The original TiVo Premiere box was not praised
TiVo announced its iPad app in January
AT&T first rolled out whole-home DVR in 2008
More cable TV operators began launching whole-home DVR last year