More TiVo Tidbits From The Cable Show

TiVo Logo While most of the TiVo news out of The Cable Show revolves around the TiVo Stream and IP STB, and the Pace XG1, I did talk to TiVo about a variety of issues. So this is a bit of a grab bag to collect some interesting bits, in no particular order.

TiVo will continue to support ATSC in future products, in some way, shape or form. I asked about this because the TiVo Premiere XL4 is a QAM only product, and knowing how hardware development and refresh cycles work I fully expect the Premiere and Premiere XL to be refreshed at some point and migrate to a shared design with the XL4. It is much more cost effective to produce one board and simply populate it differently for different products. The Premiere and Premiere XL will clearly be updated to add MoCA at some point, and it makes sense to go to a shared design. But that had implications for ATSC, hence my query.

TiVo can’t say, probably because at this point they honestly don’t know, what form an ATSC-supporting product might take, but they know there is a solid niche of ATSC users. Clearly the majority of their business comes from cable subscribers, but they do not plan to abandon ATSC users. There are issues with supporting ATSC however. ATSC tuners are more expensive than QAM tuners, and aren’t available in the same densities. We’re seeing single QAM tuner chips with six QAM tuners, even fully integrated SoCs with six, or more, integrated QAM tuners – but not ATSC.

This makes it harder, and more costly, to design and build a product with ATSC support. And the more ATSC tuners you include the higher the cost and complexity. And there are often knock-on costs – additional RAM, ancillary chips, etc. Add to that the effects of economies of scale. There are more QAM-enabled products than ATSC, that means there is more demand for QAM chips. The greater demand drives higher production levels of QAM chips, and the per-unit costs keeps coming down. ATSC components aren’t following the same decline, but remaining at higher price points.

And that’s why we don’t have an ATSC XL4, and probably won’t see one. And also why the bulk of products going forward are likely to be QAM-only, with specific SKUs to address the ATSC market niche.

On a different note, the new TiVo SDK will be released ‘this fall’. TiVo has hired someone who is working full time on running the SDK program and driving it to release. They’re serious about getting it out there and attracting more developers to create apps for TiVo.

TiVo would like to support Amazon Prime Streaming as much as users would like them to, but at this time they have nothing additional to announce.

My own take is that it is in the road map but they need developer support from Amazon to get it done. Remember the situation with Hulu Plus? Same deal. It will almost certainly happen, the question is when, but TiVo isn’t going to announce anything until there is something firmer to stand on. Like I said, that’s my read on the situation.

As for HBO Go – they know there is demand but they have nothing public to announce right now. My take is they will probably do it but won’t be saying anything until there is ink on paper to authorize it.

While I’m on the subject, TiVo says to expect a lot of additions to OTT content and, further out, extensive changes to the UI for selecting OTT content. I’m heartened by this, as the weak support for OTT content has been a pet peeve of mine for some time. For myself, I’d love to see content like NASA TV and Crunchyroll supported. I know others would love sports channels, such as MLB.TV. And the UI for Web Video is very creaky now. Next to something like Roku it is kind of sad.

I think the ’tile’ HD UI for ‘browse’ that TiVo has now could make for a decent web video UI. You could have a tile for a provider, and then tiles for each ‘show’ from the provider within that screen, etc. I think that if TiVo can really enhance the UI and expand the content list, the IP STB could have a secondary life as a general purpose streaming STB even for non-TiVo households.

As I reported back in February, TiVo continues to consider adding support for DLNA/DTCP-IP but doesn’t have anything more to say at this time. However, I have to say that, after talking to many vendors at the show, TiVo will add support for DLNA/DTCP-IP. It is a question of when now, not if.

Why do I say that? Because everyone else is doing it. It is really taking off, it seems like every vendor I talked to had something to say about DLNA/DTCP-IP. Just one example, the Pace XG1 box that runs the TiVo software can also run several other software stacks. On every other stack it uses DLNA/DTCP-IP for whole home streaming – but when running the TiVo software it uses TiVo’s proprietary system. ARRIS’s Moxi DVRs use DLNA/DTCP-IP – and therefore you can use a PS3, DLNA/DTCP-IP-enabled Smart TV, etc., as a client.

The stack is rapidly becoming MoCA+DLNA+DTCP-IP – and with RUI coming on strong as the next likely standard component. Since TiVo is serious about playing in the MSO market, and MSOs all seem to be extremely interested in standardizing on these components, I believe TiVo will simply have to adopt them to remain a player. It is almost painful to say, but the big, legacy players seem to be adopting standards faster than TiVo. You’re going to see DLNA everywhere before long, and TiVo needs to invite themselves to that party or risk being on the outside looking in.

Oh, a little side note. I was in Pace’s booth today, looking at the XG1 (there will be a post eventually), and I got crowded up for a bit by a gaggle of suits who came in for a demo. I noticed they were with Suddenlink, and they were quite interested in the XG1 running the TiVo software. I overheard some generally favorable comments about TiVo as a solution, but they seemed to like the idea of more ‘MSO-friendly’ hardware like the Pace unit. Which is kind of the whole point of TiVo’s partnership with Pace, so that’s a good thing.

Another good thing is that the Pace reps I observed doing the demo for various groups were all pretty gung ho about the TiVo solution. While they had an number of units setup, running different UI stacks (Comcast X1, a few Rovi solutions, etc.), they really stressed the TiVo solution. I head things like “TiVo is the one we’re really excited about” from the reps talking to MSO people dropping by for a demo. So that’s good to see & hear; it is good to see TiVo with an enthusiastic partner.

On a different note, unsurprisingly TiVo wouldn’t comment about future DVR products, aside from indicating it was likely transcoding will be ‘baked in’ to some future box, as I previously reported. But reading between the lines I think we can expect to see more tuners in a future box as well – an XL6 if you will. There are chips available now with six, or more, integrated QAM tuners. And an M-Card supports a maximum of six streams.

In addition there are a growing number of units from other vendors appearing with six tuners, which means competitive pressure on TiVo. Their MSO partners are going to want to “keep up with the Joneses”. While they could do that by using a box like the Pace XG1, those that have based their solutions on TiVo hardware are likely to want commonality.

My speculation is that sometime in 2013 we’ll see an ‘XL6′ using one of the newer chips, such as the BCM7435, with six QAM tuners, MoCA 2.0, and on-board transcoding. It probably will not have built-in WiFi as TiVo is trying to steer users away from WiFi and toward Ethernet or MoCA, to avoid customer experience issues and support headaches with streaming and flaky WiFi networks.

The tablet version of the Android app is actively being worked on. I reported in March that TiVo was saying ‘spring’ for Android tablets, but that’s clearly slipped a little. They recently made changes to the way they handle app development and they’re committed to iOS and Android. When the TiVo Stream is released this fall there will be clients for both, on phones and tablets. The streaming functionality will be incorporated into the existing TiVo apps.

TiVo is aware that the new YouTube and Netflix apps have long start-up times, and they’re working on ways to speed that up. The apps themselves are out of their control, that’s Google & Netflix, but they are working to improve performance, especially the start-up.

TiVo is updating their software more frequently, and we can expect more and more of the UI to migrate to HD with the coming releases. Screens such as the Season Pass Manager, To Do List, and screens from a remote unit (such as when using MRS), will be made HD this year. I think TiVo has made some real progress with the migration over the past couple of releases and I look forward to seeing it continue to progress.

OK, I think that’s it for now – and I really need to get a few hours of sleep before I return for the last day of the show. I have plenty more to write up as posts – such as my visits with Humax, Pace and Arris – but that’ll have to wait.

About MegaZone

MegaZone is the Editor of Gizmo Lovers and the chief contributor. He's been online since 1989 and active in several generations of 'social media' - mailing lists, USENet groups, web forums, and since 2003, blogging.    MegaZone has a presence on several social platforms: Google+ / Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn / LiveJournal / Web.    You can also follow Gizmo Lovers on other sites: Blog / Google+ / Facebook / Twitter.
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  • gabmasterjcc

    ” But reading between the lines I think we can expect to see more tuners
    in a future box as well – an XL6 if you will. There are chips available
    now with six, or more, integrated QAM tuners. And an M-Card supports a
    maximum of six streams.”
    Maybe, maybe not.  Tuning adapters only support 4.

  • gabmasterjcc

    ” But reading between the lines I think we can expect to see more tuners
    in a future box as well – an XL6 if you will. There are chips available
    now with six, or more, integrated QAM tuners. And an M-Card supports a
    maximum of six streams.”
    Maybe, maybe not.  Tuning adapters only support 4.

  • gabmasterjcc

    ” But reading between the lines I think we can expect to see more tuners
    in a future box as well – an XL6 if you will. There are chips available
    now with six, or more, integrated QAM tuners. And an M-Card supports a
    maximum of six streams.”
    Maybe, maybe not.  Tuning adapters only support 4.

    • gcw07

      From what the Ceton people have said, all the major cable companies tuning adapters are updated to software that supports up to 6. Some smaller cable companies might not have upgraded to the latest version, but any major ones already have.

    • gcw07

      From what the Ceton people have said, all the major cable companies tuning adapters are updated to software that supports up to 6. Some smaller cable companies might not have upgraded to the latest version, but any major ones already have.

    • gcw07

      From what the Ceton people have said, all the major cable companies tuning adapters are updated to software that supports up to 6. Some smaller cable companies might not have upgraded to the latest version, but any major ones already have.

    • gcw07

      From what the Ceton people have said, all the major cable companies tuning adapters are updated to software that supports up to 6. Some smaller cable companies might not have upgraded to the latest version, but any major ones already have.

    • http://www.gizmolovers.com/ MegaZone

      Nope, Tuning Adapters support 6.  Both Motorola and Cisco released updated firmware long, long ago.  Cisco did have a version that only supported four for a while, but any MSO still running that hasn’t updated in quite a while.

      CableCARDs and TAs both limit the number of tuners to six per – of course you could have more tuners with multiple cards & TAs.

      • gabmasterjcc

        Are you sure about that?  Originally Cisco only supported 2 (Moto always supported 4, from what I saw).  I never saw anything that said they moved to 6.  Only that Cisco moved to 4 a little before the time that Premiere Elite came out.

        Edit: I did a little more looking. I did find some claims that the Cisco supports 6. There is nothing that says they are required to (FCC says only 4 are required). Oh well…

        • http://www.gizmolovers.com/ MegaZone

          Yep – I posted about it last summer.

          And the FCC rule is actually that the TA must support four streams *or* the same number of streams as the MSOs most capable operator provided STB.  So if the MSO offers a six-tuner DVR – like the Arris Moxi, or the new Pace XG1, etc. – then they must offer TAs with six stream support as well.

          To keep things simple Cisco and Motorola just updated the firmware to six streams across the board.  It is much simpler than having a mix of 4 & 6 stream revisions.

  • Jackmehoff

    Figured with the show in Boston there would be some xfinity TiVo VOD talk. Very surprised there is no word on that front. Thought it was a natural time and place for such an announcement.

    • http://www.gizmolovers.com/ MegaZone

      Comcast isn’t giving time frames yet, just that Boston is ‘next’.  TiVo would’ve loved to give some specifics, but it isn’t in their control.  They have to wait for Comcast to announce details, and Comcast’s big splash as this show is their new X1 product. I don’t think they wanted to talk about anything off message.

      • http://www.twitter.com/brennokbob Brennok

        Well they announced today Boston is on Monday.

        https://twitter.com/stevewymer/status/205764112926507012

        • http://www.gizmolovers.com/ MegaZone

          Ah – clearly Comcast knew and just didn’t want to distract from their focused X1 message at the show.

  • http://dullgeek.blogspot.com dullgeek

    Personally, I’d love to see TiVo support HDHomeRun as a tuner source. Then I could start with two tuners on some Premiere w/a gigantic HD, and add tuners as I need them. I doubt this will ever happen – TiVo doesn’t seem to be interested in interoperating with many other components. But it would solve the expensive ATSC tuner problem. Those who want more tuners can pay for them.

    • http://www.gizmolovers.com/ MegaZone

      Yeah, I don’t see that happening.  Though I did talk to SiliconDust at the show and they have some interesting stuff coming – like DLNA/DTCP-IP tuner sharing.  So any DLNA/DTCP-IP client would be able to use one of their network tuners.  And with their API someone could roll a DVR app that used it.

      But even for SiliconDust the focus seems to be on QAM now, probably for the same reasons.

  • two460one

    Megazone, great intel on TiVo — thanks very much!

    • http://www.gizmolovers.com/ MegaZone

      You’re quite welcome.

      • Foo

         What is RUI?

        • http://www.gizmolovers.com/ MegaZone

          Remote User Interface.  It is a standardized way for a media gateway to generate a UI to be displayed on thin client devices.  Today most whole home systems rely on dedicated client STBs for the other rooms.  Those that support access via 3rd party devices like gaming consoles and smart TVs usually have to go one of two routes:
          1. Create a dedicated app for the platform and get it loaded on said platform.  This allows them to use their customized UI.
          2. Rely on a standards based approach like DLNA/DTCP-IP.  But this leaves the UI up to the client device and how it handles DLNA content.  This is usually a most less sophisticated UI.

          RUI is a middle ground.  The client has to support RUI, just as it has to support DLNA/DTCP-IP, but nothing special needs to be loaded on the client.  If it supports RUI, when talking to an RUI-enabled server it uses the UI generated by that server.  It is, in that way, similar to TiVo’s old Java-based Home Media Engine where the UI was generated on the server and just rendered on the STB.

          The model stacks up with coax, then MoCA, then DLNA/DTCP-IP, and now growing use of RUI as a presentation layer.

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  • Fanfoot

    Oh god, is RUI different from RVU?  Can’t we all just get along…

    • http://www.gizmolovers.com/ MegaZone

      Er, no actually, my bad for being confusing.

      RVU = DLNA+RUI

      RUI is specifically the Remote UI, RVU is DLNA with the addition of the RUI.

      • Foo

         Heh, kind of sounds like the WMC extender approach with RDP.  Makes sense to me, but puts more load on the server/gateway.

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