With the change, the company said in a statement provided to Multichannel News, it will shift resources to support “EchoStar’s unique intellectual property and advanced content-delivery technologies.” The company owns Sling Media, developer of the Slingbox device, and acquired the adaptive bit-rate technology of Move Technologies last year for $45 million.

However, EchoStar said it “remains firmly committed to supplying advanced hardware, software, and system solutions to its global cable, satellite, and telecom customers outside of the U.S. cable set top box market.”

“EchoStar recognizes that the highly demanding and competitive nature of the U.S. set-top market is very cost-competitive,” the company said. “After considerable review of the market and EchoStar’s sales/product development efforts, EchoStar has concluded the U.S. cable market offers insufficient revenue return opportunities to the company and our investors.”

That’s good news for TiVo, as Aria had the potential to be a serious competitor, especially with small-to-medium MSOs, if EchoStar was able to execute. EchoStar certainly knows how to make DVRs; something like a CableCARD version of DISH Network’s Hopper could’ve been quite a strong whole-home product. The death of Aria removes a potential competitor from the field, and really effectively leaves only ARRIS’s Moxi lineup to compete with TiVo for the small-to-medium market. The larger MSO market is dominated by traditional players like Motorola and Cisco, though TiVo has made inroads there with the likes of Charter.

In addition to the ARRIS Whole Home Solution, Buckeye is deploying the next generation ConvergeMedia video on demand (VOD) platform, and ServAssure Advanced network monitoring solution. So they’re bringing ARRIS in throughout their organization. That’s an area ARRIS has an advantage over TiVo. They can offer an end-to-end solution for small MSOs from a single vendor. This is the kind of small operator that TiVo pursues via their partnership with Evolution Digital and Clearleap. But a multi-vendor solution is rarely as clean.

See the press release for more details.

We knew the issue was a contractual one, between Netflix and content owners. They did not have the rights to stream to MSO hardware. But it seems the issue was specifically with Starz, and now that Netflix and Starz have parted ways that obstacle is gone. Well, maybe. No one is sure if the Starz deal was the only obstacle, or if there are similar clauses in contracts with other rights owners, and Netflix isn’t commenting. But there is some hope:

The Starz deal was why RCN Corp. was unable to offer Netflix on TiVo boxes when the cable operator launched its TiVo offering in May 2010, RCN Senior Director of Video Product and Video Network Operations Jason Nealis tells Light Reading Cable. He says he’s eager to reopen the dialogue with Netflix now that that Starz deal has expired.

I suppose if anyone would have inside information it’d be Jason, since he’s the point man for RCN’s TiVo implementation.

Of course, TiVo could always implement DLNA, which would open the door to work arounds. Which is how ARRIS gets Netflix on their MSO Moxi units, via PlayOn running on a user’s computer, as stated in this video:

Or, when TiVo publishes their SDK, perhaps PlayOn could create an app for TiVo.

Given TiVo’s working relationship with Comcast, and their integration of Comcast’s XFINITY On Demand into retail units, I have to wonder if we might see support for Comcast’s Streampix streaming service land on TiVo as well. That’s something I certainly would not expect to see supported on units provided by other MSOs, but it would be a welcome addition to retail units. And it would make sense, seeing as Comcast’s deal is for support or retail units and I’d expect them to be happy to have their streaming service on those boxes.

Via Light Reading Cable.

The ARRIS Whole Home Solution consists of a Moxi Gateway six-tuner DVR and Moxi Players to deliver the content to sets throughout the home. In addition to cable television the Moxi Gateway includes support for DOCSIS 3.0 data services and VOIP for telephone service, MoCA connectivity, media sharing, and an option for WiFi. The WOW! offering will have a 500GB hard drive, which doesn’t seem like a lot when you have six tuners. It will hold up to 300 hours of SD content or 75 hours of HD content.

WideOpenWest will be branding this new offering as WOW! Ultra TV. Pricing is $25/month for the gateway and two players. They even have a video introducing it:

This news comes on the heels of ARRIS announcing that they’re finally giving up on the retail market. As the Moxi website now states:“The Moxi HD DVR and Moxi Mate are no longer available for purchase.” That effectively leaves TiVo as the only advanced DVR available at retail, certainly the only retail standalone CableCARD DVR. (No, I do not consider the Channel Master TV to be in the same category.)

Since ReplayTV’s demise, Moxi has been the only real contender as a competitor for TiVo, but their history is like a Keystone Cops routine when it comes to bungled launches and incomprehensible product plans. When the finally brought a unit to retail it was basically not marketed at all and therefore only known to those who already knew to look for it, and at a fairly high price. Since ARRIS acquired Moxi it has been clear that they’ve been focused on bringing the technology to the MSO market, with little interest in retail. So it isn’t a surprise that they’re pulling out, more that it took this long.

They offer a real competitor to TiVo in the MSO market, which might be a factor in TiVo’s recent deal with Pace. Pace is a major player in the MSO market and makes integrated gateway units, similar in hardware capabilities to ARRIS’s Moxi Gateway.

Then they eventually did launch a retail DVR at the end of 2008 pretty much by surprise, with no fanfare. But it had major limitations – no OTA support & digital cable only, no analog cable. While the TiVo Premiere Elite has the same limitations, three years is a long time – three years ago most cable systems were not yet fully digital. You could get an external analog cable dongle to enable a single tuner. It was also expensive and lacked OTT services. So, unsurprisingly, it never sold well. Then in September, 2009 cable technology company Arris acquired struggling Digeo for a song ($20 million) as a way into the STB market.

Arris has continued to sell the retail Moxi unit, but it doesn’t seem to have evolved much since it launched in 2008. And what advantages it had, such as having three tuners and whole-home support with the MoxiMate, are eroding with the four tuner Elite and improved provider DVR offerings. And if TiVo launches the Preview at retail it would provide more functionality that the MoxiMate as well.

Arris has continued to struggle in the cable MSO market. They’ve retained small Oregon MSO BendBroadband as a Moxi customer. They’ve been using it since the Moxi Cable HD DVR 3012 in 2008. Charter, formerly Moxi’s biggest customer even with their limited deployment, continues to provide support for units in the field but no longer installs new units. And, of course, they’re moving to TiVo for the future. They’re biggest success with the new solutions is probably Shaw Cable in Canada, which is deploying their whole home system. Arris has been more successful in placing the newer units with cable MSOs (see the lower right corner of that page), but so far it is mainly very small providers or limited deployments with larger MSOs. And some in that list, like Charter, are legacy customers.

But Arris is undaunted, and they’ve decided to re-emphasize the Moxi brand by re-branding their existing whole home solution:

• The Media Gateway is now the Moxi Gateway
• The Media Player is now the Moxi Player
• The Award Winning User Interface is now the Moxi User Interface
• The Services Portal is now the Moxi Services Portal

I think this is a good move. Moxi is a good brand name and they can build on it. It automatically lends itself to “You’ve got Moxi!” style marketing campaigns. It is simple and memorable, like TiVo, and is light years better than generic names like “Media Gateway” and “Media Player”. Branding matters.

The current Arris hardware does have some advantages over the TiVo Premiere Q:

The ARRIS Moxi Gateway, Player, User Interface and Services Portal platform provide a six-tuner HD DVR with 500 Gigabytes of storage. It also includes DOCSIS 3.0 high speed data and voice, a four-port Ethernet home networking router, plus support for Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) 1.1+ home networking technology and an option for 802.11n Wi-Fi. It can connect with subscriber-owned DLNA-enabled devices across a home network, has CableCARD conditional access and DTCP-IP encryption between the in-home devices.

The Moxi Gateway has six tuners to the Q’s four, it includes a DOCSIS modem for data and an Ethernet router, so it can act as your home broadband gateway, and it supports DLNA which is notably lacking on TiVo. One thing to note though is that this Moxi whole home solution requires at least two boxes. The Moxi Gateway is just a gateway box. It doesn’t have A/V connections. You need the Moxi Player to access the content stored on the Gateway. Even if you just have one TV and one room, you’d have two boxes.

Of course, conversely, TiVo has arguably better DVR functionality, and it supports a slew of OTT services, has a related iOS app (with Android coming), and more. And TiVo has the brand clout with consumers that Moxi can’t hope to match. Still, competition is a good thing, and it sounds like TiVo may be working on a next generation unit with some of these features.

Arris really has their work cut out for them in the cable MSO market. One of the benefits for smaller MSOs in going with TiVo is the boost from the TiVo brand recognition and the OTT services, apps, etc, that TiVo brings to the table. And, to a lesser extent, the same holds true for larger MSOs like Charter. TiVo’s momentum on the back of successful deals like RCN, Suddenlink, and, especially, Virgin Media, is also powerful. We’ll see how Arris’s new branding efforts work out for them in time.