As they say, a picture is worth 1,000 words, and this one answers some of the questions I had, and that I heard from readers. Note that the photo is from a box running development software, so the screen and/or language therein may change before release, etc. But the underlying logic is what we should expect in the initial release. As you can see, you do not have to give up a tuner on your Premiere XL4 to use the IP STB – if you’re willing to forego Live TV, as I am. Basically you’re reserving one or two tuners in the XL4 for use by IP STB(s) elsewhere in the home. When a tuner is reserved it is not available for anything else. It is not used for recordings, it is only used for Live TV on the IP STB. Period.

Now, one question that occurred to me after I’d left the show today was if a tuner is paired with a single IP STB, or if it can be shared. Say you have one XL4 and three IP STBs – can you reserve just one tuner which would allow any one of the three IP STBs to use Live TV at a time? I’ll need to ask that.

But, that aside, you can see that you have the option to reserve 0, 1, or 2 tuners for use by IP STBs. Personally I’d go with 0 as I never use Live TV and would only want the IP STB to access my recordings or OTT content. I think this will make a number of people happy. Also, this is a settings screen on the XL4 and you can change this whenever you want. So it isn’t something you have to do at setup, etc. So if you know you want to watch Live TV in another room (the game is on, you’re sick in bed, whatever) you can reserve a tuner and then un-reserve it when you no longer need it.

Speaking of setup, there apparently really isn’t much of one on the IP STB. Setup basically involves ‘pairing’ it with the XL4 – and that’s it. There’s nothing else to setup, it pulls all of the settings it needs from the XL4. I’m told there are very few settings local to the IP STB.

I did confirm that the will not pair with the Premiere or Premiere XL at launch, only the Premiere XL4 (aka the Premiere Q for MSOs). So no Live TV on your IP STB if that’s all you have. And this isn’t a ‘soft’ thing where it isn’t officially supported but you can make it work, the software is just not there to support it on those units. However, the IP STB is a standard Multi-Room Streaming (MRS) client. It can stream content of of any Premiere unit in the home. So it does work with the Premiere and Premiere XL in as far as you’ll be able to stream your recordings via MRS. My understanding is that you will not be able to set recordings on the Premiere or Premiere XL, etc., as that requires the pairing that can only be done with the XL4. Basically whatever you can do with MRS between Premieres today you can do from the IP STB, but that’s all – for now at least. (I’m going to double check to make sure that’s accurate.)

As for pricing – again, they haven’t said yet. We don’t know if they’ll be a one-time purchase, or if there will be a subscription required, etc. Personally I expect them both to be one-time purchases with no subscription requirement. But they will need to be activated on the TiVo account so that they get the same MAK and can connect to the TiVo DVR units on the network.

I did have an idea which I suggested to TiVo – parental lock down on the IP STB. Basically ‘KidZone’ on a per-box basis. My idea is that you could put an IP STB in the kids’ room and lock it down so it can only access a wall garden of recordings and channels, just like KidZone did. You’d be able to (dis)allow functions – so the kids couldn’t delete recordings, or cancel them, or setup new recordings, etc. Whatever power you want to give them. Basically they’d have their own Nerfed virtual TiVo.

Enough about the IP STB, how about the TiVo Stream? The Stream will transcode at native resolution. So the 1080i recording remains 1080i as H.264, and the 720p recording remains 720p as H.264, etc. So it isn’t fixed, or limited to 720p, etc. And side-loading happens at better than real time. I was told ’2x’ is a good rule of thumb – so a 30 minute recording will side-load in 15 minutes, etc. But this varies depending on the bit rate of the source material. A 19mbps minimally compressed HD ATSC stream will probably take closer to real time, while a 2mbps highly compressed SD digital cable recording will likely side-load very quickly. In other words, results will vary, but it isn’t stuck with only doing real-time transcodes for side-loading.

Right now the TiVo Stream will only stream content from a TiVo DVR to one of the TiVo client apps on iOS or Android. TiVo hasn’t announced anything for other platforms at this time. I don’t know if we might see an updated version of TiVo Desktop that would support streaming to a PC, though it may make more sense to just add MRS to TiVo Desktop to allow it to stream content to a TiVo as well as from one. And PCs can handle MPEG-2, so I don’t see the need for a TiVo Stream for that.

Hopefully this news makes a few folks happy.

Lastly, this won’t be news to regular readers of this blog, but the Stream is powered by a Zenverge ZN200 chip. I speculated to that effect last year, and TiVo confirmed it for me in February, but today it was officially announced via press release. The release is below:

Zenverge Showcases TransAll™ technology with TiVo’s new TiVo Stream

TiVo Stream to extend TV viewing to mobile devices with the world’s first deployment of multi-screen streaming from a DVR

BOSTON, May 22, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — Zenverge Inc., a leading developer of Advanced Content Networking ICs, and TiVo Inc. (NASDAQ: TIVO), the creator of and a leader in advanced television services including digital video recorders (DVRs), announced TiVo® Stream, a revolutionary product enabling streaming to tablets and smartphones with the same rich TV viewing experience TiVo customers know and love.

Based on the industry leading Zenverge TransAll™ Transcode engine, TiVo Stream will allow a viewer to seamlessly stream or download multiple live or recorded shows from a TiVo Premiere DVR to multiple devices like iPads or iPhones simultaneously. Its unique fast side-load capability is a critical element of a true on-demand experience and allows users to quickly download favorite shows to their tablets for later viewing.

This product takes advantage of the Zenverge TransFormat™, TransRate™, and TransScale™ functions to convert broadcast content into the format supported by tablets and smartphones. TransZip&treade; allows side-loading DVR content at a high speed into mobile devices for sync-n-go. Lastly, TransCrypt&treade; ensures that live and DVR content can be securely distributed in the home.

“Cable MSOs are keen to extend the whole home experience beyond the TV to include mobile devices,” said TiVo’s David Sandford, Vice President and General Manager, Service Provider Business. “Using the unprecedented quad HD transcoding capabilities of the Zenverge ZN200, we are bringing the unique TiVo experience that consumers love to the mobile screens.”

“We’re excited to work with TiVo on extending their premium TV viewing experience to second screens as they pioneer yet another blockbuster entertainment product following their success with the DVR,” said Zenverge’s Raghu Rao, Executive Vice President of Sales and Business Development. “TiVo Stream will enable service providers using TiVo’s innovative advanced TV solutions to create a compelling anywhere, anytime, any device experience for their customers.”

Zenverge’s Advanced Content Networking ICs are the preferred transcoding solution for operators and box manufacturers for devices such as Gateways, DVRs, and IP/Broadcast streaming adapters.

The ‘transcoding box’ is now officially the TiVo Stream, and it will be available to both retail customers and TiVo’s cable MSO partners later this year. The render to the left is the retail version of the box, while the one to the right is the MSO version. They’re pretty much the same except for coloring, and obviously the final labeling will change.

The TiVo Stream will work with the TiVo Premiere, Premiere XL, and Premiere XL4 (formerly known as the Premiere Elite, and known as the Premiere Q for MSOs). It is a very simple device with only two connections – power and Ethernet. The photos below were taken at the show, you can see the simple design and limited connectors.

The TiVo Stream acts like a Multi-Room Streaming (MRS) client on the network, just like another Premiere would. While the hardware is cable of transcoding four streams, it is limited to two per Premiere due to transport throughput limits on the Premiere end. So to use all four transcoding stream simultaneously you would need at least two Premieres on the network. As previously reported, the MPEG-2 streams are transcoded to H.264 for delivery to ‘second screen’ devices within the home.

The Stream supports real-time streaming as well as side-loading of content onto a mobile device for later viewing away from the network. However, copy protection does apply. It is basically Multi-Room Streaming (MRS) vs. Multi-Room Viewing (MRV). If you can stream a problem between Premieres, you’ll be able to streaming it to a second screen. And if you can copy programs between TiVos, or to a PC via TiVoToGo, you’ll be able to side-load it. But if a program is blocked from TiVoToGo it will also be blocked from side-loading. TiVo doesn’t make the rules, they just follow them. So it really depends on how draconian your MSO is.

The Stream can access ‘Live TV’ – kind of. Since it acts just like any other MRS client, and MRS only streams recordings, what happens is it triggers the Premiere to start recording the content. The Stream then accesses that recording in progress and streams it. So in the end there is a recording on the Premiere of the show you streamed ‘live’.

And, as I’ve said previously, right now the intention is to support clients within the home. So place shifting content onto your phone or tablet in another room, but not across the Internet to another location. So this will not be a Slingbox replacement, at least to start. TiVo acknowledges the interest and it is something that might come via a software update. They have looked into it, and interestingly they’ve even talked to Sling Media about remote streaming (possible now that TiVo and EchoStar have kissed and made up), but there is nothing firm at this time.

Jim Denney and I talked a bit about future plans and the transcoding eventually being ‘baked in’, and it is all but certain to happen. It is all a trade off, and right now we’re not quite at the tipping point. SoCs with transcoding baked-in are appearing but are still higher costs parts and there have been performance tradeoffs. We talked about the Broadcom BCM7425, which has dual transcode support, and TiVo has looked at the chip. And there is a newer BCM7435, which just started sampling, which has quad transcode support and a general bump in capabilities, including 8 QAM tuners. (Humax has a demo box at the show using this chip, but they don’t expect it to be available to MSOs until 1Q13.) So TiVo is looking ahead and it is all but a given that this will be baked into a future product, but I wouldn’t expect that until 2013 at the earliest.

The other new set top box is the IP STB – which doesn’t have a snappy name yet, sorry. This is the baby brother to the TiVo Preview and at launch it will only work with the TiVo Premiere XL4/Q – not the TiVo Premiere or Premiere XL. STOP! Before you freak out, there is a reason, and this should change with a future update. Calm? OK. The IP STB does not have a tuner of its own, it uses a tuner from the XL4 for Live TV. In the initial release this requires dedicating a tuner in the XL4 to the IP STB. Yes, that means the tuner is not available for recordings, etc. This is done during setup, you pair the IP STB with a single Premiere XL4 and select one tuner to dedicate.

TiVo knows this is not optimal, but it is a matter of releasing something that is ‘good enough’ for market and then improving it. The plan is to have dynamic tuner allocation in a future release, whereby the IP STB would grab a free tuner for Live TV. But it is a sticky development problem to solve, so for the first release they basically avoided it by going with the dedicated tuner. It is sticky because there are a number of use cases. How can the unit reliably schedule recordings when one (or more if you have multiple IP STBs) can grab a tuner? How do you handle it if all four tuners are in use and someone wants to access Live TV on an IP STB? Etc. I’m sure lots of people have answers, but I’m also sure a lot of those answers will conflict. So TiVo needs time to work on the issue, do their usability testing, and create a good solution.

This need to dedicate a tuner is also why the Premiere and Premiere XL are not supported in the first release. They’d be reduced to single-tuner units. With the XL4 sacrificing a tuner, or even two, isn’t as big a deal. Again, this is temporary and TiVo plans to resolve this in a future update. (And just don’t even start with the “Oh, so when will that be?”, OK?)

I did ask Jim if it might be possible to pair it with an XL4 and *not* assign a tuner at all, which would mean no Live TV on the IP STB. Some users, like myself, never watch Live TV and wouldn’t miss it. I’d rather leave all four tuners free to record and use the IP STB only for watching recordings and accessing OTT content. He didn’t know if that was possible, and he’ll look into it. I think that’d be a nice setup option.

As for the hardware itself, it is a small, square, trapezoidal unit in the same league as the Apple TV or a Roku box. It supports all of the standard TiVo Peanut remotes, including the TiVo Slide remote. I didn’t get the specific model number of the chip inside, but Jim said it is roughly equal in performance to the SoC in the Premiere XL4, and that performance on the IP STB can be even higher because it doesn’t have all of the other work to do with recording, etc.

The back of the box is where you’ll find all of the connectors – coax, a component break-out port, a composite A/V break-out port, HDMI, Ethernet, USB, and power. Component and composite A/V connections are accomplished via break-out cables, similar to some of the Roku models. The coax connection is not for a tuner, it is for MoCA and only MoCA. At this time the USB port is only for the Bluetooth dongle used by the TiVo Slide remote. It will not support the old TiVo 802.11g WiFi adapter as TiVo is actively discouraging the use of WiFi due to the high bandwidth demands of the box. Though there is nothing stopping you from using an external 802.11n, or even a new 802.11ac, bridge.

I did ask if the box could be used as a MoCA bridge, like the XL4, and it cannot. So you can’t use an XL4 and an IP STB to bridge Ethernet over MoCA for another room. I was thinking that if it could act as a bridge you could connect Ethernet to the XL4, use MoCA to feed an IP STB in the bedroom, and then connect other devices, like a Blu-ray player, to the Ethernet on the IP STB. But no such luck, sorry. You’d need another ECB (Ethernet to Coax Bridge).

It is the same UI you know and (probably) love from the TiVo DVR. When you access Live TV it uses the dedicated tuner on the XL4. Recordings are streamed as-is from the XL4 to the box, so they’ll be the same MPEG-2 content. Full quality, there is no transcoding. All OTT IP content, such as Netflix, Hulu Plus, and YouTube, stream directly to the box over the network without touching the XL4. Cable MSO VOD, where supported, would require a tuner on the XL4, as it is delivered today via QAM and not IP.

Now, you probably want to know pricing and availability, right? Yeah, sorry. No pricing details as of yet. And the timeline is ‘in the coming months’. It looks like fall, maybe late summer if we’re lucky.

I think that’s it on these two boxes. I have more photos, if you want to see them check out my Picasa gallery from the show. I’ll be adding more photos as I take them the next couple of days as well.

If there is anything else you want to know, just ask. I may have forgotten to share something, and the show has two more days so I can go back to ask more questions.

EDIT: I did go back, and I did ask more questions, and I’ve posted the new info.

The Press Release is below:

TIVO EXPANDS WHOLE-HOME AND MULTI-SCREEN OFFERINGS

TiVo introduces a low-cost IP set-top box to extend the full TiVo experience to additional televisions in the home

TiVo adds a low-cost transcoding accessory – TiVo Stream – enabling operators to provide streaming of linear content to tablets and mobile devices

BOSTON, MA – May 21, 2012 — TiVo Inc. (NASDAQ: TIVO), the creator of and a leader in advanced television services, including digital video recorders (DVRs), for consumers, content distributors and consumer electronics manufacturers, today announced two major enhancements to its whole-home viewing solution. Its IP set-top box, delivers the TiVo experience on secondary televisions throughout the home. TiVo Stream, provides transcoding to enable content viewing on mobile devices.

Through these new products, operators working with TiVo can give their subscribers the content they want on any screen within the home, including secondary televisions, tablets and smart phones and all through the same easy-to-use TiVo interface. For example, the IP set-top box compliments the home’s primary TiVo DVR by extending the TiVo experience onto secondary TVs including live and recorded television viewing. TiVo Stream delivers content to a customer’s tablet or mobile device, creating a cohesive viewing experience no matter how they choose to watch their programs. Both products are optimized for operator distribution, including automated provisioning and activation, and the low-capital costs that operators demand.

Tom Rogers, President and CEO, TiVo Inc. said, “Consumers not only want an enjoyable TV experience, but now demand choice and the flexibility to watch content on multiple devices and screens within the home. TiVo has worked with our operator customers to create a suite of affordable companion devices that deliver a cohesive experience regardless of the screen the customer wants to use.”

The IP set-top box works with the TiVo Premiere Q, a home’s primary gateway device, to give consumers access to live and recorded TV, operator VOD, plus broadband-delivered content on every TV in the house. This is delivered through the innovative TiVo experience consumers have come to know and love. It includes integrated MoCA to simplify home networking and multi-room applications.

TiVo Stream seamlessly delivers the content available on a consumer’s TiVo Premiere or Premiere Q DVR to alternative screens such as iPads and iPhones. Unlike similar offerings in the market, this is the first product to enable streaming or download of shows simultaneously to multiple portable devices without interrupting what’s playing on the television. The power of TiVo Stream enables users to quickly transfer shows to their mobile device for viewing outside the home.

TiVo will release both products at retail and through select cable operators. Additional details on availability for both the IP set-top box and TiVo Stream will be announced in the coming months.

TiVo unveiled details about both products during the 2012 NCTA Cable Show in Boston. For more information visit the TiVo booth #1859 located in the main exhibit hall.

There are no real revelations here, but I find it interesting how TiVo positions the products for the MSO market.

It is interesting that the Premiere and Q mention Amazon On Demand as one of the features. That would seem to indicate it is something MSOs could provide, yet they generally do not. I think they need someone to review these though, as the Premiere’s one-sheet states “Record four shows at once”, which is a Q feature only. So who knows, maybe the Amazon mention isn’t so meaningful?

The TiVo Preview sheet mentions YouTube only once, in the overview at the top. But I note that Charter’s recently published feature matrix for their Preview deployment indicates that YouTube is not supported on the Preview. A goof on TiVo’s document? I wouldn’t expect Charter to disable YouTube on the Preview if it is supported, since they enable it on the Premiere.

Between this one-sheet and Charter’s document it seems the Preview doesn’t support any OTT video streaming services – no YouTube or Hulu Plus. I wouldn’t expect Amazon or Blockbuster, since those are download services and the Preview doesn’t have any storage. And Netflix we know isn’t available for contractual reasons. I wonder if the Preview has an issue with Internet video streaming services, not enough memory for buffering? It just seems curious. I need to remember to ask about that at The Cable Show in May.

The Premiere and Q sheets also say “connected to the home network through Broadband”, which doesn’t make any sense, even in context. What they really meant, from context, seems to be “connected to the home network through Ethernet”. But that’s a minor, geeky nit to pick, I admit.

Oh, while I’m at it, another area of interest is the Partner & Affiliates resources page. There’s some really interesting stuff there, like the TiVo Sales & Install Guide, Brochures and Spec Sheets, screenshots, messaging for retailers to use in pitching TiVo’s products, etc. TiVo has a lot of interesting stuff squirreled away on their site, including documentation on their Network Remote Control Protocol.

But now their support page for TiVo has been updated with a link to a PDF for Multi-Room Experience. The PDF details both the TiVo Premiere and TiVo Preview (no mention of the 4-tuner TiVo Premire Q/Elite though), with a table of features for each. (Click for a larger view.)

I’m a little surprised by no YouTube on the Preview, I would’ve taken that for granted as a standard feature. I’m nearly as surprised by the lack of web video support. It seems like there is no broadband streaming video support at all, only local streaming from a TiVo Premiere. There is some OTT content; music services like Rhapsody, Pandora, and Live365 are supported. It is nice to see that scheduling recordings and setting up Wish Lists are ‘Coming Soon’. We’d heard as much earlier from RCN, but confirmation is nice.

While Charter’s deployment timeline has stretched, it is good news that they’re introducing the TiVo Preview to the mix. I am still a bit surprised by the lack of the Premiere Q. The quad-tuner box was tailor made for MSOs. Unless Charter still has too many hybrid service areas and the all-digital Q wouldn’t work for them. In my area I expected to lose some channels on my Premiere Elite, since I’m on Charter, but it turns out the analog channels I used seem to have digital simulcast and I didn’t notice any losses.

Now, I think someone jumped the gun in posting this. If you look closely you’ll notice the pages are marked diagonally with “Draft For Internal Review – Do Not Distribute”. So either someone forgot to save out a new copy of the document without the watermark, or this wasn’t supposed to go live yet. Just in case, here are the two pages of the document – it’s a bit more compact than the 6MB PDF.

Thanks to reader Sam Biller for the tip.

Jason is just a font of information. Looking back to a post he made on 10/24 he talks about RCN TiVo Premiere units receiving the 14.9 software, and what some of the fixes included are. I’d have to presume the same fixes apply to retail 14.9 upgrades:

Fixes Black Screen issue (where a tuner will have a black screen and you either need to turn on signal meter or reboot the box to recover the channel)

This code is needed for the Primeres to work with the Q bundle, (thus multi room stream to the Q and Preview)

Fixes Rhapsody

There are some other subtle fixes in tho code as well. Overall you should seen more stability and some slight speed improvements in the UI.

Further back on 10/17 he shared some info about the new TiVo Preview:

Runs SDUI and HDUI
NO Hard Drive , No Buffer, Thus no Pausing ability on LIVE TV
MOCA Built In
NO YOUTUBE at this point, thats coming later.
Pandora and most of the other apps are on the box
Music / Pictures , works with TiVo Desktop
No Fan
1 LED
You can turn off the LED
VOD

In the same thread he also posted photos of the new TiVo Preview. It is a fairly small box.

In another post Friday he mentioned a feature planned for the TiVo Preview, likely in late 1Q12 – the ability to start a recording on the Q. (And, I’d guess, a standard Premiere unit.)

I know many of you are worried about giving up the ability to pause LIVE TV on the preview.. But I did want to share that down the road probably late Q1 2012. The Preview will have the ability to start recordings on the Q. Thus:

You could remotely start the recording on the Q then stream the recording and pause the stream and such.. Thus giving you the sense of a DVR in the bedroom…

TiVo still hasn’t announced any plans to release the TiVo Preview to retail, just to MSOs at this point. But I really hope they do. I’d love to have one for my bedroom to pair to a TiVo Premiere Elite in my living room. And possibly a second one in another room as well. But if Sling Media beats them to the punch and releases SlingPlayer for Google TV or Roku I might just go that route – since I own both a Google TV and Roku, and Slingboxes. I wonder if a TiVo Preview from Charter could be paired to a retail TiVo Premiere Elite…

The rollout for the products will be done in phases. The first phase will be a TiVo whole home bundle. This package will consist of 1 RCN TiVo Q with 1 Preview. For a bundled price that has not yet been finalized.

You can then add on previews at a fee (yet to be finalized)

If you have a premiere and wish to KEEP your premiere and have it work within the BUNDLE for Multi-Room Streaming then that will be supported, You Premiere will drop to the price of a SECOND DVR in the home and that premiere MUST be hardwired to qualify. Then you premiere will become part of the Whole Home DVR family.

Again, MOCA is the engine that makes this run, the plan is that most Q’s installed will be hardwired to your router. If that can not happen then a ActionTec ECB (ethernet coax bridge) will be utilized to light MOCA throughout your home.

This is the scope of Phase 1 of the launch. Pricing should be finalized within the next couple weeks as well.

Phase 2 :

Preview in a standalone mode

Phase 3 : (Not approved yet) : Adding a Preview to your account
that has a Premiere.

RCN’s official policy is that all units must be hardwired via MoCA or Ethernet. They will not support WiFi, because, as Jason put it:“The reason is Multiroom Stream will not work over Wireless, It will suck.. Thus breaking up. pausing, kinda like trying to watch a movie over a analog modem connection.” I have to beg to differ, a good 802.11n network should be more than enough – average speeds are better than Fast Ethernet or MoCA 1.1. And a good dual-band 802.11n network should be excellent. Of course, I can see why RCN would take this blanket stance from a support perspective. Customers trying to stream over 802.11g or a poorly configured 802.11n network, will probably have trouble and it is too much to ask RCN to deal with. But what RCN doesn’t know won’t hurt them, I expect experienced users could setup an 802.11n bridge. It should all look the same to the box.

Jason also reports that the TiVo iOS app will work with the TiVo Premiere Q, but it will not work with the TiVo Preview. Since the Preview is a non-DVR STB which is really just a ‘Live TV’ tuner and a streaming receiver box, and the app is primarily about managing recordings that’s not a big surprise.

Still no word on when we might see a TiVo Preview at retail to go with the just launched TiVo Premiere Elite. I hope we don’t have to wait too long, the Preview would really increase the value proposition of the Elite. But, as we haven’t yet seen an application for a waiver, and the FCC would have up to 90 days to rule, I don’t think we’ll be seeing the Preview at retail this year. I don’t think it will be covered under the waiver issued for the Premiere Elite itself as it explicitly names the Elite. I’m planning to pick up an Elite, but I’d also pick up a Preview, maybe two, if available. Please TiVo, don’t make us wait too long. I know you might be concerned about networking issues impacting streaming, etc., but you’re already restricting sales channels for the Elite and requiring customer education. Surely you can do the same for the Preview. Make it happen. Soon.

In the meantime, RCN customers will be able to begin benefiting from the Preview in mid-November and I expect Suddenlink and even Charter will follow later in the year if they keep to their plans.

Thanks to Sam Biller for the heads up.

So why the post? Well, a couple of weeks ago I posted about the folks at TiVo Community spotting the new 16.x software. User brentil was doing more digging, and he found something very interesting. First up, it looks like TiVo is working toward enabling SMP – symmetric multi-processing, aka dual-core support.

For the geeks, in \arch\mips\tivo\Gen07C\setup.c, which appears to be used for the Premiere Elite/Q, believed to be code named ‘Gimbal’:
#ifdef CONFIG_SMP
if (!strstr(arcs_cmdline, "maxcpus="))
{
/* forcing to 1 CPU until SMP is fully debugged */
strncat(arcs_cmdline, " maxcpus=1", CL_SIZE - 1 - strlen(arcs_cmdline));
}
#endif

brentil determined that, as the BCM7413 is derived from the BCM7405D uses the same settings, which set CONFIG_SMP=Y. However, it seems the Gen07 (Premiere) and Gen07P(Preview, believed to be code named Picasso) do not have this code. Could they be further along in debugging SMP on those units? Curious, but not the real find.

The real find is this, in the Gen7C/P Makefile is:
# Makefile for BCM97125A0 board (includes 7019 family)

In the Gen7 Makefile is a copy & paste of the Gen06 Makefile, which mentions the BCM97401C0 – the TiVo HD’s chipset.

Why is this interesting? The BCM7125 is one of Broadcom’s loaded chips, and quite a chip it is.

The Broadcom BCM7125 is a single-chip, multi-format HD cable STB solution featuring high levels of integration including an integrated Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA®) 1.1 core, HD AVC, dual 1GHz cable tuners and HD DOCSIS 2.0 compatible modems with 3.0 channel bonding over 4 downstream channels. This level of integration and performance enables worldwide service providers to offer the latest in connectivity, HDTV programming and advanced 3D user interfaces to their subscribers while significantly reducing power requirements, complexity and overall bill of materials (BOM) cost.

Integrated MoCA technology enables service providers to deploy whole-home digital media distribution and connected TV services such as multi-room DVR. The BCM7125 allows multiple users to store, time shift or access content from media servers or residential gateways for playback on STBs anywhere in the home, driving the transition to a more connected and interactive home network environment.

Now, it might seem like this means the TiVo Premiere Elite and TiVo Preview are using this chip – after all, they have MoCA. But I don’t think so, because we know that Entropic is providing the MoCA hardware for these units. And it wouldn’t make sense for TiVo to be using an external MoCA chipset if the SoC supported MoCA. It’d be a wasted expense.

Now, there is also a BCM7119 which is basically the BCM7125 without MoCA. It could be they’re using it and the reference board is the same. But why use that and an Entropic MoCA chip instead of just using the 7125? That’s added complexity and cost. Both Broadcom chips also include built-in cable modems and DLNA support. And there’s also no indication that either unit has a built-in cable modem or DLNA. We won’t know for sure until someone gets the Elite and does some hands-on investigation work to find out what chip it is using.

Could the Elite and Preview be using one of these chips? It is possible. TiVo could be hiding a few tricks up their sleeve with a dormant cable modem and DLNA support that they can turn on later. DOCSIS support could allow for DSG – DOCSIS Set-top Gateway – support, which is used for communication with the head end for things like OnDemand and SDV. And DLNA could be how they’ll support whole-home applications. Anything is possible, but if so they’ve managed to keep a pretty tight lid on the info.

But it could also be that these chips are the foundation for another generation. With built in DOCSIS support and MoCA it could be especially appealing to MSO partners. It would give a unit capabilities similar to the Virgin Media TiVo in the UK, with a dedicated channel for apps and IP delivered content.

So this is certainly tantalizing info. Who knows, it could be a red herring, some artifact of an earlier development branch that was abandoned. Perhaps TiVo was thinking of using the BCM7125 but opted for a different solution, and the comment in the code never got updated. But that’s the pessimistic view, and I prefer to be optimistic. If it isn’t the Elite, perhaps it’ll be the next generation.

RCN supplied TiVo Premiere units are the same hardware as the retail units, running software that is mostly the same. They share all of the same features with one major addition and two subtractions. The addition is support for RCN’s OnDemand library. Retail units can’t access RCN OnDemand, but their boxes can. The subtractions are Netflix and Amazon Instant Video, both not present on the RCN TiVo. We know Netflix is missing due to Netflix’s licensing with the studios forbidding them from streaming to MSO-provided STBs. It is believe Amazon is missing for the same reason. The RCN units do still have Blockbuster OnDemand and YouTube, however.

And while I’m speaking of RCN and the TiVo Premiere, we have a bit of an update as to when they expect to supply the new quad-tuner TiVo Premiere Q to customers. In a post on the DSL Reports forums, RCN’s Jason Nealis states:

Yes, There is news and the packaging and such are being put together. We are getting close… I’m hopeful that we can launch right around very early NOV.

Lots of moving pieces here, looking to get the billing codes corrected so we can get our sweepstakes winners installed by the end of the week.

The solution is awesome… If the Q can not be hardwired we will be using ActionTEC ECB’s do deliver MOCA Signal as well.

I should have a lot more info at the end of next week.

He goes on to say:

Hey Everyone, I’m actually at TiVo this week, but wanted to post this :

Quad MUST be hard-wired, if it physically can not be hardwired then a Actiontec ECB will be installed to light moca thru the house.

MOCA is really really nice, it lights up about a 100M link thru the RF. To prevent MOCA from leaving your home the TECH will install a POE Filter (point of entry filter) this will stop your MOCA signal from leaving the home.

It’s really plug and play as well, no wep keys , no SSID’s no signal strength.. IT’s REALLY nice. I’m a big fan of the ActionTec Solution.

Since the MSO TiVo Premiere Q and the retail TiVo Premiere Elite are basically the same unit with different size hard drives (500GB and 2TB respectively), that could also indicate the time frame when we’ll see the Elite available to consumers. We know TiVo’s original plan was to ship units in mid-September to have them on shelves in mid-October, and it later looked like we might see them October 7th, but TiVo would still be OK getting them out around the start of November. What they really want is to have them on the market for the heart of the holiday shopping season.

The competition in today’s residential gateway and STB market is fierce and manufacturers are challenged with developing multi-channel designs where small size and low power devices have become critical for meeting MSO requirements. The MxL241SF is an easy and cost effective method for adding channels in more complex STBs and gateways.

The MxL241SF combines MaxLinear’s cutting-edge front-end RF technology with a proven QAM demodulator solution. The device tunes to 256 QAM and 64 QAM channels up to 1GHz and provides a standard MPEG transport stream output for DOCSIS and video applications while meeting the high performance, low power and small form factor requirements for developing next-generation, multi-tuner cable video gateways and advanced set-top boxes (STBs). The device also supports legacy out-of-band (OOB) reception with CRX/DRX outputs to a CableCARD™, and one is used in each of the TiVo boxes for this function.

“This design win with TiVo is an important milestone for MaxLinear. TiVo sets extremely high standards for its products, and TiVo’s selection of our cable tuner-demodulator SoC is a wonderful validation of our exceptional CMOS broadband RF/mixed-signal IC technology,” said Brian Sprague, MaxLinear’s Vice-President, and General Manager for Broadband & Consumer products. “TiVo has found the MxL241SF to provide the ideal tradeoff between cost, power and space to be able to incorporate multiple receivers in the form factors of existing platforms as well as enabling smaller form factor platforms such as the TiVo Preview.”

The release also confirms some info we’d already heard about the TiVo Preview having a built-in CableCARD tuner:

The Premiere Q is connected to the main cable drop and communicates to the TiVo Preview, which functions as a thin client in other rooms throughout the house creating a fantastic multi-room viewing experience. The TiVo Preview also can be used by cable operators as a standalone HD cable STB.

It must have it’s own tuner if it can be used as a standalone STB.

A related press release on the MxL241SF has some more info on the chip for the curious.

So now we know which tuners will be used in the new products.