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Tivo Signs Deal With Comcast
Chappy01 writes "TiVo has inked a long-term deal with Comcast, America's largest cable television operator, to develop a version of the TiVo service that will be offered to Comcast's DVR subscribers. The deal calls for TiVo to adapt its software to work on Comcast's existing DVR platform, and it allows TiVo to extend to Comcast subscribers the advertising it sells in the form of interactive video clips that automatically appear in the TiVo menu." From the article: "The move will increase TiVo's presence in American homes as it faces competition from generic DVRs offered directly by leading cable companies. Comcast Corp. expects to begin marketing the new DVRs, which will carry the TiVo brand, by mid- to late 2006." News also available from MSNBC and the Official Tivo Site.
As someone who has visited the Gerrold/General Instruments/Motorola offices in Hatboro, PA, and who has spoken to a fair number of cable operators, I can tell you this:
The box that this system will be built on, and the services to which it connects will almost certainly not be of the quality that Tivo now provides.
First of all, check out the Wiki entry on this cable box, and you'll see it's not that impressive, although it does have a few nice features (HDTV, recording two channels at once, 120GB disk).
Second, remember that cable operators buy these units by the millions, so every extra penny is a big deal.
You wouldn't think twice about a nice feature in your Tivo box, even if it cost an extra $10. To a cable operator, an extra $10 per box is an insane, indefensible amount and they'll cut the feature instead.
Finally, embedded programming on a cable box is worlds cruftier and more limiting than the Linux underpinnings of the current Tivo architecture. It's virtually certain that some features just won't be portable to this new box.
Count me a curmudgeon on this if you like, but I'll believe it when I see it.