TiVo
TiVo is a digital video recorder (DVR) developed and marketed by TiVo Corporation and introduced in 1999. TiVo provides an on-screen guide of scheduled broadcast programming television programs, whose features include “Season Pass” schedules which record every new episode of a series, and “Wish List” searches which allow the user to find and record shows that match their interests by title, actor, director, category, or keyword. TiVo also provides a range of features when the TiVo DVR is connected to a home network, including film and television show downloads, advanced search, personal photo viewing, music offerings, and online scheduling.
Since its launch in its home market of America, TiVo has also been made available in Australia, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Sweden, Taiwan, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Newer models, however, have adopted the Cable CARD standard, which is only deployed in the United States, and which limits the availability of certain features. The digital TV recording company TiVo is back in the spotlight with some upcoming changes and new products. TiVo had its heyday back in the early 2000s before DVR and streaming were everywhere, but it still has a few million subscribers. Those viewers will soon be subjected to ads playing before their TV recordings. It’s a bit ironic for the company that gained popularity for letting you scrub through ads during TV shows and programs. On its website, TiVo still lists this as a benefit.
According to an industry news outlet, the ads will go out to all users with the latest software version known as TiVo Experience 4, but will be skippable. That’s a relief. But users aren’t too happy. On a TiVo online forum one user wrote, “If they start doing this to me I’m out. No way they’re forcing me to watch ads on a device I paid almost $1,000 for with lifetime service. More changes are coming for the decades-old recording device, as well. In 2020, TiVo is unveiling its newest hardware device: a dongle. CNN reports the small device will attach to the back of TVs and work with the Android TV platform. It will cost about $50.
In October, a new digital service called TiVo Plus will launch for free for anyone with TiVo products. It’s a recommendation service using AI to help you wade through the countless TV shows and movies available. A spokesperson said in an email, “We’re dedicated to innovation that helps our customers stay in control of how, when, and what they watch. Advertising is an important part of every media business and TiVo is investing in new advertising experiences. We have designed our new DVR advertising units with the ability to ‘skip’ ads anytime a customer hits ‘skip.’ This is part of our ongoing commitment to bring our users the best media discovery experience possible.”
TiVo Corporation provides media and entertainment products for the consumer entertainment industry worldwide. The company operates in two segments, Product and Intellectual Property Licensing. The Product segment offers platform solutions, such as TiVo Service Platform, a cloud-based service that powers the TiVo Service client software, which operates on set-top boxes in consumer homes, as well as applications that operate on third party software platforms, such as iOS and Android; user experience solutions that allow service providers to customize elements of the interactive program guides for their customers, as well as to upgrade their programming features and services under the G-GUIDE brand and Cubi TV and TiVo Lite middleware solutions for pay TV service providers comprising cable, satellite, terrestrial, and telecommunications operators. It also provides software and services, including metadata, personalized content discovery and natural language voice, advanced media and advertising, and analogy content protection services.
As of December 31, 2017, this segment provided platform solutions to 22 million pay TV and consumer households. The Intellectual Property Licensing segment licenses its patent portfolio to the United States and international pay-television providers, mobile device manufacturers, consumer electronics manufacturers, and over-the-top video providers. The company was formerly known as Rovi Corporation and changed its name to TiVo Corporation in September 2016. TiVo Corporation was founded in 1983 and is based in San Jose, California.
While its former main competitor in the United States, Replay TV, had adopted a commercial-skip feature, TiVo decided to avoid automatic implementation fearing such a move might provoke backlash from the television industry. Replay TV was sued over this feature as well as the ability to share shows over the Internet, and these lawsuits contributed to the bankruptcy of SONIC blue,[30] its owner at the time. Its new owner, DNNA, dropped both features in the final Replay TV model, the 5500.
After demonstrating the WebTV capability at the same 1999 CES with TiVo and Replay TV demonstrating their products, Dish (then named Dish Network) a few months later added DVR functionality to their Dish Player 7100 (and later its 7200) with its Echostar unit producing the hardware while Microsoft provided the software that included WebTV, the same software Microsoft would later use for its UltimateTV DVR for DirecTV. The TiVo, Replay TV, and Dish Player 7100 represent very first DVRs that were in development at the same time and were released to market at about the same time.
SONIC blue, the owners of Replay TV would file for bankruptcy after being sued for its ability to automatically skip commercials and other features that were thought to violate copyrights; Echostar (Dish) would eventually sue Microsoft in 2001 for failing to support the software in Dish Player 7100 and 7200 with Dish ending their relationship with Microsoft and cease offering the Dish Player 7100/7200 to its subscribers and, instead, produce their own in-house DVR; and DirecTV would eventually drop Microsoft’s UltimateTV and keep Direc TiVo as its only DVR offering for quite some time.
Other distributors’ competing DVR sets in the United States include Comcast and Verizon, although both distribute third-party hardware from manufacturers such as Motorola and the former Scientific Atlanta unit of Cisco Systems with this functionality built-in. Verizon uses boxes fitted for FiOS, allowing high-speed Internet access and other features.
However, TiVo is compatible with the FiOS TV service because when the TV programming arrives at the home via FiOS Fiber to the Home network, it is converted to Cable Labs specification QAM channels exactly as those used by cable TV companies. AT&T is an IPTV service that is incompatible with the TiVo. Despite having gained 234,000 subscribers in the last quarter of 2011 as of January 2012 TiVo had only (approximately) 2.3 million subscribers in the United States. This is down from a peak of 4.36 million in January 2006. As of January 31, 2016, TiVo reported 6.8 million subscriber.
