Things have been quiet for TiVo for quite some time as the last bit of news we heard from the company was their announcement of their TiVo Mini, which extends the standard TiVo set-top box to additional rooms back in March. Today, TiVo has some exciting news to share with its customers, especially those of you who have always wanted to access recorded material located on your TiVo outside of your home. (more…)
TiVo announced its Roamio DVR line back in August of this year. The DVRs offered the ability to record four to six programs at the same time. The line includes the Roamio, Roamio Plus, and the Roamio Pro. TiVo has announced a new service is now available for this DVR line. The Roamio Plus and […]
TiVo has announced that its Roamio Pro and Roamio Plus DVRs will now offer out-of-home streaming, allowing subscribers to watch live and recorded TV remotely over Wi-Fi. It’ll first roll out in the next weeks via an iOS app update, then an Android app and 4G streaming are planned for early next year.
Netflix is working hard to get its subscription streaming service integrated into set-top boxes for cable and satellite providers around the world. The first agreement Netflix was able to get the place was with Virgin Media in the UK. Netflix is now working to get its streaming service integrated into set-top boxes offered by cable […]
It appears the tests of an IPTV-ready TiVo on Sweden’s Com Hem service went well, as the provider is officially launching service September 30th. It’s also built a few new service packages around the three tuner, 1TB HDD-equipped DVR, with the TiVo Max option offering about 80 channels and TiVo Combo Max bundling internet and phone service. Another part of some of the TiVo packages is a TiVoToGo offering that let’s users stream several live TV channels and video on-demand to other devices, along with DVR scheduling and remote control features from the iOS app. The other juicy detail is that, like Virgin Media in the UK and Google Fiber in the US, Com Hem will allow the Netflix app on its set-top boxes. The Netflix feature is expected to launch on its TiVos in December, and we figure there will be plenty of customers ready, with a claimed 45,000 already preregistered for the new boxes since May 15th.
This week the folks at TiVo Inc. introduced a transition point for the digital video recording universe, that being the movement of TiVo Roamio DVR technologies to a cloud-based system. With this new TiVo Network PVR, users will be able to extend the digital video recording experience they’ve known – or perhaps have not yet […]
However good TiVo’s new Roamio DVRs may be, not everyone can justify purchasing them — especially not TV providers that would have to buy in bulk. TiVo could make that experience more accessible with its just-unveiled Network PVR. The service (not yet pictured) puts the Roamio interface in the cloud, letting operators offer similar recording and streaming features though cheaper set-top boxes and mobile devices. Network PVR should also let providers offer perks that aren’t possible with locally-stored shows, such as sharing a recording with friends who missed the big season finale. There’s no estimated launch time frame for Network PVR, although that’s more likely to be dictated by the providers; don’t be surprised if it takes a while for the technology to reach viewers.
In an unusual move for a pay-TV operator, Virgin Media is going to enable Netflix on its TiVo DVRs in the UK. Here in the US cable company-provided TiVos are missing the app and have blamed its absence on Netflix’s content agreements with the studios. Virgin Media’s claim that its the first pay-TV operator to offer TiVo doesn’t seem quite right though, since Google Fiber TV has included Netflix and YouTube (which VM wedged into TV guide listings earlier this year) alongside regular TV since it launched, and recently added Vudu to the mix. Either way, we expect subscribers will be happy to see the option when it pops up for all later this year, a trial starting this week is limited to 40,000 households. The two will still need separate accounts and billing, at least for now, and users can create a new account within the app itself. According to the press release, this rollout comes alongside updates that increase energy efficiency while improving WishLists and recommendations — let us know if you’re seeing any changes for the better.
The TiVo Roamio platform is still extremely young, what with it only having been launched earlier this month and all. Still, the DVR maker isn’t wasting any time and is now finding ways to bring as many features as possible to its new set-top boxes. With this in mind, TiVo let it be known today that it’s adding support for Opera’s Devices SDKandTV Store to its lineup of Roamio DVRs, providing developers an opportunity to create a variety of HTML5-based applications. TiVo’s hoping the partnership with Opera can introduce a slew of apps in different categories to the platform, including entertainment, fashion, sports, business, gaming news and more. As for Opera, we can imagine it’s rather pleased to get its app-creating tools used by yet another company.
TiVo’s brand new Roamio platform is about to get a whole lot “appier” thanks to the introduction of Opera’s Devices SDK, and the addition of the Opera TV Store, a means through which developers can offer HTML5 web apps to TiVo device owners. The new partnership will also give developers an SDK to build TiVo-specific apps for an app store the over-the-top services provider plans to launch later this year.
TiVo’s Roamio platform launched just last week, via a new family of DVR hardware devices that improve considerably on the amount of content that can be recorded, and there’s a new feature coming that allows live and recorded content streaming, even out-of-home, thanks to an upcoming feature that’s going to be introduced via an update (hence the “roam” pun).
While most of the update was focused around the hardware — adding more tuners and more storage to improve the core DVR experience — TiVo also improved several of the onboard apps, making them faster and more responsive. According to TiVo VP of Product Marketing Jim Denney, some of that improvement comes from switching to the Opera Browser for those apps. The Netflix and YouTube apps in particular, both of which are built on Opera, are a lot faster to open and use.
Already, Roamio devices offer up access to some pre-installed apps including Netflix, Hulu Plus, Pandora, Spotify and more, and it consolidates content from all of the above in addition to cable services when you’re searching for shows. The introduction of the Opera TV store, which TiVo is aiming to deploy early next year, will bring a whole catalogue of new HTML5-based apps to the service, broadening the type of app-based content users have access to exponentially.
Opera’s TV Store is already available on millions of shipping devices, and the Opera Devices SDK made its way onto over 25 million connected TVs in 2012 alone. That means that TiVo customers will be getting access to a platform that’s already mature when the Opera Store goes live on its devices; there won’t be any waiting while a new store is set up and curate the way there would be if TiVo had started from scratch.
TiVo also contends that the partnership will help it more quickly introduce new and improved pre-loaded software to its set-top DVRs, since Opera has become a key partner for big brands and service providers that are making the switch to HTML5 in order to gain more presence on connected home entertainment platforms.
Access to Opera TV Store content is a big value-add that should help TiVo’s Roamio price tags look more attractive to users who might otherwise feel like a Roku or Apple TV device could fit their needs. And if TiVo and others suspect that Apple is preparing to make a fresh foray into the living room, as has been recently rumored by none other than our own contributor MG Siegler, building as full-featured an offering as possible definitely explains the push to build a software ecosystem.
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