A Cable Lifeline For DVR Technology

from the the-innovator's-failure dept

As SonicBlue is rushing in to bankruptcy court and TiVo is struggling to figure out where it fits in, the cable companies have risen up to embrace PVR technology and are starting to take the lead in deploying such technology. By building the technology directly into their set top boxes, they can lower the upfront fees (in some cases to nothing) for consumers, while the recurring service fees also get reduced through bundling them with the basic cable fees. It's also an easier sell to consumers - as an "upgrade" to their service, instead of pitching it as an entirely separate device and service. While TiVo is certainly looking to get into that market by providing the technology for cable companies to offer such services, it sounds like the cable companies are mostly happy coming up with their own solutions. While they may not be as "slick" as TiVo in some cases, it's only going to get better over time. The real loss, though, will be the ability to do more serious hacking of such systems to make them more useful. Of course, for the folks interested in doing that themselves, they can just build their own PVR.

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