CES: TiVo Demos TV App for Comcast DVR Set-top Boxes

Hoping to redefine how users interact with its video services while adding integrated TiVo functionality to the mix, Comcast and the DVR giant have begun providing a robust, multifunctional software upgrade, which include a new user interface, program guide and search capabilities, to customers in the greater Boston area for $2.99 a month.

The package, which the DVR vendor calls TiVo Service for Cable, was demonstrated at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

The jointly developed software application can be downloaded overnight to certain, widely-used Motorola set-top boxes (STB) with Scientific Atlanta devices on deck. TiVo is in trials with a similar app with Cox Communications. The boxes must be equipped to support DVR, like the Motorola units, to accept the code. The offering also requires a new remote be mailed from Comcast that was developed by TiVo.

The package is open and Java-based and makes use of CableLabs’s spec for open cable application platform (OCAP) APIs, which enables devices such as STBs and applications to be added as software modules and essentially also done across cableco platforms.

The offering includes TiVo’s popular user interface, a new search capability that enables users to search across linear TV show listings and VoD libraries to locate shows, with ones that are done in HD marked accordingly.

Since it currently employs the dual tuner Motorola 3400 and 6400 STBs, up to two movies and or TV shows can be recorded at the same time using the DVR functionality. The new guide integrates TV listings with VoD listings, which are separate in Comcast’s current offering in the Boston area.

Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said customers will be able to use its new Fancast.com entertainment destination to remotely program their DVRs.

TiVo and Comcast did not say if or when the package would be offered to the other markets that make up Comcast’s giant territory.

Comcast Corp. www.comcast.com
TiVo Inc. www.tivo.com

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