Tivo had a
few more tricks up its sleeves during its recent earnings call, with its Tivo-loaded DVR finally on the way to
Cox Communications. Just like the Comcast version, the initial trial is going on in the New England area, and it looks like Rhode Island will likely be first to experience market launch on Motorola hardware. As for how that
Comcast box is doing, CEO Tom Rogers says its not contributing much but expects things to ramp up with increased marketing and the ability to deliver the Tivo upgrade automatically, without requiring an
all-new box. Check out the rest of the details from the call and -- if you're willing to overlook the missing features -- get ready for an upgrade to the old grey box.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Mr. E @ Mar 8th 2008 6:30PM
Finally! I hope they are able to roll it out nationwide soon. I can't take much more of the stupid SARA interface on my Scientific Atlanta (I mean Cisco) SA8300HD!
Michael @ Mar 8th 2008 9:54PM
every time cable cos roll out services in new england it seems like they cover all of new england but leave a big gapping hole in the middle of their coverage region i call this hole my house
SC @ Mar 9th 2008 5:38PM
I live in Cambridge, MA and I got Tivo from Comcast a month ago. They came and brought a new DCH series Motorola box. It took them 4 attempts to install the TiVo software, then it worked for a few days, until there was a brief power outage in the building, from which the TiVo software never recovered. They were able to reset the box remotely so we could still watch TV, but with no DVR interface whatsoever. Then I got a new box and the whole story repeated a week later. Now the box would continuously try to boot up and then restart again. I ended up reverting to the old Comcast interface. Tivo did look better, but the interface was extremely(!) slow to respond to button presses and scrolling through the guide listing was painful. Also, there was no easy way to tell the percentage of space left on the hard drive, which is displayed on the main DVR screen by the regular Comcast interface. Dolby Digital was gone too. This is not really a service ready for public launch. You are not missing much by not having it!
Mr. E @ Mar 10th 2008 1:50PM
Thanks for that report, SC. I'm sure they will get (most of) the bugs worked out before they deploy it to everyone, and that's why they're running the tests. During the time it was working, how was the operation of the interface (searching, etc.)? Other than being slow and buggy, was it good? :)
Leonardo DiCrapio @ Mar 10th 2008 11:04AM
I think Cox chose New England out of pity because of the Patriots loss in the Super Bowl. Well, at least they didn't do a Super Bowl Shuffle prior to the game. Now that would have been embarassing (having children in Third World countries wearing 19-0 T-shirts is embarassment enough).