Hi-def and DVRs go together like peanut butter and jelly, but even with all the great DVRs available today, none are perfect. TiVo offers the best overall user experience and features, but lacks a few fundamental features that most cable STBs have -- like VOD, for starters. Although this isn't TiVo's fault, when it comes down to figuring out what's right for your family, it really doesn't matter. During Tivo's earnings call yesterday, it was
reaffirmed that TiVo is working one step closer to making the ultimate cable DVR by including two-way functionality using the
latest CableLabs standard tru2way. For those who haven't been keeping track at home,
tru2way has undergone an
identity crisis, and if you go back long enough, you'll find that it was called CableCARD 2.0 --
by someone. The way this would work is that you'd have a way on a TiVo to access the cable company's UI, so good or bad, when you're accessing VOD content, you'd see the same thing as if you were using a Moto or
SA Cisco box. What isn't known is if current
HD TiVo owners, with the help of
a tuning resolver and some software, would have access to the same features. We don't see why not, but this stuff is already way more complicated than it should be, and at this point we wouldn't put anything by
CableLabs.
