Philips has announced it’s getting into the DVR software game. Apparently undeterred by the presence of TiVo, Microsoft, Verizon and Comcast/Gemstar, not to mention PC players like ReplayTV, the CE company has developed the Personal TV Channel. The software includes a program guide and recommendation engine for building a personal channel of favorite TV content. It will also be able to access Internet video and podcasts. On timing, the word is that a PC version will be available early next year (CES 2008?) as a free download for Windows Vista users and will ship to set-top makers within a year.

So here’s my question. What kind of set-tops is the Philips software built for? Cable or IPTV? Unless the company already has a deal in the works with TiVo, for which it used to manufacture hardware, I’d guess IPTV. Microsoft is close to the only game in town on that front, and I know operators would like a few options available.

Mom’s 32″ Vizio LCD

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On the financial end, TiVo’s quarterly call yesterday was largely depressing. USA Today summarizes:

The digital video recorder pioneer said late Wednesday that it took an $11.2 million write-down in the quarter ended in July for leftover standard DVRs. [...] The 18-cents-per-share loss far exceeded the 5-cent loss expected by analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial. [...] TiVo added just 623,000 subscriptions in the last two years as the number of homes with DVRs grew 161% to 23.5 million, according to Leichtman Research Group.

Not much good news there… However, Megazone listened in and reports on the Comcast front:

one of the first things I noticed is that Comcast has agreed to fund further development of the OCAP software to bring it to additional platforms beyond the Motorola DVRs, including Scientific Atlanta DVRs. [...] TiVo on Comcast is continuing to progress well and Comcast stated: “we will commence the TiVo rollout process shortly, which will continue rolling out throughout the fall in Comcast’s New England Division including metro Boston, Southeast Massachusetts and New Hampshire.”

After all this time, I wouldn’t have used the word “well” to describe their (slooow) progress. But I’m happy to hear a specific launch time frame and locale, though they neglected to mention pricing. Comcast needs to rapidly expand beyond the New England division if TiVo is going to capitalize on this arrangement. (And they need to.) Given Comcast’s extended development bankrolling (now SciAtl boxes!), that’s exactly what they must intend. (I wonder if Cox is paying for the same thing. It’s been a year… When will they roll out TiVo software?)

Megazone also picked up on forthcoming Amazon Unbox “progressive downloads” that can be watched as they are received. An interesting tidbit, but what they really need is HD content. Which TiVo must know… CEO Tom Rogers said yesterday that HDTV growth “progressed at a pace that surprised many in the industry, including us.”

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DirecTV’s Internet-connected pay-per-view service is now in beta. Like Amazon Unbox on TiVo, a networked set-top box (HR20 in this case) can pull from a library of content via the Internet. Download speed is variable (obviously) but media can be played back while coming in, and some content does expire. Hit this DBSTalk thread for more details. Not sure how big a selling point this is (compared to Sunday Ticket and Superfan), but it’s a “nice to have” - especially if they load it up with HD content. Speaking of which, where’s my Unbox in HD?

WeaKnees (a ZNF sponsor) has acquired a bunch of refurb Humax DVD burning TiVo units (DRT400). They can be had with the stock hard drive for $49 after rebate. $100 more gets you up to 350 hours of SD recording (versus 40). We’ve been very happy with the larger-capacity DRT800 (now in the bedroom) for several years as both a TiVo and DVD player/burner… though having single tuner has annoyed on occasion.

Towards the end of last week, two very interesting pieces of news came out of the cable industry…

First, I noticed over on TiVo Lovers that CableLabs has approved a new content protection system using traditional IP networking (in addition to the existing Firewire standard). Megazone speculates that TiVo knew this standard was under consideration (heck, they probably helped push for it), thus setting the stage for them to deliver on their Series3/HD TiVoToGo and Multi-room Viewing promises later this year.

Next up… SDV is spreading rapidly, but as many who invested in a high definition TiVo can tell you, this isn’t necessarily a good thing: switched channels free up bandwidth for cable providers, but folks using commercially available CableCARD devices get nada. We’ve heard for months that industry is working on a solution and, via Slashdot, Multichannel News reports:

The NCTA said cable has worked with individual consumer-electronics makers – it cited TiVo – to develop a solution that can provide two-way switched digital video channels to unidirectional digital cable products. This tuning resolver option requires a firmware update and a Universal Serial Bus 2.0 device.

This is potentially very good news and I’m impressed that it’s been proposed without the FCC dropping the hammer. Of course, it remains to be seen how quick something like this can make it to market (both hardware and software) and at what price. From where I’m sitting, the cable companies should underwrite the hardware and provide boxes to any customer in need.

In the next month, Cox will deploy SDV in neighboring Fairfax (VA) county. Multichannel News writes:

In Northern Virginia, where Cox has about 240,000 subscribers, the SDV system will go live systemwide in about 30 days, according to Kelso. Later this year, Cox plans to roll out the system in its Phoenix and Orange County, Calif., systems. Cox is the third major cable operator to publicly acknowledge using BigBand’s SDV.

Obviously the concern for many TiVo customers, and others with commercially available CableCARD set-top boxes or televisions, is that switched channels can’t be viewed. Supposedly folks are at work on this issue, which will only become more prominent as both CableCARD  and SDV penetration increases. I hope a solution can be worked out in a timely manner without the FCC stepping in, but I’m not feeling optimistic…

(Thanks, Alexi!)