A tipster writes in with knowledge of some of the improvements TiVo may be making to its devices. The most important: a move to full HD menus, improved search, and the phasing out of Series 2 hardware. Because the company stopped making improvements to the current software as of the middle of last year, our source believes that aside from minor add-ons like Blockbuster support the old UI and OS will be replaced by a fully HD version, available at first on Series 3 hardware.
He describes the move as something akin to Microsoft’s redesign of the Xbox Dashboard – a surface refresh that plays better with larger, HD TVs. This could also include new methods for adding apps and content to existing boxes.
There is obviously some talk of the TiVo Premiere coming with ATSC and cable card support. This, also, is still a rumor.
Our hope is this: new, cheaper hardware that supports HD recording and that can work without a cable card. (Tru2Way maybe?) Thanks to content providers, that may be a big fat pipe dream, but TiVo has a deep hole to climb out of, especially with the move towards cable-company DVRs even if those DVRs are far inferior to TiVo’s interface. TiVo made it big in a world without competitors and now they have many. Unless they can outfox those competitors, they’re sunk.