TiVo finally makes it across the pond

TiVo is coming to Europe at last, hurray. Anyone who has seen the quality TiVo service in the US will know what I’m talking about, others will be a bit baffled. TiVo invented the digital video recorder (DVR) that everyone in the UK calls Sky Plus (Sky +) because that’s pretty much how it’s been named over here. Even the Freeview DVR is called Freeview +.

TiVo had already cut a deal last year with Virgin Media, the cable TV company that merged with Virgin Mobile in the UK, and today it has cut another deal with Conax, the conditional access subsidiary of Telenor, which will almost certainly lead to TiVo services going to Scandinavia during 2011. Conax said this morning it will provide an integrated platform with TiVo plus its own conditional access (encryption).

TiVo services are produced through a client-server type relationship, with the DVR and a number of remote servers on the internet (in the cloud as people say these days). Video on Demand can now be streamed over the public internet and the TiVo middleware will support that in the DVR and at the server end. In the US TiVo has signed up with about 4 separate suppliers of online video and has just launched its newest Series 4 user interface and DVR design, optimized for taking content over the internet.

The key thing about a TiVo is the way it can integrate all four of those internet sources into one search engine and search terms can be keyed into a qwerty remote control, with its own screen. Its server side software unravels all the searches, and sends them on to their respective services and brings all the results back to one screen on your TV.

Virgin will launch it in the UK before the year end, and initially talked about a deal being done with TiVo back in November, but gave no details of any service it would launch until recently.

Another side to the Virgin service is that it will also use aggregated viewing information collected from remote control clicks, to ensure the right adverts are delivered to each viewer, based on his or her likes and dislikes. Web interactivity will also be in place, so that anyone can click on a part of the screen and suddenly go to an internet portal where they can buy what’s on the screen, vote or download more information about an advert.

TiVo tried to launch in the UK back in 2001 and gave up, leaving customers that had bought a device high and dry, but now looks like it is coming back through key partnerships right across Europe, so expect more deals launched this Summer.

There are no service or device prices yet but the TiVo box costs between $300 and $500 in the US (so around £250 and £400 we expect) but this might be partially subsidized by a pay TV monthly service charge – a bit like getting a mobile phone with a contract. Expect more details in the Autumn. TiVo only supplies the software to the DVRs so the brands on the devices are likely to be the usual suspects of Sony, Toshiba and Humax we expect, running the TiVo box software which runs on a variant of Linux.