Offering a physical reminder that the golden age of pay TV isn’t totally gone, TiVo is getting set to debut its next-generation DVR for its cable operator clients.
According to redacted FCC documents first unearthed by Variety, the new device is being manufactured by Arris (recently purchased by CommScope) and will be the “Series 7” follow-up to the Series 6 Bolt digital video recorder, which was introduced back in 2015.
Arris is also the manufacturer of the Bolt, which TiVo sold through both its consumer products division and its B2B MSO business.
TiVo isn’t officially commenting on the new hardware.
TiVo said during its first-quarter earnings call in May that 22 million pay TV households around the world use its “advanced television experience.”
Lately, TiVo has been distributing its UX through Android TV-powered set-tops and other thin-client OTT devices. But the product-photo-bereft FCC filing is a reminder that the old business of supplying full-featured DVRs to MSO clients hasn’t totally gone away.
It was speculated that CommScope might split off and sell Arris’ video CPE business after its purchase of the company earlier this year.
Dell’Oro Group analyst Jeff Heynen, however, isn’t necessarily convinced.
“Set-tops are a mature business but they’re still a good run rate business if you can manage cost and manage supply chains,” Heynen told MCN in a recent interview. “Certainly, the set-top box market is declining, but it still throws off a lot of cash CommScope didn’t have before.”
