At the recent Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association (CEDAC) trade show, TiVo (TIVO, Financial) pulled out all the stops. This trade show basically features all the flashy new offerings in the world of home theatre. The company has pioneered the DVR space for the past fifteen years and now once again on September 8, TiVo unravelled its next huge server-sized TiVo Mega which has a phenomenal storage capacity compared to any cable or satellite TV set-top box DVR. Let’s take a sneak peek into some of the interesting features which might help to win the consumer’s attention. Here we go.
The dramatic features
The huge TiVo Mega that looks more like a rack server contains a whopping 24 terabyte of storage capacity and has a RAID 5 arrangement with hot-swappable drives. What that actually means is that it can store up to 26,000 hours of SD footage. Interestingly this storage quantity would work out to be about three years of TV coverage. This is really huge when we are speaking of recording TV in HD which works out to be only around 4,000 hours in five months in this era. Then what about storing three years of television data? That seems a bit insane but TiVo puts it as a salient feature for the model.
The TiVo mega features six tuners for recording, which should prevent the user from running into conflict between watching live TV and trying to save other programs for later viewing. The model will also allow users to stream the live and recorded TV data to smartphones, PC devices and tablets. Users can also totally control the DVR with a tablet or smartphone. As per TiVo chief marketing officer, Ira Hahr – “TiVo Mega is aimed at audio/video enthusiasts who insist on the biggest and best equipment available. We think the TiVo interface is ideally suited to manage a library of this size.”
Well, size matters a lot to people who hate to remove the recorded TV shows from their DVR for clearing space for newer uploads. Now, with the TiVo mega which offers more than 12 times the storage capacity of any cable or satellite DVR, their dreams are set to come true as they can just keep on adding more records without bothering much on deletion.
The best device for video addicts
Among the features in the TiVo mega, it includes universal search across cable, video on demand and also hosts webapps such as Netflix and YouTube. It displays a “What to Watch” feature with a personalized dashboard of recommendations for users. It also has a channel guide with filters that offer users another option for discovering various programming choices.
It seems as if TiVo is trying to make a statement by bringing this device to the market and is focusing on "bigger is better" – particularly with TiVo’s deals with other related video-streaming providers.
At a whopping $5,000
The price is indicative that this system is not meant for ALL TV addicts –Â it’s mainly targeted at the extreme, high-end AV enthusiasts who want a simple solution for recording huge amounts of TV footage. “It’s a statement product. Clearly at this price point and capabilities, this product is not for the mainstream” –Â this information was shared by an analyst of C4 Trends while discussing on the product features with TechNewsWorld.
Last word
With this new product slated to enter the markets in 2015, TiVo is positioning the TiVo Mega to remain relevant in the niche markets. However, “its six-stream feature, along with multiroom, on-the-go and other features and capabilities, may fit rather well into a highly integrated high-end custom A/V and videophile niche." So, let’s stay tuned and wait for the final market release.
