Remember that "
lots of other providers" TiVo could be coming to? Looks like
RCN is one of them and best of all, this isn't some stripped down
Comcast TiVo overlay, the cabler plans to go all in with support for Amazon VOD, TiVoToGo, DVR Expander hard drives, multiroom and RCN's own VOD programming, and the ability to search across all of them at once. Expect this sometime in early 2010, when the cobranded TiVo DVRs will become RCN's primary DVR platform, the first offering of its kind. Of course we'd prefer a tru2way box we could take to the provider of our choice, but until the
Series4 drops, this might be the best option. Maybe now that the DVR company has cracked the cable market they can get to work on that
new interface we've been waiting for.
Update:
Multichannel News notes these could be available as early as January 1, for a premium of $3 - $5 per month, and new HD DVR subscribers will receive a CableCard-enabled HD TiVo, with "limited migrations" available for existing customers.
[Thanks, Jason]
posted Aug 4th 2009 9:58AM
There isn't anything in the article that rules out this being tru2way/Series 4 Tivo. If it were, it would just be a matter of co-branding vs. needing software which interacts in a proprietary way with the VOD services and/or tuning adapter, correct?
"...support for TiVoToGo..."
Does that mean setting the CCI byte to 0x00? Currently TWC sets the CCI byte to 0x02 on all channels except the local channels available via OTA, effectively killing TiVoToGo.
RCN would be setting a nice precedent.
As a current RCN TiVo HD user, I can confirm that they do currently set the CCI byte to 0x00
Ben:
You actually get to experience all the TTG glory. Nice!
Sounds like a good deal. I had RCN when I lived in the city. Their service was cheaper and nicer then Comcast and their CS was excellent. This sounds like great deal!
Go RCN.
About time! I'm an RCN customer in Chicago, and I used to have one of those god-awful Motorola HD PVRs. Aside from the terrible and pokey interface, you had to point the remote at the box _just_ right in order for it to work. It was just loads of frustration all the time. I can't even begin to say just how happy I was when the TiVo HD was finally affordable, and I finally switched back to TiVo!
Speaking of the Series4, I really hope they do something useful and not just on-demand. I don't know how often that really gets used, but I never had a desire to use it and now with Netflix and Amazon VOD, I'm pretty sure I never will. The only thing my TiVo Series3 doesn't do is a decent job playing non-TiVo media such as mp3 music and h.264/divx/mp4 video. It does it, but it does it really badly. If they add hardware support that works well and doesn't require on-the-fly transcoding, the TiVo will truly be a one-stop-shop for me.
I am a current RCN customer in the Lehigh Valley and I can say with complete confidence that they are a very good cable provider. Their customer support is very good and they are prompt when we require a service call. I just hope that they will exchange our Motorola boxes out for free because these look so much better. I will have to reprogram my harmony remote though which sucks.