Flush with success in the courts, TiVo turned a profit last year but is still heavily reliant on litigation for its revenues. The company is expanding on its existing partnerships with Cisco and Samsung in a deal with Pace to bring the TiVo experience to set-top boxes and gateways produced by the British set-top box company. TiVo has also signalled the launch later in the year of a four-stream transcoder product, about the size of the current Apple TV box, which will allow a user to stream live or recorded programming, or even download previously recorded programmes, to apps on smart phones or tablets.
Tom Rogers, the chief executive of TiVo, told analysts that the company is developing a new transcoder box that will work in conjunction with a digital video recorder and other hand-held screens as part of a new whole-home solution.
“We plan to launch a product later this year that we previewed at CES, which allows a viewer to seamlessly take recorded content to second screens such as iPads, iPhones or Android devices on either a streaming or side-loaded basis,” he said. “Its four-stream, fast side-load capability is something that other offerings don’t provide today and we believe is a critical element of a true on-demand whole home experience.”
Announcing results for the year to the end of January 2012, TiVo reported net income of over $100 million, boosted by over $230 million in payments from patent litigation settlements, compared to the $238 million the company received in operational revenues. A further case against Verizon is still outstanding.
TiVo previously announced a global partnership to port its software to products provided by Pace, a leading supplier of set-top boxes and media gateway products.
Mike Pulli, recently appointed as the chief executive of Pace from its American division, said: “We’ve seen increased interest from all segments of our service provider business to integrate the TiVo solution.”
Pace plans to offer implementations for both digital video recorder and advanced gateway set-top boxes globally, initially aiming at cable operators in the Americas.
TiVo currently offers its platform to a number of operators in the United States, including Charter, DIRECTV and soon Comcast, plus Virgin Media in the United Kingdom and ONO in Spain.
TiVo has so far successfully defended its position as one of the pioneers of the digital video recorder but now has establish a role in linking television to second screen devices. For operators like Virgin Media in the United Kingdom, that have partnered with TiVo, it could help develop the user proposition, further differentiating their services.