Liberty Globals's CEO has stated that - for now - Virgin Media will continue to use and deploy TiVo within the UK digital cable network
Following
Liberty's purchase of Virgin Media, there's been speculation that Liberty would be replacing TiVo with
Horizon - Liberty's own next-generation TV platform. Recombu's
comparison between the two platforms reveals some advantages for Horizon (like 4 tuners compared to 3 for Virgin's TiVo) and cons (no Catch-Up EPG - TiVo goes back 7 days).
Speaking via
C21 Media, Liberty CEO Mike Fries believes that its too soon to compare the platforms or for Liberty to start swapping out TiVo hardware and firmware for Horizon:
Virgin has done a terrific job with TiVo and there’s been a
tremendous acceptance among their digital subscriber base – 35% have
already asked for the box and received it. We need to learn more about
the device and the relationship, but from what we understand at this
level, it’s working very, very well.
Thus far when you look at the market, TiVo is a leader in the
connected TV space and Virgin Media, as a result, is driving the level
of innovation that competitors can’t really react to. So I’d be
surprised if we did anything to mess that up at this point.
Virgin's deal with TiVo is expected to run for
another 4 years and isn't affected by the change of ownership for the Cable company. After that, all bets are off. Liberty may want to use their own product to standardise rollout through their European markets. Interestingly enough, Liberty Global did consider using TiVo firmware to deploy to their customers, before deciding to develop their solution which became Horizon.
BroadBandTVNews.Com
speculates that there could be
"some pooling of resources and a roadmap, probably several years down the
line, which brings Horizon and TiVo somewhere together. Virgin’s 1.33
million and growing TiVo installs make it somewhat impractical to
consider anything else."
