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Businesses Television

TiVo, Xperi to Merge in $3 Billion Entertainment Tech Deal (hollywoodreporter.com) 21

Posted by msmash from the moving-forward dept.
Xperi and TiVo said Thursday that they have entered a definitive agreement to combine in an all-stock entertainment technology deal with an enterprise value of approximately $3 billion. From a report: Xperi sells audio, imaging and computing technology products. TiVo had previously planned to split into two companies, one focused on products and the other on intellectual property. "The transaction creates a leading consumer and entertainment technology business and one of the industry's largest intellectual property (IP) licensing platforms with a diverse portfolio of entertainment and semiconductor intellectual property," they said. Xperi shareholders will own approximately 46.5 percent of the combined business, and TiVo shareholders will own approximately 53.5 percent. The combined firm, headquartered in San Jose, Calif., will use the Xperi name, but continue to provide entertainment services under the TiVo brand, alongside Xperi brands, such as HD Radio and Imax Enhanced.
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TiVo, Xperi to Merge in $3 Billion Entertainment Tech Deal More

TiVo, Xperi to Merge in $3 Billion Entertainment Tech Deal

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  • Bye TiVo... it was a fun ride. (Score:3)

    by the_skywise ( 189793 ) on Thursday December 19, 2019 @11:23AM (#59537334)

    Unless TiVo starts adding full streaming support to their devices (ala Roku, AppleTV) they're effectively a dead end technology. Cablecards have been given the boot by the FCC and cable providers are locking down their networks so you have to use their devices (for a minimal, steadily increasing, rental fee of course!).
    But with cord cutting, Cable TV is effectively dead ended anyway - so that leaves Over The Air DVR service and streaming. TiVo's only niche here is to support both but it does neither very well these days and broadcast TV is probably also on its last legs.
    I've had a TiVo in some shape or form for almost 20 years and watched it go from cutting edge technology to get control of the hundreds of channels of content, ad-skipping and smart suggestion recording to "boomer tech" including forced ad watching, mislabeled schedules and a suggestion AI that thinks I only like crime shows when I've never watched ONE.
    Fare thee well TiVo... it was a fun ride.

    • I have been a loyal TiVO user since my Series 2. The thing that kept me for so long was their simple and consistent interface that worked. That interface started going downhill when they switched to the HD menu and now they seem to do things to intentionally piss off users. This latest change to stick ads everywhere is it for me.

      • Their last innovative "gasp" which I thought was an interesting idea was to index all the shows across all your services. Want to see a particular movie? Here's when it's on next on cable, where you can stream it or rent/purchase it from all from a unified interface. But that ended quickly when the services closed their APIs.

    • Unless TiVo starts adding full streaming support to their devices (ala Roku, AppleTV) they're effectively a dead end technology.

      They've had streaming capability for quite some time now.

      I bought one, a Tivo OTA unit, that came with lifetime guide support and 2 little mini tiros...I use the main one hooked to my antenna for DVR of broadcasts and can watch in any room with a tv.

      This works well, but I Found the streaming apps on it to be SLOOOOOW.

      So, I also got a FireTV on each tv for when I want to watch m

      • Yes the speed used to SUCK. The claimed performance improvement with the Bolt, however, was legit even if it's hump design is obnoxiously stupid. The streaming apps are actually usable. Too bad they've ruined it all by forcing ads before every recording and plastering ads for their new TiVO+ service all over the guide and other places. Not to mention that the update that brought us all those ads (which is what we specifically bought TiVOs to avoid!!!!) also brought bugs to the menu/guide system so it will r

        • Too bad they've ruined it all by forcing ads before every recording and plastering ads for their new TiVO+ service all over the guide and other places. Not to mention that the update that brought us all those ads (which is what we specifically bought TiVOs to avoid!!!!) also brought bugs to the menu/guide system so it will randomly jump back to where you started no matter how many pages you've "scrolled".

          Oh wow....is this update only on the Tivo Bolt??

          I need to check my Tivo OTA and see if this is on ther

          • Yes I believe the adware "update" (malware?) is only for Bolt and newer systems. Our's got it about a month ago now, but I think it started rolling out before that based on the forum posts I found at the time. You can call and scream at them and they'll turn off the pre-roll ads, but they claim they can't remove the self serving TiVO+ ads they have embedded in other places.

            If I was on a monthly contract I would have canceled already, but as I have the lifetime sub for this unit I'm still finding it hard to

    • I've been using TiVo for about as long as you, and I dumped cable for an antenna about 10 years ago now and never looked back once, and don't do 'streaming' because it's a trap.
      If they fuck up TiVo, or kill TiVo and DVRs entirely.. so much for watching TV. I won't even have much reason to own a TV anymore. Without being able to time-shift, TV is useless to me, I'm never around to watch anything when it's being broadcast, and I'd sooner have my arms and legs cut off than pay any monthly subscription fees an
  • Wow, there's a tech company I haven't thought about in ages. I always assumed that they had been absorbed by the Comcast collective long ago.

  • Tivo was the Palm Pilot of TV's. It had a great, simple interface. It was a trailblazer to a whole category and feature set - and they lost their lead against the big boys.

    Now Tivo has gone the way of Yahoo and AOL - their value is only in the name, there's no actual product left that resembles their origin.

    Sad, really.

  • if you watch live TV then just stream a missed show via the app from the channel you were going to watch it on

    • IF you pay for the channel or IF the show is actually available on the app.
      There's also a situation where the TiVo was SO good at what it did that I would happily let it record up a season's worth of shows, trusting in its ability, and then not get to them until months later when any shows missed (like due to bad cable signal) wouldn't be available. Granted this all pretty much goes away as on demand becomes more and more the standard.

      • i guess it's useful if you're a hardcore TV watcher and missing a single episode is some catastrophe, but i dumped live tv years ago and don't have this problem with streaming platforms

        • ...until the show you were watching gets pulled from the streaming service because the producer decided to create their own competing streaming service.
    • You're assuming everyone is dumb enough to call themselves a 'cord cutter' then PAY for 'streaming', which is JUST ANOTHER CORD YOU'RE PAYING FOR. Amazing how many of you are so easily duped.
  • Looks more like an acquisition, then licensing company more than actually making or developing anything. Bye Bye Tivo. I just hope the lifetime service keeps going.

  • But I don’t think I’ve watched anything on it for at least two years.

    Maybe I should ask the wife if she’d mind if I sold it?

  • I remember when we bought our ReplayTV, and we thought it was better than TiVo, but like Betamax, it didn't win. But now the founder of ReplayTV has a new company, Roku, that is a big part of the streaming wave that is killing DVRs.

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