TiVo is planning a new product, called the TiVo Mavrik, as David Zatz reported yesterday for Zatz Not Funny, along with leaked images of the device. And now, after a second leak, we know that the Mavrik is an over-the-air streaming cloud DVR. Which is to say: it’s a DVR, but instead of storing your shows locally on a hard disk, it stores them up in the cloud and you just stream them when you want to watch them.
A set-top box that can record OTA television directly to the cloud for streaming is nothing new: Boxee tried it several years ago with the Boxee Cloud DVR, and the concept can be traced even further back to the similarly defunct Aereo. Those services failed for different reasons, but the core idea of a cloud-based DVR is still appealing to a certain group of users.
Even in today’s cord-cutting era, where streaming services like Netflix and Hulu try to provide for most television-watching needs, it’s still difficult to compete with actual broadcast television when it comes to making sure you have access to the shows you want to watch, when you want to watch them — as opposed to being forced to watch whatever happens to be on Netflix or waiting a week for Hulu to have a new episode.
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The Mavrik would be wired up directly to a TV antenna, although the leaked schematics don’t show any direct connection to a TV set, instead apparently streaming both live and recorded content directly to a TiVo app. Details are also slim on the Android app beyond the initial leak on Amazon, but it seems like the Mavrik will refresh TiVo’s software with a new interface.
Additionally, it seems from the leak that TiVo will be offering multiple tiers of cloud storage subscriptions for the Mavrik, but details, including storage options, cost, or a release date are still currently unknown.
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