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Before we discuss this, a cable box powered by TiVo (like TiVo Premiere (read the review from Engadget)) is better than other cable boxes because its user interface (which is based on Adobe Flash) has the best high resolution. TiVo cable boxes are not only in the US, but recently it will also be in the UK on Virgin Media (read the article).

With a TiVo cable box becomes a new revolution on digital cable, should Canadian cable providers will have this? It's your opinion. Are you agree or disagree?

 

[Costa]

Yes, they should allow PVR/DVR alternatives simply because of this....

Let's step back from specific product recommendations and think about the big picture for a second, though. TiVo has almost always defined itself as the shining alternative to garbage cable company DVRs, so much so that its customers willingly give up video on demand to use its more reliable and flexible recording interface. But TiVo's also historically been the only real alternative -- no other company has ever entered the mainstream DVR market with a great product at scale and at a competitive price, and that means TiVo's never had to really compete against anything except its own extremely popular products. That's a recipe for timid incremental change, which is exactly what the Premiere feels like -- TiVo says it's reinventing the DVR, but all it's really done from a consumer perspective is add some nice new (slow) menus to the TiVo HD. The problem is that moving at such a snail's pace has allowed the cable companies to catch up and consumers to move on; if cheap / free cableco DVRs were TiVo's greatest existential threat of the past decade, the combination of cheap / free / good cableco DVRs and the online-only content customer might be the fatal blow of this one. The Premiere is the DVR we wanted two years ago -- TiVo's challenge will be to make it the DVR we want two years from now.

 

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This device requires a CableCARD, which will not be used in Canada. If you search for CableCARD, you'll find several previous threads on the topic.

There are also several threads on TiVo in Canada. This thread will be closed. If you wish to discuss, please do so in one of the existing threads, but read them first because the topic has been discussed extensively.