MaxLinear Tunes In TiVo Deal

Posted on Tuesday, September 13, 2011 by MegaZone

TiVo Premire Elite with remote - front Semiconductor provider MaxLinear is providing the integrated tuner and QAM demodulator chips for the TiVo Premiere Q, TiVo Premiere Elite, and TiVo Preview. Their press release also solves the question of the naming of the Premiere Q and Premiere Elite. It looks like ‘Q’ will be the MSO model and ‘Elite’ will be the retail model after all. From the release:

The competition in today’s residential gateway and STB market is fierce and manufacturers are challenged with developing multi-channel designs where small size and low power devices have become critical for meeting MSO requirements. The MxL241SF is an easy and cost effective method for adding channels in more complex STBs and gateways.

The MxL241SF combines MaxLinear’s cutting-edge front-end RF technology with a proven QAM demodulator solution. The device tunes to 256 QAM and 64 QAM channels up to 1GHz and provides a standard MPEG transport stream output for DOCSIS and video applications while meeting the high performance, low power and small form factor requirements for developing next-generation, multi-tuner cable video gateways and advanced set-top boxes (STBs). The device also supports legacy out-of-band (OOB) reception with CRX/DRX outputs to a CableCARD™, and one is used in each of the TiVo boxes for this function.

“This design win with TiVo is an important milestone for MaxLinear. TiVo sets extremely high standards for its products, and TiVo’s selection of our cable tuner-demodulator SoC is a wonderful validation of our exceptional CMOS broadband RF/mixed-signal IC technology,” said Brian Sprague, MaxLinear’s Vice-President, and General Manager for Broadband & Consumer products. “TiVo has found the MxL241SF to provide the ideal tradeoff between cost, power and space to be able to incorporate multiple receivers in the form factors of existing platforms as well as enabling smaller form factor platforms such as the TiVo Preview.”

The release also confirms some info we’d already heard about the TiVo Preview having a built-in CableCARD tuner:

The Premiere Q is connected to the main cable drop and communicates to the TiVo Preview, which functions as a thin client in other rooms throughout the house creating a fantastic multi-room viewing experience. The TiVo Preview also can be used by cable operators as a standalone HD cable STB.

It must have it’s own tuner if it can be used as a standalone STB.

A related press release on the MxL241SF has some more info on the chip for the curious.

So now we know which tuners will be used in the new products.

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MegaZone is the Editor of Gizmo Lovers and the chief contributor. He's been online since 1989 and active in several generations of 'social media' - mailing lists, USENet groups, web forums, and since 2003, blogging.    MegaZone has a presence on several social platforms: Google+ / Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn / LiveJournal / Web.    You can also follow Gizmo Lovers on other sites: Blog / Google+ / Facebook / Twitter.
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  • Fanfoot

    So does this resolve whether the preview is Digital only or not?  I assume it is, but I know that was one of the questions open.

    Also, I’m still interested in how the Q is going to handle trick play.  Any insights?  A flash buffer?  30 second rewind only? 

  • Fanfoot

    So does this resolve whether the preview is Digital only or not?  I assume it is, but I know that was one of the questions open.

    Also, I’m still interested in how the Q is going to handle trick play.  Any insights?  A flash buffer?  30 second rewind only? 

    • http://www.gizmolovers.com/ MegaZone

      Not quite officially, but it does for me.  I’m sure the Preview is all-digital in light of this info.  It sounds like a junior version of the platform for the Q/Elite.  Possibly even the same board with fewer components populated – one tuner instead of four, etc.  Though without the drive there is no need for SATA, etc., so there may be enough savings to justify a different board to shrink the size.

      I suspect the Preview will work much like Roku and other streaming-only boxes.  It’ll have enough RAM for a limited rolling buffer.  Depending on the cost trade off they could easily include enough RAM for a 30 minute buffer.

      • Fanfoot

        I guess that’s right.  At 20Mbps (absolute upper end) you’d need about 4.5GB for a half hour, so a 4GB stick at under $20 should handle all you need.  So as long as you don’t need to fast-forward past the end of the current buffer (can you jump to ticks to restart the buffer? maybe you just return to play if you fast-forward to the end?) and you don’t rewind past the beginning (same questions, except how would you rewind past the start since its probably not buffering that up anew?) it should all be quite seamless.

        • http://www.gizmolovers.com/ MegaZone

          That’s the way the Live TV buffer works on today’s TiVo.  You have a 30 minute sliding window going back from ‘now’.  You can RW to the start of the buffer but not beyond, it’ll stop and start playing.  And you can FF up to ‘now’ but not beyond, it starts playing in real time.  Obviously you can’t go past ‘now’ since you haven’t received anything yet. :-)

          Streaming content will probably work differently.  If you’re streaming from another TiVo it could do the heavy lifting and adjust the stream it is sending.  Or if you have the bandwidth just stream the data faster than ‘real time’.