RCN, one of the MSOs distributing TiVo HW to their customers, has expanded their TiVo distribution to include Philadelphia and the Lehigh Valley, PA. Philadelphia is one of the largest markets they’ve entered with TiVo, and it is Comcast’s back yard, so this should be interesting. The units are up on RCN’s Philadephia and Lehigh Valley sites.
RCN supplied TiVo Premiere units are the same hardware as the retail units, running software that is mostly the same. They share all of the same features with one major addition and two subtractions. The addition is support for RCN’s OnDemand library. Retail units can’t access RCN OnDemand, but their boxes can. The subtractions are Netflix and Amazon Instant Video, both not present on the RCN TiVo. We know Netflix is missing due to Netflix’s licensing with the studios forbidding them from streaming to MSO-provided STBs. It is believe Amazon is missing for the same reason. The RCN units do still have Blockbuster OnDemand and YouTube, however.
And while I’m speaking of RCN and the TiVo Premiere, we have a bit of an update as to when they expect to supply the new quad-tuner TiVo Premiere Q to customers. In a post on the DSL Reports forums, RCN’s Jason Nealis states:
Yes, There is news and the packaging and such are being put together. We are getting close… I’m hopeful that we can launch right around very early NOV.
Lots of moving pieces here, looking to get the billing codes corrected so we can get our sweepstakes winners installed by the end of the week.
The solution is awesome… If the Q can not be hardwired we will be using ActionTEC ECB’s do deliver MOCA Signal as well.
I should have a lot more info at the end of next week.
He goes on to say:
Hey Everyone, I’m actually at TiVo this week, but wanted to post this :
Quad MUST be hard-wired, if it physically can not be hardwired then a Actiontec ECB will be installed to light moca thru the house.
MOCA is really really nice, it lights up about a 100M link thru the RF. To prevent MOCA from leaving your home the TECH will install a POE Filter (point of entry filter) this will stop your MOCA signal from leaving the home.
It’s really plug and play as well, no wep keys , no SSID’s no signal strength.. IT’s REALLY nice. I’m a big fan of the ActionTec Solution.
Since the MSO TiVo Premiere Q and the retail TiVo Premiere Elite are basically the same unit with different size hard drives (500GB and 2TB respectively), that could also indicate the time frame when we’ll see the Elite available to consumers. We know TiVo’s original plan was to ship units in mid-September to have them on shelves in mid-October, and it later looked like we might see them October 7th, but TiVo would still be OK getting them out around the start of November. What they really want is to have them on the market for the heart of the holiday shopping season.
