TiVo has introduced a small product iteration to its TiVo Stream 4K connected TV device designed to help users find their perfect SVOD, AVOD and vMVPD matches.

“TiVo Match Score” is a new feature found in TiVo Stream, the interface that sits atop the Android TV operator tier software that powers the TiVo Stream 4K. As outlined in this TiVo blog posting, the feature lets users scroll through a thumbnail menu of every available streaming service, applying a 1-100 score based on how each services programming matches the users algorithmically determined taste. 

Also read: TiVo Stream 4K Price Drops to $39

A late entry into the competitive race for OTT platform control, TiVo is betting on its software acumen. TiVo aims to take market share from incumbents Roku and Amazon by making its TiVo Stream platform a more intuitive device for navigating a paradigm in which the average user watches programming from at least seven different streaming services.

“Going forward, you’ll see us continue to invest heavily in this area,” TiVo says in its blog post. “TiVo is uniquely positioned to help you choose and optimize your streaming services. Unlike most competing platforms that may struggle with either the underlying technologies behind universal discovery (deep metadata and personalization), or with competing incentives to push their own content offering on you, TiVo’s only interest is in connecting you to the services and shows you’ll love the most.”

Also read: The Five Spot: Jon Kirchner, CEO, Xperi (Q&A)

The Tivo Stream interface is currently confined to the TiVo Stream 4K HDMI dongle, which debuted in April and is currently selling at Amazon and Walmart for $39. But TiVo has bigger plans for Stream, with new parent company Xperi looking for channels like smart TV, an industry in which it is already an established OEM partner. 

Xperi executives recently told investors that smart TVs powered by TiVo Stream should hit shelves in the second half of 2021

TiVo’s chief revenue officer, Matt Milne, said the company’s new consumer-grade streaming device, the TiVo Stream 4K, should hit the market in “the next few weeks.”

Speaking during a keynote session last Tuesday (April 28) during the Virtual Next TV Summit, part of Future’s Virtual NYC TV Week Spring, Milne said TiVo product developers have been working at home amid the pandemic to get the Android TV-based OTT device ready to market.

At CES in January, where TiVo introduced the $70 dongle and successfully created buzz for it, the company touted an April release date for the TiVo Stream 4K.

The TiVo 4K Stream will have access to all the apps available in the Google Play Store via Android TV. What will make it different from other OTT devices, Milne said, is its ability to tap TiVo’s sizable search and discover resources.

“We’re investing well over $100 million a year at a foundational level to help people with discovery,” he said. “This is a product built for the streaming wars. It’s built to bring all that content together.”

Users of streaming services, Milne said, spend an average of 11 minutes searching among an average of seven subscription VOD, AVOD and other OTT programming sources for a movie, TV show, or news or sports event.

The TiVo 4K Stream will allow users to navigate their apps through the traditional “Gemstar grid,” Milne said. But it will also offer a separate user interface based on TiVo’s proprietary search and discovery UI.

TiVo, he said, will become a “neutral third party,” with SVOD and AVOD platforms available to, in turn, anonymously monitor app usage through its platform.

TiVo isn’t totally neutral — it recently launched its own AVOD platform, TiVo Plus. Milne didn’t say whether or not TiVo Plus has any kind of priority status in terms of what search and discovery results users might get on TiVo Stream 4K.

“We see this as a merchandiser opportunity,” Milne said. “How do we connect the consumer to the content?”

Also at the Virtual Next TV Summit, a panel of programming executives talked about their services’ place in the streaming world and ways they are adapting. Craig Engler, general manager of AMC Networks-owned Shudder, the horror-themed subscription VOD service, said the disruption in the movie theater world prompted an April 28 “surprise drop” on Shudder of new original movie Blood Quantum that was originally supposed to debut in Alamo Drafthouse theaters. “That’s fun, because it creates excitement for people” who subscribe to the service, Engler said.

Rachel Brill, senior VP and general manager of B/R Studio, at WarnerMedia-owned Bleacher Report, said B/R is moving more toward integrating social and original programming within the app, notably with three days of NFL Draft coverage. The aim is to find shareable moments. “How do you truly create an all encompassing immersive experience for sports fans?” she said.

William Sager, chairman and CEO of The Preview Channel, said the year-old, OTT-delivered service plans to add new channels devoted to previews and trailers about video games and classic movies. “We are off and running” and serving passionate fans of games and movies, he said.

Brendon Thomas, VP of distribution at Viacom-owned Pluto TV, said at the ad-supported (free) VOD service “we do see ourselves a bit more as programmers than aggregators,” focused on optimizing the content it has used to create more than 250 “live linear-like channels” plus on-demand programming. 

Kent Gibbons contributed to this story.

TiVo, as it promised, has introduced an app for the Fire TV that lets its users watch shows and movies recorded to the DVR on the Amazon-made OTT device.  

Ira Bahr, TiVo’s chief marketing officer, told the TiVo Community Forum last week that the app, currently carrying the beta label, would arrive sometime this week.

Dave Zatz of the ZatzNotFunny blog has already fired it up (the image above is courtesy of Zatz) and has shared his initial observations in this post, and discovered some issues with it.

“Having only played with it about five minutes, my initial observation is that this was clearly designed for or tested against something other than a television given little thought to overscan,” he wrote. “Without adjusting my Fire TV’s settings, elements in the lower left, upper left, and upper right were clipped on my television.”

But he still called the effort a “good start in simplifying interaction for a lean back experience… as the bulk of the app is simply an easily navigated listing of recordings from your linked DVR.”

TiVo has not announced when its app for the Fire TV will support live TV, a  capability that is currently  supported in the TiVo Mini client.

And time will tell if TiVo decides to push harder on a “TiVo Anywhere “ strategy that could help the company brings its platform to more retail platforms, including gaming consoles and smart TVs, following its decision to convert to the open-source Haxe multiplatform programming language.

Zatz also notes that the new function will require that the primary TiVo device is outfitted with video transcoding – either on board the DVR or via the  TiVo Stream sidecar.