TiVo's new network DVR just passed through the FCC
The 'Mantis' records from your antenna but doesn't plug directly into a TV.
TiVo is dropping the ax on its oldest DVRs at the end of this month, but Zatz Not Funny points to an FCC filing that might show what's next for the company. Thanks to the documents themselves, there's not a lot of confusion about what the device is. Dubbed the Mantis (for now) this box breaks from previous TiVo hardware by lacking any kind of video out. Instead, the owner plugs in an antenna, while the Mantis takes care of recording and transcoding video that then streams to other devices over the network.
The TiVO Inc. model TCD84A000 (Mantis) is a network DVR that is designed to receive OTA broadcast video and transcodes and send it out as a network stream either wired or wireless.
If it sounds familiar, that's probably due to competitors like Tablo and Simple.tv offering similar products. I couldn't find any notes in the document pointing to built-in storage, although the diagrams don't seem to show a device with space for a large built-in drive -- whether that means BYO hard-drive or some kind of cloud-based network DVR setup remains to be seen.
In a recent chat with users, TiVo CMO Ira Bahr indicated the company will announce a new product on September 15th during the CEDIA event in Dallas, which is probably going to be an upgraded version of the 4K-capable Bolt. Zatz and forum posters figure this is actually another device, which Bahr said will debut during CES to compete with streaming boxes. We'll probably have to wait until then to see if TiVo does anything with the Aereo name, or if it adds streaming clients for connected TV devices other than the Fire TV.
