TiVo Faces Competition From SDV’s

The SDV or Switched Digital Video committments of Scientific Atlanta have swelled to over 7 million homes. This is according to a report from Cisco, the parent company of Scientific Atlanta. The plan is to extend the video and data network management to the optical node. In this manner the network investment will be maximized. QAM’s or quadrature amplitude modulators will be shared across bothe SDV and VoD (Video on Demand) traffic.

With plans like this TiVo is going to face stiff competition. The fact of the matter is that 7 million homes account for more than 10% of US cable subscribers. In addition reports indicate that Time Warner will provide SDV to more than 50% of their customer homes in this year.

Bandwidth is more effectively utilized by SDV. Many TiVo owners are concerned by these developments. Questions like when a technical solution will be relased for TiVo’s shortcomings and who will foot the bill raise concern.

Concerns about so many CableCARD set tops being in the field are put to rest by a technical person who says that cable set tops have a greater functionality than retail set tops right now.