DirecTV Tivo

The number of programs on cable television seems to increase at an exponential rate. Each season, more and more channels come online, from movie channels to Korean news-–read in Spanish. This plethora of choices, however, has some problems. What happens if you have 16 movie channels, and three of them are playing movies you want to watch--at the same time?

Leveraging this, DirecTV and TiVo have developed a product that allows viewers to record two programs simultaneously while watching a third live. The devices, which are essentially overgrown VCRs, record--depending on the model--35, 70, or 100 hours worth of programming. The idea is that you will get the maximum value for your cable dollar, since you won't miss any shows. Of course, whether or not anyone truly needs 225 channels is an entirely different question.

Recently, however, DirecTV stopped encouraging its 14.7 million subscribers to use TiVo. The company will be pushing its in-house brand of DVR, called DirecTV Plus DVR. The DVR is designed to work with the company's new interactive features, which allow users to see local weather reports, watch several channels at once and call up sports scores. It will also allow the company to offer pay-per-view movies on demand.

The impact of this decision on TiVo is unknown. TiVo officials declined to speak about the DirecTV DVR, but the addition of a competitor is not good news for the company. Nearly two-thirds of the company's subscribers are through DirecTV. However, many analysts believe that TiVo's recent partnership with Comcast will keep the company health in the coming years.