As industry shifts to a “whole home” approach, TiVo has augmented their traditional DVR hardware lineup with nodes designed to receive content from a Premiere hub. Their first stab was the TiVo Preview, exclusive to TiVo’s US MSO partners, which both tunes digital cable via CableCARD and receives streamed recordings from a Premiere DVR. Earlier this year, TiVo announced plans for a potentially cheaper extender that does away with CableCARD support and instead co-opts a tuner from an existing TiVo Premiere elsewhere in the home to provide live TV functionality. Unlike the TiVo Preview, this “IP STB” was also slated for retail availability and recently branded as the TiVo Mini. TiVo’s original guidance called for a late summer release… which was later modified to fall. At this point, I’ve heard from multiple solid sources that a retail launch is no longer on the table for 2012, although the Mini has been in testing for some time and *MSO availability is still a possibility. A TiVo spokesperson declined to comment on the record… but, taking a page from FiveThirtyEight, I’m willing to bet TiVo, Inc $1000 that I’m correct.

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