TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Motorola Aims For TiVo Crowd/Comcast Customers Get New Cable Box

Motorola Aims For TiVo Crowd/Comcast Customers Get New Cable Box

Monty Solomon (monty@roscom.com)
Thu, 9 Dec 2004 17:25:44 -0500

Motorola aims for TiVo crowd

Comcast customers get new cable box with VCR powers

By Mike Hughlett
Tribune staff reporter

The television set-top box -- that ungainly contraption needed to
watch cable TV -- will never be a sexy product. But it is getting a
makeover that is helping to boost sales for Motorola Inc.

The new boxes, which are being introduced across the Chicago area for
Comcast cable customers, can record television shows much like a VCR.
The boxes can also store hours and hours of shows on a built-in hard
drive.

The digital video recorder technology, pioneered by TiVo, has caught
the fancy of consumers who want to save a season's worth of episodes
for a favorite TV show or simply record one show while watching
another.

Motorola and Georgia-based Scientific-Atlanta are the dominant
providers of set-top boxes. And their cable customers are starting to
flex their muscles on DVR technology and eat into TiVo's market share.

Satellite television remains a TiVo stronghold. But cable television
is a bigger market. Comcast, Motorola's biggest customer and the
nation's largest cable TV operator, is in the midst of a massive DVR
rollout.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/chi-0412080367dec08,1,419411.story

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