TVSquad

TiVo released its quarterly financial results yesterday and the company reports narrower than expected losses. And buried in CEO Tom Rogers' statement was this little nugget: TiVo is working on a standalone set top box that will support Tru2Way, the standard once known as OCAP.

What that means is that one day you'll be able to buy a TiVo box that has support for advanced digital cable functions like switched digital video, video on demand, and pay per view. Right now, the closest you can get is a Motorola box from Comcast that runs TiVo software. If you happen to live in the Boston area, that is. For folks in the rest of the country, you have a choice: TiVo, or video on demand. You can't have both on the same set top box.

Of course, by the time TiVo gets this new box to market, Comcast and Cox may have already rolled out TiVo software outside of New England.

[via TiVo Lovers]

It's been nearly two years since Microsoft announced plans to let DirecTV customers watch and record programs using Windows Vista Media Center. I wouldn't blame you if you'd kind of forgotten about the whole thing or thought that the two companies had given up on the idea. But Chris Lanier uncovered a Microsoft job listing that would seem to indicate that the companies are still working together.

This is a job posting, not a press release, so we have to read between the lines to figure out the details. But Microsoft is looking for a software design engineer to work with "newly developed dual-tuner TV receiver devices." In addition to the dual-tuner tidbit, it appears that the devices will support Pay-Per-View and H.264 HD video.

Of course, there's still no word on when you'll actually be able to get a tuner from DirecTV or how much it will cost.