TiVo's interface, but not its DVR, is coming to Best Buy's Insignia HDTVs

While TiVo made its name by popularizing the DVR, its hardware sales have been stunted by pay TV providers baking digital recording into their own set-top boxes. The company has responded by offering its interface, which outclasses most of its cable competition, to other firms (most notably partnering with DirecTV).

The latest adopter is Best Buy, which will add the TiVo platform to its Insignia house brand of HDTVs at an unspecified date. (The exact phrase is "development is underway.") Unfortunately, the press release announcing the deal explicitly states that the sets will be using the "latest TiVo non-DVR software and advanced television service." In other words, don't look for a DVR being integrated into these new TVs.

Instead, the emphasis will be on the connected services that TiVo now offers, like video streaming from Netflix and Amazon Video On Demand and music streaming from Rhapsody. Considering every other TV manufacturer has created some kind of Internet-app platform for its new sets, this is a smart move for Best Buy to harness the TiVo brand. It's just a shame that it won't build a DVR into those HDTVs.