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RiseStar · September 14th, 2008, 08:02 PM

TiVo has announced that they have extended their service agreement with DirecTV, a new 5 year deal, which now includes the development, marketing and distribution of a new high definition DVR featuring the popular TiVo service. This looks to be the beginning to an end of a strained relationship between the two. In 2005, shortly after NDS took the reins at DirecTV, it was announced that DirecTV would be switching to in-house NDS designed DVR’s, for new installations. The new boxes paled in comparison to the older DirecTV-TiVo systems and were not overly popular as the interface was cold and uninviting compared to the friendly TiVo interface.

In 2006, DirecTV and TiVo extended their service agreement for an additional 3 years, allowing them to extend their service to existing customers, however neither they nor DirecTV were marketing to new customers.

Now that NDS is no longer calling the shots at DirecTV, it makes sense for them to revisit the TiVo platform again and get them back on board. Welcome news for TiVo and DirecTV customers. Many of DirecTV’s 16 million customers still have a DirecTV-TiVo DVR, however the numbers have been decreasing due to the in availability of new equipment.

TiVo has announced that their new HD DirecTV-TiVo receiver should be available sometime in the second quarter of 2009. It is expected to support high speed internet access as well as supporting all of TiVo’s latest features.

For the meantime, DirecTV will continue to offer its own in-house equipment for new and existing customers.

TiVo DVR’s have recently begun to become available to some select cablevision providers as well, such as select cities using Comcast and Cox. With cable-satellite competition being the way it is, it is definitely a win-win situation for customers, TiVo and DirecTV, especially in light of the recent TiVo vs. Echostar legal skirmishes which provide added incentives to get on board the TiVo train or risk big DVR royalty payouts for use of competing DVR systems that may infringe on TiVo’s patents.