As seen on Slashdot, TiVo is in the news today, starting with a New York Times article (Registration required or visit Bugmenot that paints a bleak future for the company. With TiVo’s CEO promoted out of his job due to failing to close the Comcast deal, many talking heads on the ‘netare pointing to failed negotiation as sealing TiVo’s doom. According to these news reports, TiVo was offered less than one dollar a month from Comcast to license the TiVo technology in Comacst set top boxes. This offer was less than what DirecTV was currently paying, but Comcast has twice as many subscribers – almost 40 million. And it was no secret that with Rupert Murdoch’s acquisition of DirecTV that DirecTV was looking at other PVR ideas than TiVO, which has since been announced.

My thoughts? I believe TiVo is the greatest device invented in the last 20 years, eclipsing DVD, CD, and MP3 players (sorry folks, the internet has been around a lot longer than 20 years). TiVo has changed the way I live my life and watch TV. The functionality and features are second to none, including the old Replay I own or any other PVR or Media Center PC I’ve seen. TiVo’s Season Pass functionality to record a show on any channel, by new, repeat or any and all, ranking of what shows to record when, quality, I could go on forever. I would hate to see this company go under, but they just haven’t struck the deals necessary to keep going. By building their own box, and getting away from relationships with Sony and Philips, limited functionality with the TiVo basic service in DVD recorders, and the DirecTV deal slipping away from them, the writing looks to be on the wall.

And this doesn’t even touch on what the Broadcast Flag going live on July 1st could do to their functionality moving forward. Sure, existing devices will be grandfathered in, but will Big Media try and hamstring them after July 1st? Things like the Strangeberry acquisition and TiVo2Go (burning your shows from your TiVo to your PC and sharing them) are steps in the right direction, but is it too little to late?

I know in the future as I move to finish my basement, I have a goal of building a Home Theater PC that will run MythTV, a Linux PVR solution that layers on top of an existing Linux installation. MythTV is in active developement, and with the inclusion of a Linux HDTV card on the market, I will have similar functionality to record DirecTV programming (except their HD signals) and off air HD. MythTV will allow me to save my television shows on one box, and stream to any other Linux PC in my home, say, my den, as I’m gaming. From there, I can easily edit and burn to DVD to archive shows or save on DVD if my HD starts to get full. It also has a series of modules so I can check the weather on my TV, stream my music from the HTPC or my server, rip and back up DVDs or CDs, the list goes on.

I love my TiVo, but I may have to plan for a day they are no longer around.