57 mins ago Jun. 11, 2013 – 6:00 AM PDT
Simple.tv, the DVR for cord cutters, is getting ready to release a new Roku app as well as an iPad app in the coming days, according to the company’s Mark Ely. Simple.TV is also announcing a partnership with Rovi at the Cable Show Tuesday, which foreshadows plans to turn Simple.tv into a full-blown cloud DVR player.
Simple.tv ‘s current offering is based on a single-tuner DVR that the company sells for $ 150 to $ 250, depending on service levels. The device promises to record over-the-air television on an external hard drive that users have to supply on their own, and then stream that programming as well as live TV to mobile devices, PCs and Roku streaming players. The service didn’t fare so well when we reviewed it back in October, but Ely told me Monday that especially playback on Roku has been greatly improved.
But Simple.tv doesn’t just want to get its apps to work better. The company also inked a partnership with Rovi to add Simple.tv to online video offerings powered by Rovi’s entertainment store, which is basically a white label provider powering things like Best Buy’s Cinemanow movie rental platform. This could theoretically be used by video download stores to build apps that offer movie rentals as well as access to live TV and DVR functionality.
For Simple.tv, that’s another step towards making its offering more widely available, and it could also foreshadow how the company could one day reach a wider customer base. Ely told me that Simple.tv wants to continue to market its device and service under its own brand, and have a full retail presence by the end of the year. But the company is also looking to partner with others and add DVR functionality to their devices and services, which could include putting more of Simple.tv ‘s functionality into the cloud. “Our trajectory is definitely towards a complete cloud DVR solution,” Ely said.
Check out a video of our Simple.tv review from October below:
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