• by Wayne Friedman , October 15, 2007

One of TiVo's major agreements has finally comes to fruition--that of placing its highly touted DVR software on non-TiVo made machines.

TiVo, the struggling DVR machine and service company, has finally seen its software put on DVRs installed in some of Comcast's New England homes.

This comes after TiVo and Comcast agreed to a deal in March 2005 where Comcast would use the TiVo software--which critics say is the best of all DVRs--on all Comcast DVR machines. Motorola manufactures the DVR machines that are in those New England subscriber homes.

All this took longer than expected because of the complexity of merging TiVo's software. Deals in place will also allow Comcast to put TiVo software on DVR boxes made by Scientific Atlanta, a unit of Cisco Systems Inc. TiVo has traditionally made its own DVR boxes integrated with its own software.

Comcast, which has over 24 million subscribers, will be the first U.S. cable operator to offer TiVo software on their DVR machines. TiVo made a similar deal with Cox Communications in August 2006.