In its first product launch in over two years, the Alviso, California-based TiVo Inc., the digital video recorder (DVR) pioneer, has recently unveiled its TiVo Premiere DVR, which will hit the markets early next month.

Marking a strategic launch for TiVo, the thin and sleek TiVo Premiere aims at sustaining the company’s bearing in the market at a time when broadcast and broadband are essentially being combined in televisions.

Noting that the new TiVo Premiere will boast a refurbished menu as well as features that will more closely amalgamate TV shows and Internet content, TiVo CEO Tom Rogers said that the TiVo Premiere essentially indicates “a whole new chapter in TiVo's evolution. We're moving toward ‘get anything you want whenever you want it’.”

The company is banking heavily on the TiVo Premiere to reclaim the distinction that made the word ‘TiVo’ tantamount to TV recording - a cachet that has faded in use with the cable TV companies increasingly making generic DVRs available to their subscribers.

TiVo’s soon-to-be-released two new DVR models – the $299-priced Premiere that stores up to 45 hours of high-definition TV on its 320-gigabyte hard drive; and the $499-priced Premiere XL that stores up to 150 hours of HD TV on its 1-terabyte hard drive – use the widely-deployed Adobe Systems’ Flash software; thereby facilitating the creation of applications for the DVRs by third-party developers.