nasdaq tivo industry digital entertainment technology digital video recorders founded 1983 as macrovision 2009 as rovi corporation 2016 as tivo corporation headquarters san carlos california united states key people pete thompson chief operating officer net income us 14 900 000 december 31 2012 1 total assets us 3.2 billion 2012 12 31 number of employees 1 700 2014 website tivo.com tivo corporation formerly rovi corporation is a company based in the united states whose patents products and technologies include copy protection software licensing and search recommendation on devices such as set top boxes digital video recorders tvs and mobile and tablet devices . companies such as consumer electronics ce manufacturers cable operators websites and social networks use rovi s entertainment metadata a collection of in depth information on movies television shows celebrities music games and books in their efforts to organize and enable the consumption of digital entertainment . the company held over 5 000 issued or pending patents worldwide and is headquartered in san carlos california . 2 rovi was known as macrovision solutions corporation macrovision until it changed its name in july 2009 . 3 in that era of the company they were known more for digital protection but now focus on metadata licensing . 4 contents 1 history of tivo 2 history as macrovision 3 history as rovi 3.1 guides 3.2 data 3.3 search and recommendations 3.4 advertising 3.5 rovi audience management 4 legacy products 4.1 ripguard 4.2 analog copy protection acp 4.3 as macrovision 4.4 as rovi 5 see also 6 references 6.1 notes 6.2 further reference 7 external links history of tivo edit see also tivo inc. tivo inc. was incorporated on august 4 1997 as teleworld inc. by jim barton and mike ramsay veterans of silicon graphics and time warner s full service network digital video system . originally intending to create a home network device they later developed the idea to record digitized video on a hard disk . teleworld began the first public trials of the tivo device and service in late 1998 in the san francisco bay area . 3 after exhibiting at the consumer electronics show in january 1999 mike ramsay announced to the company that the first version of the tivo digital video recorder would ship on march 31 1999 despite an estimated four to five months of work remaining to complete the device . teleworld inc. renamed themselves to tivo inc. on july 21 1999 . tivo inc. made its ipo initial public offering on september 30 1999 . 4 its first profitable quarter was the second quarter of 2005 . 5 the original tivo device digitized and compressed analog video from any source antenna cable or direct broadcast satellite . in late 2000 philips electronics introduced the dsr6000 the first directv receiver with an integrated tivo dvr . this new device nicknamed the directivo stored digital signals sent from directv directly onto a hard disk . in early 2000 tivo partnered with electronics manufacturer thomson and broadcaster british sky broadcasting to deliver the tivo service in the uk market . 6 this partnership resulted in the thomson pvr10uk a stand alone receiver released in october 2000 . in january 2003 after poor sales tivo pulled out of the uk market 7 officially their manufacturing contract expired however it was more likely because sky who were the exclusive distributor of tivo in the uk launched their own tivo like dvr product called sky which they heavily promoted to their customers . 8 sky is still the dominant dvr product in the uk with 5 005 000 customers using sky hd service in 2013 . 9 in june 2005 veteran media executive tom rogers was named president and chief executive officer of tivo inc. 10 rogers a tivo board member since 2003 took the reins from tivo co founder mike ramsay . under rogers leadership tivo has transformed itself from just a dvr into a complete in home broadcast cable and broadband media hub and an ally to the traditional media businesses with its innovative ad solutions and television measurement services . in 2006 tivo inc. won an emmy award for outstanding innovation and achievement in advanced media technology . 11 tivo was again awarded an emmy in 2013 for technical and engineering achievement for personalized recommendation engines for video discovery . 12 on april 29 2016 rovi announced that it had acquired tivo inc. for 1.1 billion . the combined company will operate under the tivo brand and hold over 6 000 pending and registered patents . 13 14 rovi plans to discontinue in house hardware production and focus primarily on licensing its technologies and the tivo brand to third party companies . 15 on september 8 2016 the acquisition by rovi corporation was completed . history as macrovision edit rovi was established under the name macrovision corporation in 1983 . the 1984 film the cotton club was the first video to be encoded with macrovision technology when it was released in 1985 . 5 the technology was subsequently extended to dvd players and other consumer electronic recording and playback devices such as digital cable and satellite set top boxes digital video recorders and portable media players . by the end of the 1980s most major hollywood studios were utilizing their services . citation needed in the 1990s macrovision acquired companies with expertise in managing access control and secure distribution of other forms of digital media including music video games web text and graphics and computer software . john o. ryan founder and ceo of macrovision from june 1995 to october 2001 and william a. krepick president of macrovision corporation from july 1995 to july 2005 and ceo from october 2001 to july 2005 6 led the company through an ipo in 1997 priced at 9.00 a share . under their leadership the company went from a private company with sales of under 20 million to a global publicly traded corporation with annual sales of 220 million and market cap exceeding 1 billion . 7 in july 2005 the company hired alfred j. amoroso as chief executive officer and president to succeed william a. krepick who announced his retirement earlier in the year . 8 macrovision acquired gemstar tv guide on may 2 2008 in a cash and stock deal worth about 2.8 billion . the combined company would seek to be the homepage for the tv experience said mr. amoroso . 9 after the announcement of its intent to buy gemstar tv guide macrovision made other changes in order to focus on entertainment technology including selling its software business unit valued at approximately 200 million to private equity firm thoma cressey bravo . the divestiture of the software business unit closed on april 1 2008 becoming acresso software . macrovision also ultimately sold off parts of gemstar tv guide not focused on digital entertainment including trymedia emeta tv guide magazine tv guide network and the tv games network . the company also bought two companies providing entertainment metadata all media guide on november 6 2007 and substantially all the assets of muze inc. on april 15 2009 . history as rovi edit rovi corporation logo on july 16 2009 macrovision solution corporation announced the official change of its name to rovi corporation . rovi announced its first product on january 7 2010 totalguide an interactive media guide that incorporated entertainment data to search browse and provide recommendations . 10 on march 16 2010 rovi acquired mediaunbound for an undisclosed amount . mediaunbound had helped build static and dynamic personalization and recommendation engines for clients such as napster emusic and mtv networks . 11 on june 16 2010 the company announced the rovi advertising network which bundled guide advertising and third party interactive tv platforms . 12 to help streamline metadata tagging globally rovi helped create an international coalition along with movielabs cablelabs and comcast that launched the first non profit entertainment identifier registry to catalog movies television shows and other commercial audio video assets with unique identifiers . the company hoped to create a standard for metadata tagging that could be used by content creators and providers worldwide . 13 on december 23 2010 the company announced its intention to acquire sonic solutions and its divx video software in a deal valued at 720 million . sonic provided digital video processing playback and distribution technologies and owned roxionow formerly cinemanow an ott technology provider . 14 15 rovi acquired sidereel a successful online video guide on march 1 2011 for an undisclosed amount . 16 the company announced amoroso s intention to retire on may 26 2011 . 17 tom carson formerly the executive vice president of sales and marketing was appointed ceo and president in december 2011 . 18 under carson the company shifted its focus on growth opportunities related to its core enabling technology and services and it announced that it intended to sell the rovi entertainment store business . 19 it entered into separate agreements to sell the rovi entertainment store to reliance majestic holdings a private equity backed company ; and its consumer websites to all media networks a new company in july 2013 . 20 continuing on this path the company made a similar announcement in january 2014 indicating its intent to sell the divx and mainconcept businesses . on april 1 2013 rovi acquired integralreach a predictive analytics cloud based platform that integrates massive data from set tops smart tvs tablets stream servers . 21 after the acquisition this technology became a part of rovi s entertainment analytics and ultimately their audience management solutions . 22 facebook began using rovi video in april 2013 . the social media site wanted a database of in depth information on movies tv shows and celebrities . 23 on april 29 2016 rovi corporation announced that it had acquired tivo inc. for 1.1 billion . the combined company will operate under the tivo brand and hold over 6 000 pending and registered patents . 24 25 guides edit rovi provides guides for service providers and ce manufacturers . totalguide xd a white label media guide for mobile devices for finding managing and watching tv shows and movies totalguide ce a media guide for ce manufacturers that gives access to broadcast programming premium over the top ott entertainment and catch up tv passport guide and i guide interactive program guides for service providers g guide an html5 based program guide for digital terrestrial broadcast satellite and commercial satellite services totaltv an online guide enabling websites for news and entertainment organizations to incorporate local tv listings rovi dta guide an interactive program guide designed for households installed with digital terminal adapters data edit rovi provides entertainment metadata for consumer electronics manufacturers service providers retailers online portals and application developers around the world . the company has over 50 years of metadata for video music books and games . the data covers more than 5 million movies and tv programs 3.2 million album releases and 30 million song tracks 9 million in print and out of print book titles and 70 000 video games . citation needed the metadata includes basic facts local tv listings and channel line ups for interactive program guides original editorial imagery and other features . specific products include rovi video rovi music rovi books and rovi games . 2 search and recommendations edit rovi search service allows consumer electronics manufacturers service providers and developers to provide solutions that enable consumers to search for and access desired content . rovi recommendations service is a cloud based service that offers consumers entertainment choices similar to their chosen program movie album track musician or band . advertising edit rovi advertising service enables the monetization of entertainment platforms . it places ads that appear as content choices in application menus and user interfaces for set top boxes connected tvs smartphones tablets blu ray players game consoles and other devices . rovi audience management edit rovi audience management