After three years of painstaking work and multiple delays, Comcast will begin marketing TiVo (NSDQ: TIVO), not as a DVR, but as an interface via a premium software upgrade for its DVR customers in the Boston area, reports USAT. It would be rolled out to rest of Comcast customers later this year, the company says. This is also the first deployment based on “tru2way” cable OS system (earlier called OpenCable Platform), supposed to be interoperable among all cable providers, and meant as a joint effort against the threat of satellite and IPTV operators. The OS runs on digital cable set-top boxes and other devices, and major cable operators are just now beginning to deploy it.

SEE ALSO: Comcast Launching Portable DVR; Interoperable Across Other Cable Cos

It is also the first time Tivo software has been ported on someone else’s box…in this case it is a Motorola (NYSE: MOT) box working on Comcast (NSDQ: CMCSA). but this version does not allow for other ancillary functions that a Tivo box has, including access music and photos on the home PC, watch Web videos or transfer recorded shows to other rooms, PCs or mobile players. These features were supposed to integrated when the original announcement was made in 2005.

TiVo’s partnership with Comcast runs at least until 2014, and is badly needed. The DVR company lost hundreds of thousands of subscribers since 2005, when DirecTV (NYSE: DTV) ditched it in favor of its own DVR.