interface (TiVoWeb), and figured out how to extract, insert and transfer video among their TiVo boxes. Other hacks include adding time to the start and end of recording intelligently and sending daily e-mails of the TiVo's activity. TiVo still uses the same encoding, however, for the media files (saved as .TiVo files). These are MPEG files encoded with the user's Media Access Key (MAK). However, software developers have written programs such as tivodecode and tivodecode Manager to strip the MAK from the file, allowing the user to watch or send the recordings to friends. TiVo in the cloud On January 4, 2018, TiVo announced its next-gen platform, a catch-all product for providers like cable companies. It's available for multiple TV devices, including not only Linux- and Android TV-based set-top boxes and traditional DVRs, but also DVR-free streaming devices like Apple TV and Amazon's Fire TV, as well as phones, tablets and PCs. The platform allows providers to take advantage of TiVo's user interface, voice control, personalization and recommendations. TiVo expects its user interface could provide an advantage over competitors such as Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Video "in a world where cord-cutting is increasingly popular." As of April 2022, TiVo's cloud-based offering has yet to formally take shape or launch. Competitors and market share While its former main competitor in the United States, ReplayTV, had adopted a commercial-skip feature, TiVo decided to avoid automatic implementation fearing such a move might provoke backlash from the television industry. ReplayTV was sued over this feature as well as the ability to share shows over the Internet, and these lawsuits contributed to the bankruptcy of SONICblue, its owner at the time. Its new owner, DNNA, dropped both features in the final ReplayTV model, the 5500. After demonstrating the WebTV capability at the same 1999 CES with TiVo and ReplayTV demonstrating their products, Dish (then named Dish Network) a few months later added DVR functionality to their DishPlayer 7100 (and later its 7200) with its Echostar unit producing the hardware while Microsoft provided the software that included WebTV, the same software Microsoft would later use for its UltimateTV DVR for DirecTV. The TiVo, ReplayTV, and DishPlayer 7100 represent very first DVRs that were in development at the same time and were released to market at about the same time. SONICblue, the owners of ReplayTV would file for bankruptcy after being sued for its ability to automatically