TiVo just does not seem to be able to catch a break. Even though they have revised their business model to move to CableCard as their primary format for the latest generations of their equipment, and suing the hell out of anyone brave enough to violate their patents, they were only able to post a small profit, but lost subscribers.

The competition in the DVR area has been tough on TiVo who is generally recognized as the developer and leaders in DVR technology. The problem is that challengers who offer DVR products that don’t use the TiVo technology or operating system are being called TiVo by uneducated consumers who just assume that it is just like the real TiVo product.

TiVo did add 36,000 new customers that included customers that were obtained through a partnership with Comcast. While it is still too early in the game to know what kind of impact the Comcast deal will have on TiVo long term. Still, the company lost over 78,000 other subscribers, which drops TiVo’s customer base down to only 3.6 million.

The biggest problem perhaps for TiVo has been the loss of DirecTV who decided to move away from the TiVo-branded units and instead offer its own DirecTV branded DVR technology. While most consumers agree that the DirecTV-branded solution isn’t as good as the DirecTV DVR with TiVo technology in it, complaints continue to fall on deaf ears at DirecTV.

However, a ray of hope does exist on the DirecTV front, as DirecTV cut a deal with TiVo to release a small series of bug fixes and software revisions to DirecTV TiVo users that were still clinging to their DirecTiVo units. TiVo remains hopeful that they might be able to rekindle their partnership with DirecTV again and be able to offer DirecTV DVRs that offer TiVo at some point in the future.

Still, the fact that TiVo was able to turn a three cent per share profit is better than Wall Street expected, but TiVo will have to continue to find new avenues and ways to get the word out about their technology and why it is better than the competitors, and that will continue to be a tall order for TiVo.