When we assessed the chances of a merged TiVo and Rovi last April, we focused almost entirely on the IPR of TiVo – we even headlined it with “Rovi TiVo buy creates dominant TV UI patents force” We gave no thought to how other Rovi technologies might revitalize the moribund “hardware” business of TiVo, making set tops. In truth the only reason that TiVo had ever gotten into hardware was because its manufacturing licensees did not fancy risking their cash on a DVR product which operators failed to support. In the end TiVo went and convinced DirecTV that this was a viable way forward, and began making its own devices for the CPE and has never quite managed to get…