Despite excellent customer satisfaction scores, PlayStation Vue’s customer base was stagnating, even as other live TV streaming services were rapidly acquiring subscribers. Vue had also just shed a large number of local channels amid a falling out with Sinclair Broadcast Group, and it seemed to be losing the faith of Sony’s leadership, which told investors that the service’s “market and future business model remains uncertain.” (The company later backpedaled somewhat, saying it had no plans to shut Vue down.)

But since then, PlayStation Vue has sparked back to life, firing off steady improvements to its lineup, features, and viewing experience. Subscribers should now be more confident in the service than ever, even if the business itself remains on unsteady footing. Read the full column on TechHive.

Most of those issues remain unresolved. You still can’t access YouTube TV on Amazon’s Fire TV devices or play YouTube Videos on an Echo Show, nor can you watch Amazon Prime Video on Chromecast or buy Google’s Nest Hello doorbell on Amazon. Wholeheartedly supporting one another’s platforms probably remains a questionable business strategy for both Google and Amazon. But maybe this is a sign that the two companies are finding a way forward for the sake of their customers. We’ll see.

HDHomeRun’s Premium TV snafu: Back in August, I wrote about SiliconDust’s HDHomeRun Premium TV service, which for $35 per month delivers several dozen streaming cable channels through the company’s networked TV tuners. It’s sort of a complicated product, but the idea is that you can combine free over-the-air channels with live streaming cable channels, running them all through a single app with a proper offline DVR to boot. But after a bit of digging, I also found that HDHomeRun was getting those channels in an unusual way, working with a little-known company that had apparently secured its live streaming rights through an old cable contract, without the explicit approval of TV networks.

Now, that unconventional approach is causing some issues. Cord Cutters News reports that channels from Discovery and Hallmark went offline last week, with SiliconDust blaming an “upstream contract dispute.” Several other services that exploit the same contractual loophole are reportedly experiencing the same outages. For now, SiliconDust is offering subscribers a $10 per month credit, but that’ll be of little consolation to anyone who invested money in HDHomeRun and all the server hardware required to make this system work. When you factor in the service’s other outstanding issues–including limited framerates and channels that play from the wrong timezone–this is just looking like a situation to avoid.

TiVo’s upgrade offer: Through December 22, TiVo is offering Roamio OTA DVR owners a $300 trade-up to the new Bolt OTA DVR. That’s a $200 discount when you factor in the hardware itself (regularly $250) and a lifetime service plan (also regularly $250).

Worth it? I’m not sure. Compared to the Roamio OTA, the Bolt OTA’s main advantages are 4K HDR streaming support and the ability to watch on mobile devices without additional TiVo Stream hardware. I’d be more enthused if the Bolt OTA supported streaming onto other TV devices, such as Roku and Amazon Fire TV, so it could work as a whole-home DVR without Tivo’s $180 Mini Vox boxes. TiVo says that’s coming next year, but I’m always wary of purchasing products based on promises alone.

• Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K for $35, or two for $60 (reg. $50, my review)
• Amazon Fire TV Recast DVR dual-tuner for $190 (reg. $230) or quad-tuner for $230 (reg. $280, my review)
• Tablo Dual Lite DVR for $100 (reg. $140, my review)
• Roku Streaming Stick for $49 (reg. $60, my review)