There is a lot of TV out there. Peak TV, even. It's across a steadily growing number of streaming services with no central program guide. TiVo has a 20-year history of developing program guides, and at CES this year it introduced the TiVo Stream 4K, its first dedicated streaming dongle, which aims to take TiVo's program-guide prowess and apply it to the low-cost cord-cutting landscape.

TiVo is best known for its DVRs, which combine streaming services and either over-the-air or cable TV. But they're big (as they have internal hard drives), and they cost $200 or more plus a $15/month service subscription (the $50 TiVo Stream 4K dongle doesn't have a monthly service fee).

The dongle will integrate Sling TV, Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO, YouTube, and TiVo's own free TiVo+ service, the company says. As it's an Android-based device, it will also have Chromecast and Google Assistant built in. The remote, a smaller version of the traditional "peanut" TiVo remote, will have voice-search capabilities. It will stream in 4K Dolby Vision HDR, the company says.

While there's no built-in DVR capability, TiVo appears poised to push Sling TV and its cloud DVR pretty strongly as a solution there. Sling will cost, of course—it charges $20-$35 a month for its service. We gave Sling TV 3.5 stars and warn that it only includes Fox and NBC local channels by default. CBS is an additional charge, and it does not include ABC at all..

(TiVo's search results integrate multiple streaming services.)

Our ratings of TiVo devices have been declining with time. We gave the most recent TiVo Edge a 2.5 primarily because of cost, but also because of the text-based, program-list interface. That's a difference of opinion between me and our reviewer Will Greenwald, actually. I like the list

Unified search is a popular feature across streaming boxes now, as manufacturers try to find ways to help people discover shows. TiVo's selling point is the traditional TiVo interface, which puts lists of shows, rather than names of streaming services, front and center. It's show-centric rather than channel-centric.

I'm a longtime TiVo user, and I also like how TiVo tries to intelligently recommend shows similar to the ones I've watched, across a range of streaming services. The recommendations aren't as aggressive or overwhelming as the ones on the individual streaming service menus—they aren't an infinite scroll—but it's great having a neutral party show me options that might be on a service I didn't consider.

The TiVo Stream 4K will be available in April from select cable providers and TiVo.com.