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Omaha – from www.usatoday.com – A small Omaha company called Tivus – profiled by the Omaha World-Herald – is one of many companies hoping to spark the coming revolution in hotel-room-TV entertainment.

“This is more than just TV,” Tivus CEO Shiva Prakash told the paper, referring to his company’s product.

Changes in the hotel-room TV world made global headlines last month, after Marriott told Hotel Check-In that it decided to eliminate adult movies from its pay-per-view systems provided by LodgeNet in new hotels. Marriott wants to transition its TV programming to an Internet-based, video-on-demand model to give customers more choices and control over what they watch.

Two key factors are driving the coming revolution: Money, since hotels now make a fraction of what they once did on porn and other rentals; and traveler behavior, as more traveling customers carry their own DVDs or other entertainment with them, and get used to customizing their programs on their own TVs at home.

The Tivus system will let guests access Facebook, streaming Netflix films, games and the Internet on their hotel-room TVs. It also lets hotels customize TV channels for guests – and block X-rated movies.

Prakash, a former ConAgra Foods software engineer, started the company in 2000, initially focusing on selling hotels the ability to let customers access Wi-Fi, the World-Herald tells us.

Today, Tivus is pitching hotels on a broader system that includes high-definition TVs programmed with the Tivus operating system. The company will also upgrade its customers’ Internet infrastructure so that it can handle the greater demands associated with video streaming, the paper says.

Tivus offers to run ads based on each guest’s profile, and then splits advertising revenue with the hotels.

With just 14 employees, Tivus recently landed its first deal: A five-year contract to provide its services to the Doubletree Hotel in downtown Omaha’s 430 rooms. Guests will see the change starting in March, the World-Herald says. Doubletree is a Hilton brand.

But Tivus is also hopeful that it will land some sort of a deal with Marriott, though the scope of any deal is not clear and Marriott wouldn’t confirm talks to the World-Herald.

In a Jan. 24, 2011 press release, Prakash said that Tivus is in “advanced discussions with Marriott International to deploy Tivus’ HD Internet-based, in-room, video-on-demand systems.”

Whether this proves helpful or not is unclear, but Tivus does have a Marriott family member on its advisory board. Last fall, Doug Marriott joined the company’s advisory board, noting that was “proud to be a part of bringing this ‘game-changing’ business model to the hotel industry.” He told the World-Herald that he joined the board also because of its ability to block porn for no additional cost. Doug Marriott is a cousin of Marriott CEO Bill Marriott and Host Hotels Chairman Richard Marriott.