Cablevision's "remote" DVR: Will it be a better option?
The Supreme Court’s recent decision not to hear a final appeal by broadcasters and movie studios seeking to block Cablevision’s proposed “remote DVR” technology opens the door for the company, and others, to offer such a service.
Unlike a conventional DVR, which stores programs on a hard drive in the cable box in your living room, Cablevision’s planned remote DVR service lets you store programs on the company’s servers. Because the technology resides within the cable system’s network, subscribers can use their existing cable boxes instead of renting new equipment. This would free consumers from the storage limits of their hard drive (often about 30 hours of HD video). It could also theoretically make the service cheaper, since the cable companies don’t have to deploy and service separate boxes.
So when will we be able to get this new service? Unfortunately, no time soon, since Cablevision says there’s no timetable in place for a rollout of its remote DVR service. Instead, Cablevision’s first application of the technology will be far more prosaic: Subscribers with standard cable boxes will be able to pause live TV when the phone rings—something I (and Cablevision subscribers with DVRs and cable-phone service) can already do with my DirecTV DVR service, which displays Caller-ID information on the TV screen.
As a result, many questions remain as to how the service will really work.
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