Today's Show:
In
a ruling on August 4th, the U.S. Court of Appeals overturned a district
court decision that barred Cablevision from launching a new technology
it is calling Remote-Storage DVR (RS-DVR). The district court had
blocked release of this service to Cablevision subscribers, but as of
Monday, it's back on the table. Remote-Storage DVR provides all of the
benefit of a DVR, without all of the drawbacks. You can record,
playback, pause, fast-forward and rewind television just like a DVR,
but you don't have to worry about ever running out of storage and you
can view the programs from any TV in your home.
Have DVR, No DVR Required
Cablevision wins in ruling on remote storage DVR
Win-win all around
With
this new remote storage DVR model, Cable companies can reduce costs
significantly. Each home with a digital television could simply
receive a CableCard for each TV, reducing the cost to both the operator
and the subscriber. According to current research, set-top DVRs
accounted for about 10% of cable operators' capital
expenditures (Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett). But this
reduced cost to subscribers opens the door for many more people to
start fast-forwarding through commercials. That's exactly what the
broadcasters are afraid of.
But
there could be a win in it for the broadcasters as well. With a
program stored on a central server, there's the possibility to actually
update the ads embedded in the show. That technology doesn't exist and
would be very problematic on standard home-installed DVRs. So while
viewers would be skipping the commercials, at least they'd be skipping
relevant commercials ;-). All kidding aside, we do stop the DVR and go
back if an ad catches our attention. We'd be much more likely to do
that if the ad was relevant and not outdated or months old.
Does it really matter that much?
If
you can have a DVR now, or you can get one that stored the recordings
on a server somewhere else, does it really matter that much? Yes it
absolutely does. There is so much potential for a technology like
this. First of all, one cool potential feature would eliminate the
need to actually choose to record anything. As long as one person
wants it and it gets stored on the server, it should be available for
anyone. This turns all of television into an on demand system. As
long as it's after the original air date, you just pull it up and watch
it. And you don't have to find a way to "network" your TVs anymore.
All your TVs can access the recordings. Brilliant.
Less
money and more features, who could ask for anything more? Of course
the court struggle certainly isn't over yet, but assuming it holds up,
this could be really good news for everyone in Cable-land.
Blu Ray
