Floppyhead – Digital Media and Streaming

According to the Associated Press, several prominent movie studios won a lawsuit against Cablevision, who has been experimenting with network-enabled digital video recorders (i.e. Tivo-like devices). Cablevision was attempting to allow their customers to store recorded content on their servers, which would enable the company to offer Tivo-like services without the capital expense of providing a set-top box capable of recording television. Such boxes can cost several hundred dollars with the cost usually being picked up by the cable company.

One of the main issues with DVRs and media centers is the expense of storage space, especially for high definition recorders. Presumably, a network DVR would allo the customer to store more content, though it would also give the cable company more control over what was recorded. I always thought the idea of a network DVR was interesting because of its potential to limit the hardware costs of a media center. Storing high definition content on a cable company server through a media center interface would have had an interesting effect on media center adoption.

Cablevision announced its plans for network DVRs last year. Several other prominent cable companies, like Comcast, were not so quick to jump into fray, stating they were monitoring the situation.