Cablevision Wins Network DVR Case

[Hooch Tan]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://news.cnet.com/Supreme-Court-allows-wider-DVR-use/2100-1041_3-6249838.html?tag=newsLatestHeadlinesArea.0' target='_blank'>http://news.cnet.com/Supreme-Court-...HeadlinesArea.0</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"The Supreme Court on Monday delivered a blow to the television networks when it declined to hear a case about a digital video recorder technology, opening the gate for wider use of DVR systems. The case began in 2006 when Cablevision Systems, the New York-area cable operator, announced plans for what is called a network DVR system."</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/dht/auto/1246392877.usr20447.jpg" style="border: 1px solid #d2d2bb;" /></p><p>The decision paves the way for Cablevision to implement its network DVR system across all of its customers.&nbsp; The setup is fairly clever and looks like a great way to provide DVR abilities to everyone without a costly investment of hard drive based PVRs.&nbsp; I have concerns that the technology may end up being locked to just one provider, instead of being available to all cable companies.&nbsp; I suppose you could consider this the moment of when DVR starts moving into the "cloud."&nbsp; With everyone hosting their emails, documents, spreadsheets, personal videos and social life online, it was only a matter of time before our tv shows made that transition.&nbsp; The market must be limited though, since I imagine this would only be preferred by those with limited or no Internet access since streaming solutions provide a comparable service.</p>

[doogald]

The market must be limited though, since I imagine this would only be preferred by those with limited or no Internet access since streaming solutions provide a comparable service.</p>

Not really. First, it's great because as a customer I can choose what to "record" and then when I want to watch it, and streams are rarely - if ever - available live. Second, there are plenty of TV shows that are either not available to stream, or, if they are available, are not available for a period of seven days from original airing. Third, I can save my internet bandwidth for things other than four people in the house trying to watch four different video streams at once.

[Vincent Ferrari]

The market must be limited though, since I imagine this would only be preferred by those with limited or no Internet access since streaming solutions provide a comparable service.

Wow, why would you assume that? Doogald gives good reasons, but I can think of one that no one EVER talks about when talking about the demise of TV:

SPORTS and Live Events

It's all well and good to maybe catch something on Hulu or TV.com a day or two after it airs, but I watch most of my stuff at different times on air day. For Sports, well, you're pretty much screwed no matter what.

For example, I'm a Mets fan. The Mets are available on MLB.tv HD (nice) however, not to me since I live in NYC (FAIL!).

Another thing you aren't considering is that the cable companies will have much lower costs as they won't have to keep replacing dead DVRs (I'm on DVR #2 at the moment) AND if my DVR goes to the great DVR in the sky, my shows don't go with it. I'm very cool with that.

I'm a happy Cablevision customer and this can't get to me fast enough. As far as it being locked to Cablevision, well, it's up to them because they invented it. If another company wants to take a stab at it, go right ahead, but nothing says that Cablevision has to share what they've created.