A Win For The Cable Guys

[Scott Greczkowski]

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[riffjim4069]

Good read...

I agree...this decision will hurt satellite. Cable will have a competitive advantage by being able to offer DVR services with a lot less hardware and administrative expenses. This fact, along with added competition from the Telcos and the Cable Triple Play, may spell trouble for the DBS industry. Of course, DirecTV will fare much better due to their exclusive NFL Sunday Ticket and well-oiled Marketing Department. Dish Network will not fare as well and they may be in serious trouble after preparing to announce yet another quarter of defecting subscribers and having been found in comtempt of court for violating Tivo's patent and intellectual property rights.

Gotta love competition...

 

[rad]

While it's less hardware at the home I would think their network design will take even more effort now, providing the bandwidth for these DVR sessions. If a home is watching two programs recorded on the headend servers then they cableco needs to provide the path for that data from the server to the home, just like OnDemand viewing. When I had Comcast there were times where I couldn't view a program because all the video channels available on our node were busy with other viewers, if the cableco's don't insure that folks never see a 'busy signal' this might not be that big of an advantage for them.

 

[riffjim4069]

While it's less hardware at the home I would think their network design will take even more effort now, providing the bandwidth for these DVR sessions. If a home is watching two programs recorded on the headend servers then they cableco needs to provide the path for that data from the server to the home, just like OnDemand viewing. When I had Comcast there were times where I couldn't view a program because all the video channels available on our node were busy with other viewers, if the cableco's don't insure that folks never see a 'busy signal' this might not be that big of an advantage for them.

Great observation since there will be a number of technical hurdles to overcome (we former and current Comcast customers will agree) before the cable companies can make money. However, just like telephone service (VOIP), this is an area that satellite cannot complete and thereby serves as a competitive advantage for cable. Whether they can execute is another story. We shall see...

 

[mike123abc]

The main savings to the cable companies will be the hard drive failures. Having to roll a truck to someone's house to switch out the cable box when all the hard drives start to fail in 5 years.

Under the system each customer still has a finite space at cablevision hq. The customer still has to schedule their own shows for recording. The cable company cannot say oh this is already recorded by so and so so we will just save space and just use the same recording for multiple customers. This would be a VOD service then and not exempt from copyrights. The winning argument they used is that it is still a device (virtual in this case) that the customer is controlling for their own private use, it just happens to be sitting at the HQ of the cable company.

One thing it will save is that they do not have to send the channel down to the house for recording if using switched video systems. They will have to do it when the shows are watched.

 

[riffjim4069]

Conversely, I just wanted to point out the tide appears to be turning on states illegally and/or unfairly taxing satellite.

 

[jayn_j]

I think I have seen the remote DVR function in the form of Comcast VoD. If so, DISH has a strong marketing position - a DVR that actually works.

The Comcast VoD provides selection of title and play the movie in about 15-20 seconds. While playing, you have the ability to ff-2x, rev-1x, pause, play and stop. The current system has time limits of how long stuff is stored. I expect the same may be true for the DVR as the 'storage' will actually be a pointer into its database.

Hitting the pause will take effect sometime in the next 2-3 seconds. Everything else is similarly imprecise.

Yes, it will work. It may draw in a few customers, but I think it probably will be nothing more than a marketing tool for business as usual. The only effect may be that additional programs become available on VoD.