Undaunted by fears of further legal action by movie studios, Cablevision Systems Corp. (CVC) today confirmed it’s planning to launch its long-awaited network-based DVR service commercially early next year, after an internal trial in the weeks ahead.
The cable giant won the latest battle in an ongoing, multi-year conflict between it and content owners who claimed Cablevision’s Remote Access-DVR (RA-DVR) service violated copyright rules.
Network-based, or remote-access DVR services have garnered and maintained huge attention because they promise to provide an alternative to renting or purchasing a DVR for the home, a consumer electronics business pioneered by TiVo Inc.
Cable operators and some telcos claim a network-based service would be easier to maintain than devices in people’s homes, allow them to offer much more storage than supported on the hard drive of a typical DVR, and avoid truck rolls for DVR problem calls from consumers.
However, it’s unclear what impact content accessed and/or delivered from servers in an operator’s network would have on available bandwidth capacity and what access network architectures might be needed to accommodate this.
The recent court ruling in favor of Cablevision, coupled with today’s news, could open the floodgates for similar service plans from other operators.
Given the popularity of DVRs, and the continued success of other network-based services, all that remains to be seen is whether the movie studios will continue the court battle or let operators launch services that analysts view as an additional revenue opportunity for all parties.
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