This is an interesting article relating to Comcast’s plans to move into the video space.
It seems the Cable companies are scared to death about being bypassed by online video delivery, so rather than sit idly by and watch their business evaporate, they will be trying to make a compelling offering, with the hopes that their subscribers will stay.
You don’t suppose a recording option will be a part of their offering, do you???
Cable companies’ recording option? Unlikely to innovate (how many monopolies do?) they’ll move storage from the PVR to the CMTS.
In effect, cablecos will mirror the big Internet CDN’s. This will be at the insistence of content providers. They don’t like local (to the consumer) storage.
And seriously, for efficiency they probably should have 1 copy of One Tree Hill serving (streamed to) 1500 customers instead of 1500 copies on 1500 hard drives on each homes’ PVR.
One must look to the staggering infrastructure cost to push bits around the network and the devices to deal with (switch, hub, store, play) those bits. It’s there for cablecos, not there for ISP’s. So each will peer and embrace and extend the other, partnering and synergizing in one great big sick sigma retreat to move forward. And nothing will change for long.
But it’s a hell of a ride, no doubt. And the view is incredible.