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Why don't IPTV services like FIOS and U-Verse do the timed DVR recording on the headend side, and stream it down the pipe when someone wants to watch it? At th
by ben1040 15y ago
Why don't IPTV services like FIOS and U-Verse do the timed DVR recording on the headend side, and stream it down the pipe when someone wants to watch it?
At that point the STB needs to only use the onboard storage as a cache for the the trick-play features (pause/rewind a show you're watching live). And the device can drop into a true low-power sleep when it's not being used, since it doesn't need to keep a disk spinning 24/7 to record shows on its to-do list.
And the provider gets to market it as a DVR with nearly infinite storage space, since it's de-duplicating all the recordings on the headend.
- drinian 15y agoGiven the additional cost to the service provider, it's not that appealing to them. However, this has been done. There was a lawsuit about it, in fact: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2327137,00.asp http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2327137,00.asp
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- cmurphycode 15y agoI've been wishing for this for a long time. Actually, it was Google Reader's behavior that made me think of it- when you subscribe to a blog via RSS, Reader will show you all of the archived entries back as far as anyone else on Google has subscribed to it. Very nice. I can only imagine that it's a content usage restriction, but you'd think they'd be able to lawyer their way out of it. The cable companies wouldn't even have to mimic Google's behavior- start by just allowing access to things you've personally recorded. The future, of course, is to skip all of this nonsense and just let you stream what you want, whenever you want, and pay exactly for that. Ah, well.
- wmf 15y agoI think a headend PVR ends up being more expensive because everything at the headend is built to server/telco standards, not consumer standards.