David Lieberman
USA Today
NEW YORK — In a move that could ignite a major debate about consumer “fair use” of TV programming, Cablevision Systems will unveil plans to test a service that gives cable subscribers the ability to record and time-shift shows using existing digital set-top boxes.
Although it works just like TiVo and other digital video recorders (DVRs) — consumers choose in advance which shows to capture and can fast-forward through ads — the recording itself will be stored at the cable system, not on a hard drive in the consumer’s home.
The technology for what Cablevision calls its “remote storage digital video recorder” (RS-DVR) “is here today, and in Cablevision’s case, we can use it to put DVR functionality in more than 2 million digital cable homes instantaneously, without ever rolling a truck or swapping out a set-top box,” COO Tom Rutledge says in a statement.
It will be tested on Long Island in the second quarter in advance of a broad commercial rollout. The system will give each subscriber about 80 gigabytes of storage capacity — enough for about 45 hours of programming — on the central server. They’ll also be able to record two programs simultaneously while watching a previously recorded show.
Although pricing hasn’t been set, the company expects it to be less than what it charges for DVR, currently $9.95.
Cablevision’s plan is sure to irk TV networks and programmers. If it catches on, it would weaken their ability to sell reruns of their shows via Internet downloading or video on demand. They also have long held that recordings of their shows — particularly by commercial entities — violates their copyrights.
That’s one reason Time Warner in 2003 scrapped plans to introduce a centralized DVR-like system it called Mystro. It would have recorded all TV shows, giving consumers the ability to select shows to watch on demand up to a month after they had aired.
Time Warner followed up in October with a system called “Start Over,” now in 65,000 homes in South Carolina. It gives cable customers who tune in late to a show the opportunity to watch it from the beginning — but without the ability to fast-forward through ads.
Cablevision says it believes its RS-DVRs don’t violate copyright laws.
“Consumers have well-established rights to ‘time-shift’ television programming by making copies for personal, in-home viewing,” the company says. “This new technology merely enables consumers to exercise their time-shifting rights in the same manner as with traditional DVRs, but at less cost.”
