April 5th, 2009
Time Warner Cable to offer multi-room DVRs, Echostar to deliver Sling Media set-top box
With competition from satellite and fiber-optic TV competitors coming from one side, and the Internet from the other, the cable industry needs to deliver new products to keep their subscribers from defecting to the alternatives. At last week’s 2009 Cable Show, tru2way technology—an open application platform for set-top box developers—was unveiled in a couple of devices that can help cable providers keep in step with their rivals’ more cutting-edge offerings.
Multi-room DVR capabilities are definitely at the top of many cable customers’ wish lists, as having a recorded show tethered to just one TV is an inconvenience for us lazy viewers who may want to watch something recorded downstairs in their bedroom instead. Verizon’s FiOS service already offers multi-room DVRs, and yet we’re still waiting for them from cable providers. Motorola hopes to jump-start things with its new Follow Me TV set-top boxes like the DCX3400-M (pictured above), which Time Warner Cable hopes to start deploying in the second half of 2009. The service makes use of Tru2way and Multimedia over Coax Alliance networking standard to let you shares shows around the house. It also allows you to set up DVR recordings over your PC or from a cell phone (TiVo just offered an iPhone app that lets you schedule DVR recordings.)
Fellow set-top box provider Echostar will deliver a slightly different Tru2way unit later this year when it releases its SlingLoaded T2200S, which will use Sling Media’s place-shifting technology to let you view programming from the set-top box on PCs and mobile devices. That programming includes not only live TV but DVR’d shows as well as video on demand, and with the SlingGuide, subscribers can also schedule recordings to be saved on the unit’s 1TB hard drive. No cable provider has been announced yet who will offer the T2200S, but the partnership makes sense for Sling Media, as cable companies will inevitably offer similar services that could cut into Sling’s business as they did with TiVo’s DVR features.
Of course, these next-gen services will cost subscribers more in monthly fees, just as DVR and HD programming often do. Would you be willing to pay more for multi-room DVR or Sling-style technology in your set-top box? If so, how much more per month would they be worth to you? Let us know in the TalkBack section.
Sean Portnoy spent several years as an editor at Computer Shopper magazine, most recently serving as online executive editor. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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