Verizon taps in-house DVR media streaming

SOURCE: ARStechnica.com
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060814-7493.html
8/14/2006 11:05:42 AM, by Ken Fisher

Verizon taps in-house DVR media streaming

Verizon has announced that subscribers to its television service will soon have the option of picking a Verizon-branded DVR to stream content throughout the home. Available only to customers on their ever-expanding FiOS network, the new DVR system will cost $19.95 per month. Verizon is looking to make a splash with this new, imaginatively named "Home Media DVR." To do that, the company is touting the service as a multiroom streaming media solution that can enable up to three simultaneous viewings of recorded DVR content. Given that FiOS service places television and Internet service on the same high-speed lines, the "Home Media DVR" can network throughout the house to talk to other Verizon approved receivers. Furthermore, Verizon will also support DVR-to-PC connectivity, so it will be possible to view pictures or listen to music from a PC, as well.

The service centers around the Motorola QIP6416 set-top box/DVR combo, which features dual high definition tuners and a 160GB hard drive. This "DVR hub" will stream recorded content to the Motorola QIP2500, which is best described as a standard set-top box tuner that can also receive content directly from the hub. The units communicate using MoCA (Multimedia over Coax Alliance) technology, a cable-industry backed initiative to establish secure ways to tap into the unused bandwidth on today's in-home coax "networks."  The move represents just a part of the telecommunications industry's hopes for the future. While the living room PC hasn't taken off yet, it doesn't take Nostradamus to see that a centralized in-home media solution is "the future" (cue echo). Multi-room streaming is certainly one way to do that,  but the plans won't stop there. On demand, mobile support, and even content sales are in the works according to the industry types we gab with off the record. You can bet that none of these players want to see something like Apple's iTMS service gain a foothold on the TV itself.

Fair or foul?
I'm admittedly anxious to see how this device is received, mostly because the streaming media play has a few legal questions lurking below the surface. Taken as a whole, place-shifting is a relatively new technological concept, but one not without its own legal quagmire. The question of what constitutes a "broadcast" plagues place-shifting both here in the United States and in Europe where fears over piracy and competition from new business models translates into a good deal of legal sniping. Cablevision's innovative remote storage DVR plan was mothballed in the face of lawsuits, while Sling Media has been the target of threats over its device. One central question is: where will these players try to draw the line between "free" personal use and use they want to charge for? In the view of so many content owners, post-broadcast usage of content is an unfortunate circumstance... a problem to be remedied. As DVRs become more and more powerful and pervasive, this fight will heat up.