RSSComcast to announce all-on-demand service this morning
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published January 8, 2008, 10:36 AM
Scott Fulton, BetaNews: During his keynote address later this morning at CES 2008, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts is slated to introduce a venerable onslaught of brands to the public at large, at least one of which could have a significant and perhaps historic impact on cable television service.
For now, the big announcement is being referred to as "Project Infinity," and it involves nothing short of the deprogramming of the programs it offers from all its content providers.
Comcast corporate statement Tuesday morning: Project Infinity envisions ever-increasing customer choice that continues the evolution of time-shifted viewing that began with the huge success of Comcast On Demand. Comcast's vision is to give customers exponentially more content choices -- all available to consumers at the click of the remote without having to buy any additional equipment.
Scott Fulton: Conceivably, the service could involve a kind of DV-R on the server side, effectively pre-recording all its shows at the source and delivering them over IPTV connections to digital cable subscribers on their own schedules. It could be a simpler service than you think, since Comcast would only need to store a few cached recordings, which could be far more efficient than distributing millions of DVRs just so millions of viewers can record programs on the receiving end.
And with a local hard drive not being necessary, the cost of service subscription may reflect that one less item.
Likely to be featured as part of this service is a new Comcast brand called Fancast. Subscribers will be able to tune-in on demand to recorded content that viewers have missed, and may do so not necessarily through their TVs. Replayed shows will also be made available through the Web.
Comcast corporate statement Tuesday morning: Need to decide what to watch tonight? On Fancast users can search for video content and entertainment information they're looking for on over 11 million web pages including information on more than 50,000 television shows, 80,000 movies and 1.2 million people combining multiple sources of entertainment information.
So yes, there's a social aspect of it as well. More from Brian Roberts' keynote at CES later in the day.
"And with a local hard drive not being necessary, the cost of service subscription may reflect that one less item."
There's two problems with this: first, it results in less customer control and second, the cost of Comcast service will NEVER accurately reflect anything!
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My Comcast DVR has an HDMI out. As of yesterday, they also provide me with 27 HD channels. I really can't complain about anything Comcast has provided lately. (Not to mention the very fast download speeds on the cable modem)
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"I really can't complain about anything Comcast has provided lately."
i guess u dont use bittorrent then. FCC is now on the case.
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they just raised the price, yet AGAIN...twice a year now since the south fl hurricans of 2 years ago..wtf?!
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I think this is a pretty freaking aweseome prospect and am hurting more than ever now having Direcpath (vomit). Must...find...comcast supplied...apartment.
For those of us that have and use Comcast's on-demand I can't imagine that you'd not just love this news. I only used the dvr from comcast to record stuff that I can't because I'm not around etc.
Granted, I think having a DVR is still useful, since some people want to keep certain shows stored for later use. But on-demand for everything just rocks...
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The people having issues with this are likely the same people that firmly believe they have the right to record it to their own media to watch whenever they please.
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True.
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The ability to store locally is much more important than they believe. Expiring media sucks.
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Didn't cable vision get sued for doing the exact same thing
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Yes, but they didn't bother to get the proper licensing before hand. Dunno if Comcast did or not. I'm sure we'll find out.
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I can see it now, Comcast saying that you can't watch a recorded show after 20 days because they're deleting it from their media servers to make room for other new shows.
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That's not how on-demand currently works. It'd make more sense to say, the show no longer shows up on the list of things you can watch from their servers after a timespan. Just like their current ondemand shows, certain 'showings' are only avaible for a month or 2, to make way for new titles. I suspect it will work more like that, OR they'll alot users with a certain amount of 'storage' online and not touch it. Remember, currently Comcast is charging $10 a month for their 160gb of local DVR space, if they allow you that space online and it's 'shared' with other users they'd have no reason to charge you that $10 per se (but hey, they might since hello, they're in it for money, right?). Either way, I think it's a great thing and can't wait to eventually see it in action.
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I feel yet another rate increase from Comcast - whether one opts for this service or not.
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The rate increase was announced on our morning news here in Atlanta. Funny how the rate increase was announced, but no details about the new technology. Our news program reported an "Over five percent rate hike" in order to allow the company to expand its technology base. This rate increase story was repeated several times each hour. Comcast may see some negative reaction from users that don't utilize the full features of their cable plan. Most people on this site understand the technology and the power behind it. That's not ture for a hefty segment of Comcast's subscribers though. My parents are talking about switching back to satelite because this is the second rate increase from Comcast in less than a year. On Demand is cool technology, but many people still don't know how it works. My mom can't even set the clock on her microwave. Comcast expects her to figure out On Demand? That could happen if aliens abduct her and reprogram her brain. Otherwise, she just sees her bill going up for the same programs she's been watching for years. I'm pretty sure she's not alone.
As for me, I rarely watch TV due to lack of interest and would like to cancel the TV part altogether, just keeping my internet service. I've been contemplating this decision for a couple of months now. Since I have a teenager, cutting back to basic cable is probably a more realistic option. I'm definitely not going to pay more money for a service I don't intend to use. I'll change my mind if they start offering concerts and TV shows from the 70s and 80s.
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Great, all I want is a Cable Box with an HDMI output to my TV, not these 30ft of cables!!!
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Their HD box has HDMI...if not you can probably get replacement...
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