Tracking Multi-room DVR Deployments

I'm not the only one who's been wondering about whether the cable operators will deploy home networking, either with residential gateway deployments and/or multi-room DVR configurations. Just as I wrote about AT&T's deployment of its multi-room DVR offering, so too did the folks at HomePNA on their blog. Of course, HomePNA over coax is how AT&T's solution is being implemented, so there's no doubt that HomePNA would like to tout that.

There was an interesting note on their blog about Cablevision's plans to rollout its RS-DVR feature in 2009. An Associated Press report indicates that Cablevision will offer 160 GB of storage per home for this feature. One key benefit to deploying a network-based DVR is that it eliminates the need for the MSO to deploy more expensive set-top DVRs (the article puts their cost at $400). According to another article, Cablevision expects to save about $100 per subscriber that uses the RS-DVR, and officials there have noted that RS-DVR will become a de facto multi-room DVR, as the programming will be available "at every outlet."

Hmmm. We've been writing about multi-room DVR implementations for some time on this blog, but it looks like these solutions are about to take wildly divergent paths (in-home storage versus network-hosted storage), leveraging the strengths that both the telcos and the cable operators have (telcos deploying home networking; cable operators ramping up video-on-demand). What appeared to be a clean win for home networking chipset vendors - particularly those targeting cable providers - may wind up not being such a big market after all.