9 thoughts on “Comcast launches hardwareless in-home streaming service with cloud DVR”
Salient points… In-home and Comcast broadband subscribers only with no set-top support for now, but includes the locals (NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX) unlike Sling TV.
Very cool…nice to have options. Too bad I don’t get Comcast in my area. I could use it to negotiate with Verizon. Although, it appears to be missing the capability to view content on a TV connected device.
The channel selection is interesting as it looks like all the channels that I could get with an antenna. It seems like they beat TiVo in coming up with an Aereo replacement.
Only $15? This service, which includes HBO (remember that HBO Now alone costs $15) and cloud DVR, would be a killer offering for lots of “cord-cutters” IF it could be used on a real TV via set-top hardware like Apple TV, Roku, etc. That said, I’m sure it will still appeal to lots of millennials who are happy watching on their small screens.
Yeah but I am reticent to trust any offering from a cable company that traditionally uses “taxes” and fees to pad it’s bottom line. My cable company had bumped it’s rebroadcast fee to $7.50 a month for local networks.
The “up to 10 channels” sounds to me like it’s strictly local channels + HBO. But if you bought just cable modem from Comcast didn’t they also broadcast the local channels in the clear? In which case they are currently saving you the price of a Silicondust box by offering in home streaming.
“Salient points… In-home and Comcast broadband subscribers only with no set-top support for now,”
I find it very, very, very, very difficult to imagine it’ll ever include lean-back support, at least in anything like its current form and price-point.
Absence of lean-back is the only possible way they can afford the licensing fees. Lack of out-of-home is also a smaller component of that. (And even then, they’re probably not making money on this out of the box…)
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“The channel selection is interesting as it looks like all the channels that I could get with an antenna.”
Yeah. I’d assume the only possible market for this configuration is broke millennials who can’t get OTA reception…
Aereo + HBO but legal? and no (direct) TV clients (yet). It’s not awful I guess, but it’s not what the people want.
It’s certainly movement in the right direction…
It is strictly local channels plus HBO — live TV for those channels — plus cloud DVR service for those channels, plus Streampix on-demand streaming and (I think) HBO Go. You can only access the live channels at home but the rest, including your DVR recordings, can be streamed anywhere (from what I read elsewhere). But, yeah, there are going to be taxes and that pesky rebroadcast fee. And who knows about picture quality. Are the live channels in HD? How compressed? (Although, given that you’ll be watching on an iPad or phone, does it matter?) And of course this can only be paired with Comcast internet service. That said, if you could add this to the current new customer deal of 25 Mbps internet for $25 per month for the first year, well, that ain’t bad. But this is aimed at “cord nevers” not for cord cutters looking to reduce their bill and keep a traditional TV watching experience. So I’d say this isn’t a direct competitor to the TiVo Roamio OTA and whatever TiVo has up their sleeve later this month.
Salient points… In-home and Comcast broadband subscribers only with no set-top support for now, but includes the locals (NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX) unlike Sling TV.
Very cool…nice to have options. Too bad I don’t get Comcast in my area. I could use it to negotiate with Verizon. Although, it appears to be missing the capability to view content on a TV connected device.
The channel selection is interesting as it looks like all the channels that I could get with an antenna. It seems like they beat TiVo in coming up with an Aereo replacement.
Only $15? This service, which includes HBO (remember that HBO Now alone costs $15) and cloud DVR, would be a killer offering for lots of “cord-cutters” IF it could be used on a real TV via set-top hardware like Apple TV, Roku, etc. That said, I’m sure it will still appeal to lots of millennials who are happy watching on their small screens.
Yeah but I am reticent to trust any offering from a cable company that traditionally uses “taxes” and fees to pad it’s bottom line. My cable company had bumped it’s rebroadcast fee to $7.50 a month for local networks.
The “up to 10 channels” sounds to me like it’s strictly local channels + HBO. But if you bought just cable modem from Comcast didn’t they also broadcast the local channels in the clear? In which case they are currently saving you the price of a Silicondust box by offering in home streaming.
“Salient points… In-home and Comcast broadband subscribers only with no set-top support for now,”
I find it very, very, very, very difficult to imagine it’ll ever include lean-back support, at least in anything like its current form and price-point.
Absence of lean-back is the only possible way they can afford the licensing fees. Lack of out-of-home is also a smaller component of that. (And even then, they’re probably not making money on this out of the box…)
—–
“The channel selection is interesting as it looks like all the channels that I could get with an antenna.”
Yeah. I’d assume the only possible market for this configuration is broke millennials who can’t get OTA reception…
Aereo + HBO but legal? and no (direct) TV clients (yet). It’s not awful I guess, but it’s not what the people want.
It’s certainly movement in the right direction…
It is strictly local channels plus HBO — live TV for those channels — plus cloud DVR service for those channels, plus Streampix on-demand streaming and (I think) HBO Go. You can only access the live channels at home but the rest, including your DVR recordings, can be streamed anywhere (from what I read elsewhere). But, yeah, there are going to be taxes and that pesky rebroadcast fee. And who knows about picture quality. Are the live channels in HD? How compressed? (Although, given that you’ll be watching on an iPad or phone, does it matter?) And of course this can only be paired with Comcast internet service. That said, if you could add this to the current new customer deal of 25 Mbps internet for $25 per month for the first year, well, that ain’t bad. But this is aimed at “cord nevers” not for cord cutters looking to reduce their bill and keep a traditional TV watching experience. So I’d say this isn’t a direct competitor to the TiVo Roamio OTA and whatever TiVo has up their sleeve later this month.
Damn, that Askimet plugin really hates me…