Cablevision Systems (NYSE: CVC), Time Warner Cable's (NYSE: TWC) erstwhile partner in the crime (according to some programmers) of shrinking big-screen TV programming down to small-screen iPads, is now moving in the other direction and taking small-screen programming and putting it on the big-screen TV.
Among the PC-to-TV offerings Cablevision is now making available to subscribers are Hulu, iTunes movies, TV shows and YouTube videos, and "just about anything else accessible on a Windows PC," reported Multichannel News.
The deal, available for free top-of-the-line Cablevision subscribers and for $4.95 a month for those who bundle up some services, could bring the same level of angst Cablevision continues to face from programmers who object to their fare being moved from the TV to the iPad. In this instance, Hulu, especially, has been resistant to showing its material on TV.
There's also something of a Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) element. To get all this content, Cablevision subs must download and install software on a PC that's using some recent version of Windows (7, Vista or XP) and then connect the computer to a cable modem. The next step is to tune to channel 641 to watch the content using software from Split Media Labs. Finally (and who said things would be easy?) the subscribers must tune to the channel within 10 minutes of when they want to watch so the PC has time to connect to the TV. The application shuts down just short of three hours after it starts unless the subs confirm they want to keep going.
For more:
- Multichannel News has this story
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