Parks: Over 45% of U.S. pay-TV subscribers want cloud-based DVR

With the Supreme Court rendering an earlier legal affirmation of cloud-based DVR technology intact, Parks Associates has found that 45 percent of U.S. pay-TV subscribers are interested in such a service.

"The Aereo case left licensing for cloud DVR rights largely unaffected, allowing pay-TV providers to move forward with cloud DVR development and implementation," said Glenn Hower, one of the three Parks Associates research analysts who wrote the report, "Cloud DVR: The New Face of Television."

"For example, Comcast recently launched in Atlanta its X1 DVR service, which allows, among other capabilities, subscribers to access DVR recordings on their mobile devices. As content owners and providers experiment with cloud technology, the consumers reap the benefits through access to these innovative offerings," he added.

In its opinion in Cartoon Network v. Cablevision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that cloud-based digital video recorders fall within the scope of fair use under copyright law. In the its landmark ruling in the ABC v. Aereo case in June, the Supreme Court intentionally excluded cloud DVR technology from its ruling, essentially reaffirming its right to exist.

More than 40 percent of broadband houses in the U.S. and U.K. use DVR technology, Parks says. 

In its study, Parks found that pay-TV customers are most interested in recording capacity, registering the most enthusiasm for the ability to record an unlimited amount of programming, or at least two weeks worth of "catch-up" programming. Interestingly, these capabilities surpassed in appeal the ability to access DVR programming with IP devices via the cloud.

For more:
- read this Parks Associates report (sub. req.)

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