Whole-Home DVR: A Necessary Feature of Your Video Bundle?
Posted by Jesse Ward on Monday, June 21, 2010 · 
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Several video service providers are now offering whole-home DVR services, which leaves me wondering, is whole-home DVR a mandatory feature in order to remain competitive in the video marketplace?
Whole-Home DVR typically lets users record and playback from multiple locations within the household. When users choose to watch the same recording, they can do so in different rooms with the ability to fast-forward, pause or rewind without affecting other viewers. Whole-home DVR also allows a subscriber to pause a show in one room and resume watching in another one.
AT&T has leveraged its whole-home DVR service as a key competitive differentiation. The service offers the ability to record up to four shows at one time and store up to 233 hours of standard definition (SD) video or 65 hours of high definition (HD) programming. The AT&T service is available at no additional charge for U-verse TV customers.
In early May, Cox Communications become the first cable company to launch a whole-home DVR service. Cox offers a 500 gig hard drive. Up to three different recordings can be viewed simultaneously on different televisions throughout the home. Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCa) technology will drive the whole-home DVR service, which is available for an additional $5-per-month.
On June 9, DirecTV announced that it too now offers a whole-home DVR service which is available in as many as 15-room homes. It lets users record a pair of shows while watching two other ones. DirecTV charges $7 for its traditional DVR service and an additional $3 per month for the whole-home DVR service.
And last but not least, Mediacom Communications announced last week that it will launch whole-home DVR, initially offering the service to customers “in more than 200 Illinois communities located between Rock Island and Champaign Counties and extending north to Wisconsin.” The offering provides seamless television recording and playback in up to three rooms, with the capability of recording six programs at the same time while playing back three recordings. The service utilizes a 500 GB hard drive capable of recording up to 140 hours of analog video, 390 hours of digital video, or 70 hours of HD video. Mediacom traditionally charges $10.95 per month for its DVR service. The cable provider has not announced if there will be an additional charge for its whole-home DVR service.
Oh, and one more thing. Comcast is rumored to be teeing up the service. No official word yet, but the outlook is favorable.
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