I've been thinking, and was wondering what are your ideas of this?
Since with cable, you must be connected to the network to receive TV channels, on-demand content and even recordings, then surely the following is possible?
First off, you will have a TiVo without a hard drive, or any cable box for that matter, but since TiVo is USP for VM why not...
On the Mini-guide or TV Guide, choose a program to record.
The recording will then be received at the head end which will have numerous hard drives with quotas allocated to each customer for example 500GB, 1TB, 2TB etc.
The recording will then store on these hard drives instead of the customers (since they do not have one to begin with).
When the recording has complete, the customer can then view the recording as if it were on-demand.
Developers could then maybe make it a bit more clever; if a customer has made a recording that another customer has made, and the program is identical in every way possible (same channel, same episode), the headend will then only keep one copy of this thus saving space. Once all customers have deleted the recordings, it will be removed all together, whereas if one customer removes it, it will still be available for the other customer who recorded it.
Over time, the space could be upgraded without the need for a box swap. Simply VM could charge a fee for more space, or upgrade like it currently does with broadband.
Not sure if all of it will be possible, but what are your thoughts?
Feel free to add to it if you have any of your own ideas or improvements on mine
