[Horizon]

....I am pursuaded that with faster net speeds, cloud based storage does become more viable in the tv world. And as someone pointed out to me yesterday, if your pvr dies, you lose your recordings. Whereas, if they are on a remote server, you've still got them.

But yes, I have reservations not just about cloud based storage but putting the epg etc in the cloud too.

I heard all these arguments in a office I worked in 20 years ago. Which went something like this, lets put all our files, software, applications on the network. Stop buying ever more powerful desktop computers and instead have "slave" machines, or cut down specced computers which can access the network. The network is the place "where it will all happen", we don't need powerful computers anymore etc etc. Some even said get rid of the desktops completely, and have everything directly piped in through the network. All you need is monitors. True cloud like.....

What happened, was things came along like lotus notes, then intranets etc all network based. Yes, the bulk of the stuff was put onto networks which enabled multitasking, but what became obvious was rather than having dumbed down, lower spec, slave machines, we actually needed higher spec, faster, more powerful machines to cope with the ever more powerful applications and content reach stuff pulled off the network.

So, perhaps, stbs may die off, but then the hardware (and I think there will still need to be some either built into tvs, plug in usb sticks etc) will still be needed.