Quote:
Originally Posted by cheekyangus
Sorry for going off topic with the Netflix annoyance...
On-topic...
I was wondering whether maybe it would work by Virgin at one of their headends recording all their feeds 24/7. And then allowing users, if they select to record something, access to VM's recording. They are clearly not going to have a separate recording for every user, it isn't practical or cost effective. And using the catch-up versions isn't recording.
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That's what I was wondering too; they do it anyway for the majority of content on the PSB channels.
I once posed the question as to what the difference was between cloud recordings and VOD, to which Spiderplant replied "good question"! Maybe even recording will begin to look outdated, let alone linear television, as everything will be available via VOD and future STB's may once again no longer have the ability to record as if will be deemed surplus to requirements.
The main problem with this is the length of time that you have to watch the programmes and I note that the window is to be extended with the ITV deal. Of course, this system would further allow the broadcasters to control what you can watch and how long you can watch it for compared to the days of video tape recordings.
The law that allows home recording says that people can only keep recordings for 'timeshifting purposes' and for 'a reasonable length of time', so they will probably use this as an excuse for doing it.
I imagine that VM would simply use the current VOD facilities that the broadcasters send to them and negotiate to make them available for much longer. The rest may have to be recorded or agreements made for them to supply linear content in VOD form too.
Incidentally, an episode of something was missing from Catch Up the other week. The foreign call centre apologised and said that "VM had forgotten to record it"!! It conjured up visions of someone at VM frantically recording things with a load of VCR's and tapes everywhere, so at least it gave me a laugh. I really don't know where they get such people from who have so little understanding of the products that they sell, it's an embarrassment for the company.