# TiVo Cloud Recording



## Ckought (Nov 29, 2006)

TiVo sets up a server farm with oodles of drive space. Sell a TiVo box with multiple tuners, but no hard drive (would have to have a small amount of RAM drive).

Every show on every tuner buffers to the RAM drive. At the end of each "recorded" show, it queries the TiVo Cloud server to see if that show, from that specific provider, is already uploaded. If not, then it uploads the show to the server (transcoding to MPEG4 to minimize bandwidth usage).

That show then becomes available to every TiVo user that has legitimate access to that show through that provider.

So, for example, I record "Law and Order: SVU" at 9:00pm Wednesday on WNBC NY. at the end of the show, my TiVo connects to the server and sees that there isn't already a copy of that specific show uploaded, so it uploads my copy. From then on, every TiVo owner that recorded that episode of "Law and Order: SVU" from WNBC NY would be able to stream that copy of the show from the server. So, if 1000 people record that episode from that provider, and only one copy of it is stored on the server, that saves massive amounts of drive space.

It would also be cheaper for TiVo to have the storage centralized. Rather than installing individual hard drives within each TiVo box (and having to support drive failures), they could support 10s or 100s of users with that same amount of disk space at the central location by eliminating the duplicate recordings.

This could also be expanded out (legal matters permitting) so that EVERY show that goes through EVERY tuner on EVERY TiVos checks to see if it exists on the server (no matter if the user recorded it or not), and uploads itself if not. Then, every TiVo that could have had access to that show would then be able to access it from the server. It would be like giving every TiVo almost unlimited virtual tuners.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

That would be cool. My ISP probably won't count program downloads from TiVo against my data cap also, right?


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

I believe the sharing of YOUR recording with others is a copyright violation. They would need to have agreements in place with the owner of the programming to do that and then they might as well just provide you standard OTT style streaming of that programming.

Having your own data on a cloud is fine. Sharing it is not.

I am not looking forward to cloud based DVRs as the main (only) method of watching TV.


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## Steve (Apr 24, 2003)

Ckought said:


> Every show on every tuner buffers to the RAM drive. At the end of each "recorded" show, it queries the TiVo Cloud server to see if that show, from that specific provider, is already uploaded. If not, then it uploads the show to the server (transcoding to MPEG4 to minimize bandwidth usage).


Cablevision went to court over cloud DVR-ing. The appealed ruling allows them to store an indivdual copy of a recording for each customer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_DVR

I used it for over a year, and it was pretty cool. I had 15 virtual tuners, and each STB was a client. Networked trickplay took a while to get used to, however. They had no 30 second skip, just FF. Also, could not stream recordings to my iPad, either in-home or OOH, at least as of May of this year.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

The upload limitation would be a killer for something like this. Most people have asymmetrical internet speeds with the upload side being as low a 1Mbps. I just can't see them doing this when local storage is so cheap. 

A better option would be for them to partner with an OTT cable provider, like SlingTV or PSVue, and integrate that service directly into the TiVo UI. So then you could record the shows directly to the cloud DVR, not using your own bandwidth, and then just stream them down to your TiVo (or Roku, AppleTV, etc..) when you wanted to watch.


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## jth tv (Nov 15, 2014)

What we have now works fine.


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## Steve (Apr 24, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> So then you could record the shows directly to the cloud DVR, not using your own bandwidth, and then just stream them down to your TiVo (or Roku, AppleTV, etc..) when you wanted to watch.


That's how Cablevision does it. The recordings are made by cloud DVRs. Each customer is assigned 15 virtual tuners and up to 100 hours of HD cloud storage, IIRC.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> The upload limitation would be a killer for something like this. Most people have asymmetrical internet speeds with the upload side being as low a 1Mbps. I just can't see them doing this when local storage is so cheap.
> 
> A better option would be for them to partner with an OTT cable provider, like SlingTV or PSVue, and integrate that service directly into the TiVo UI. So then you could record the shows directly to the cloud DVR, not using your own bandwidth, and then just stream them down to your TiVo (or Roku, AppleTV, etc..) when you wanted to watch.


Comcast uses cloud based storage to increase the capacity of their DVRs. At least in some areas. It is this way in my area. But you have no control of whether the content is stored in the cloud or locally. It works perfectly fine except for the delay in controlling playback. Which has been the case with Comcast for a long time anyway. Even before they enabled cloud storage here. And with Comcast even if the content is stored locally, if the cable goes out you can't view anything. So whether the content is stored locally or in the cloud make s no difference.

Several years ago my Boxee box used cloud based storage for recordings. That worked perfectly fine too. It can easily be done but there is certainly a cost involved for the storage. Boxee never really got it past their test phase, to the point of charging for it. And since I'm on FiOS, which has symmetrical tiers, upload speeds is not an issue.


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## mangochutney (Apr 7, 2015)

The last thing we need is wasting bandwidth with TV shows. A show comes in to your home only for you to spit it back out the other way via IP? No.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

mangochutney said:


> The last thing we need is wasting bandwidth with TV shows. A show comes in to your home only for you to spit it back out the other way via IP? No.


It's already been around for awhile and usage will continue to increase. This isn't the 20th century.


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## mangochutney (Apr 7, 2015)

That may be the case for the minuscule percent that have the connectivity to do so using today's QAM TV tech. It's unviable. VOD over IP however will be the winner.


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## tomhorsley (Jul 22, 2010)

A "cloud" DVR is just marketing-speak for "we can prevent you from skipping commercials". Don't want a cloud, don't need a cloud.


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## mangochutney (Apr 7, 2015)

The more reliant we become on cloud services, the worse off we will be during a storm.


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## Steve (Apr 24, 2003)

tomhorsley said:


> A "cloud" DVR is just marketing-speak for "we can prevent you from skipping commercials". Don't want a cloud, don't need a cloud.


Respectfully disagree.

On Demand is generally "no commercial skipping" (though X1 users apparently have a workaround).

Cloud DVRing is remote recording with trickplay intact, at least as implemented by Cablevision in NY-NJ-CT.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Steve said:


> Respectfully disagree.
> 
> On Demand is generally "no commercial skipping" (though X1 users apparently have a workaround).
> 
> Cloud DVRing is remote recording with trickplay intact, at least as implemented by Cablevision in NY-NJ-CT.


It's the same with Comcast. At least for now.


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## tomhorsley (Jul 22, 2010)

Steve said:


> Cloud DVRing is remote recording with trickplay intact, at least as implemented by Cablevision in NY-NJ-CT.


At the moment. Once they get enough people hooked into the cloud, they can go to advertisers and say "Nice commercial you got there, too bad if anyone should skip it. Pay us extra and we can make sure that doesn't happen..."


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## jerryez (May 16, 2001)

That is what happened to Dish's Autohop. The networks objected to it and Dish gave it away during negotiating new contract with the networks. Only NBC still has autohop after one day. If the programming was stored in the cloud, TiVo would eventually have to give up commercial skips, since they would be negotiating with the networks to allow storing their programs in the cloud. Keep the DVR.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

All of this is inevitable at this point. The FCC caved on the CableCARD replacement and is going to allow the MSOs to switch over to apps. These apps will be required to allow recording, but they'll still be locked into the MSOs UI and whatever features they want to provide. We could be looking at forced commercials even for local DVR recordings.

There may be nothing more TiVo, or anyone else, can do once CableCARDs go away regardless of whether the shows are stored in the cloud or locally.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> All of this is inevitable at this point. The FCC caved on the CableCARD replacement and is going to allow the MSOs to switch over to apps. These apps will be required to allow recording, but they'll still be locked into the MSOs UI and whatever features they want to provide. We could be looking at forced commercials even for local DVR recordings.
> 
> There may be nothing more TiVo, or anyone else, can do once CableCARDs go away regardless of whether the shows are stored in the cloud or locally.


I guess the only good thing for me is I'll be watching less TV at that point.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I find myself watching more streaming shows anyway. If it weren't for my wife I'd seriously consider cutting the cord.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> I find myself watching more streaming shows anyway. If it weren't for my wife I'd seriously consider cutting the cord.


But probably not with commercials.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

TonyD79 said:


> But probably not with commercials.


No, I hate commercials. I pay extra for the commercial free Hulu and if I subscribe to CBS All Access for the new Star Trek I'll pay extra for commercial free there too.


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## mattbanks (Jul 29, 2016)

i love the idea


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## Digital Man (Jan 2, 2013)

This may be less realistic now that Comcast is inflicting 1TB data caps on our internet service.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## tpkidd3 (Dec 14, 2008)

This was tried with music CDs and MP3s back in the day. You joined the service, put a physical CD into your computer to prove you owned it, and then the service either ripped the CD and stored it to the cloud or gave you access to an already ripped CD from the cloud. Music companies didn't like this because they cut into sales. If you wanted to listen to music in your car, at the office, and at home, they thought people were buying 3 CDs. Also emerging online digital music sales were uncomfortable. industry found the potential loopholes in the process and went to court. They asserted a user could buy a CD, load it to their account, and then return or sell the CD but still have access to the music. Or a user could borrow a CD and do the same thing. The company couldn't weather the legal costs and went out of business. While technology has changed, and those loopholes could be overcome today, I am sure content providers could find something else to litigate. 
However, a long-ago FCC Chairman predicted that eventually 'everything' would be on demand. (except for truly live events like sports) All content would eventually be stored on the cloud. Shows would no longer 'air' at a certain time they would become 'available'. Companies like TiVo could easily adopt this model.


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