Branded as AnyPlay, leading US cable operator Comcast’s move into the portable DVR market with a deal announced with Panasonic this week at CES, is far less than it has been promising for the past three years.
This is NOT a way of removing content from an existing DVR and putting it on a portable device, while keeping it under the protection of strong digital rights management, something that we know the US cable companies have been working on for three years. Instead this is just Comcast acting as a route to market for an existing Panasonic consumer electronics device, in return for a cut, nothing more.
The portable DVR is simply a miniature DVR with a docking station attached to the TV set, and its own 8.5 inch folding LCD display screen and 60 GB hard drive. The device is used instead of an existing DVR, and then the device can be taken on the road and content viewed through its own screen. The reason that it will not be coming out for over a year is almost certainly because the content has to remain encrypted on the device, and so needs to have it own decryption unit in order to play while its owner is in the road.
Comcast has in the past acted as a route to market for other Panasonic gear, including a HD DVR and a Plasma TV screen.
Over the next two years we expect to see flash based portable devices, some of which are mobile handsets, coming to market which have enabled fast side loading from a DVR to the portable device, which can act as a carry case for all types of video from mobile TV QVGA, through SD and on to HD files. All of which, once it arrives, will bypass this type of half way house.