Comcast to market new video recorder By Peter J. Howe, Globe Staff | August 29, 2004 Starting tomorrow, Comcast Corp. will begin marketing an enhanced cable box to New Englanders that will accelerate a revolution that is changing television-watching habits, and the television industry itself. The Motorola box, which includes a TiVo -style digital video recorder, will allow millions of subscribers to watch shows on their own schedule and skip through the advertisements. Although the technology has been available for a few years, most notably from industry leader TiVo, the adoption of the digital video recording by the region's dominant cable provider signals that this disruptive technology is about to go mainstream. The Comcast digital video recorder, built around a large hard drive, will be able to store 50 hours of regular programming or 10 hours of high-definition format shows, while also letting people pause and rewind shows as they are broadcast live. Comcast will charge $9.95 a month for the system with no upfront installation charge, a steep discount from TiVo, which charges at least $99 for a stand-alone recorder plus $12.95 for monthly service. About 5 percent of US households now own digital video recording systems, a figure that is expected to rise to 22 percent by 2008, according to The Yankee Group, a Boston market research firm. Even though the numbers are small, industry executives expect growing DVR usage to roil the $58 billion US television advertising market, as increasing numbers of consumers, particularly the most affluent who are most likely to rent the devices, get the power to program their own television viewing, and ignore the traditional 30-second television spot. ... http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2004/08/29/comcast_to_market_new_video_recorder/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways: - Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at FreeLists.org - By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word unsubscribe in the subject line.