First Findings: Verizon’s Multi-Room DVR Service

Verizon Communications Inc. has offered a glimpse into the post-launch life of the multi-room digital video recorder (DVR) service that it offers with its FiOS, video-driven triple-play package.

Introduced last August, Multi-Room DVR lets FiOS subscribers watch a recorded show in one room while someone else uses the same DVR in another room, without each having to have its own recorder unit. AT&T Inc. plans to launch a similar service in the second half of this year.

The Multi-Room DVR is flexible since it lets users pause a program in one room and continue viewing in another. It also enables subscribers to record up to 80 hours of standard definition (SD) programming and up to 18 hours of high-definition (HD) programming.

The free Media Manager feature allows users to view slide shows and listen to music stored on their computers directly through the DVR to their televisions. It requires customers also have FiOS Internet service.

In the race to differentiate its FiOS TV offering, Verizon used a combination of specifications from the Digital Living Network Alliance and its own “secret sauce” to build the home network foundation needed to deliver Multi-Room DVR. 

“The network in the home is as important as the one outside,” said Ruchir Rodrigues, vice president of product design and development at Verizon, adding that roughly half of FiOS customers have DVRs.

The top exec claimed 10 percent of all new FiOS customers also take the Multi-Room DVR offering. That’s largely driven by Verizon’s findings that DVR homes already have an average of three set-top boxes, said Rodrigues.

DVR recording and live TV functions are supported on the DVR STBs only. Multi-room features are supported on the Multi-Room DVRs and Standard Definition Model 2500 STBs only, and will support up to six additional televisions, with simultaneous viewing of up to two recorded shows.

“We’re moving from prime time to my time,” said Dan Moloney, president of Motorola Inc.’s home and networks mobility group, which supplies Verizon both SD and HD STBs and DVRs for FiOS. He predicts the number of DVR households will almost double from 33 million last year to 65 million by 2011.

“They’re not just for one or two show you record,” added Moloney, referring to DVRs. “They’re [becoming] digital video libraries.”

Share this article: Email, Slashdot, Digg, Del.icio.us, Yahoo!MyWeb, Windows Live Favorites, Furl
Add this article feed to: RSS, My Yahoo, Newsgator, Bloglines