Cable Lobby Set-Top Offer: No DVR Requirement, No More Compromises
The NCTA said customers won’t have to pay extra for using third-party apps and boxes but left the door open for other methods of jacking up customers’ prices.
The cable lobby proposal would require pay-TV companies with at least one million subscribers to build HTML5 applications for third-party devices, making it easier for consumers to avoid renting set-top boxes from cable companies. But while the proposed applications would have to provide all linear and on-demand programming, they wouldn’t be required to let customers record video.
If the industry proposal is accepted, MVPDs (multichannel video programming distributors) could offer recording in apps for third-party devices if they choose to do so, or they could restrict recording to their own hardware so that customers would have to pay box rental fees in order to record.
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