Shows May 'Pivot' From DVR to Phone

Orlando, Fla.— The joint venture between four large cable operators and Sprint Nextel is contemplating the on-command delivery of shows that subscribers have stored on the digital-video recorders in their homes to their mobile phones.

This “device-shifting” is an example of the “pivotal” features that the joint venture will produce. The venture last week adopted the name Pivot, to reflect its aim of letting customers use and control the same set of services on their mobile phones that they do on their home TVs and phones from anywhere they are.

But such a mobile-playback service would almost certainly require revising existing licensing deals for copyrighted video programs. Programmers could argue that this is a wireless version of Cablevision Systems' planned network-based digital recording and playback system. A federal judge put the kibosh on Cablevision's plan last month, ruling it was a “complex system” involving ongoing maintenance by the company, not just a standalone machine in a customer's home.

The potential wireless delivery of recorded TV shows to handheld phones was informally described last week at the CTIA Wireless 2007 show in Orlando, Fla., where Sprint Nextel and its cable partners — Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications and Bright House Networks — introduced the Pivot name.

“Pivot” is supposed to signal to subscribers that they can hook into their existing cable services wirelessly, Sprint-Cable Joint Venture president John Garcia said at the convention here last week.

“The idea [behind the name] is to give customers access to the things that are important to them, wherever they turn,” he said on a discussion panel about mobile convergence. The Pivot partners hope to have wireless services up and running in 40 markets by the end of this year, up from seven now.

Meanwhile, the Pivot operators are considering allowing subscribers to stream programming stored on their DVRs to mobile phones.

It's just an idea for now. Currently, the Sprint Cable JV doesn't have a DVR-to-mobile phone feature on its road map, Sprint public relations manager Melinda Tiemeyer said. “Obviously, we're focused on getting all the markets rolled out and getting our features where they need to be,” she said.

But mobile-video technology provider MobiTV, which provides the wireless TV infrastructure services to the members of the Sprint joint venture, is hatching such a capability.

MobiTV CEO Phillip Alvelda said the company has been working with Scientific Atlanta and Motorola to integrate DVR functions with the MobiTV infrastructure for sending TV signals over wireless carriers' networks.

Alternatively, he said, cable operators may develop a network-based digital-recording system that could more efficiently provide the same streaming-to-mobile feature as long as programmers give their consent.

Such a service, Alvelda said, would be similar to what Sling Media offers with SlingPlayer Mobile, which lets a user watch live or recorded TV on a mobile device. “Except,” he added, “we're paying people for the programming.”

Indeed, if cable companies were to offer this kind of feature, they would want to get the green light from programmers the way things stand now. That's because a federal judge last month shot down Cablevision Systems' network DVR as violating copyright laws in a suit brought by a group of broadcasters and cable networks.

U.S. District Judge Denny Chin wrote in his March 22 decision that the operator's network DVR “is a complex system that involves an ongoing relationship between Cablevision and its customers”—not just a “stand-alone machine that sits on top of a television.” Cablevision chief operating officer Tom Rutledge last week said he had not had yet evaluated whether to appeal the ruling.

If and when it happens, Sprint's Tiemeyer said, multiple technology providers would be part of developing a DVR-to-mobile streaming system. “When we get to that point there are going to be a lot of different people involved, not just MobiTV,” she said.

For the near future, the MSOs are touting other features of Pivot that connect into cable services. For example, operators expect to offer the capability to program DVRs from Sprint phones “in select areas” in 2007. Other integrated features include accessing TV listings and checking home e-mail from mobile phones.