WASHINGTON, D.C. – Making what was likely the biggest news of the Cable Show here this week, Comcast unveiled plans Tuesday to introduce two new cloud-based IP video services later this year.
The huge U.S. MSO said it will roll out a souped-up user interface, which it has dubbed X2, for its higher-end video subscribers. Plus, it said it will launch a network-based DVR service, known as Cloud DVR, for those same video customers. In conjunction with these twin announcements, Comcast also indicated it will step up its commitment to multi-screen video services. “If you don’t have your products on every platform, you’re missing a whole generation,” said Brian Roberts, chairman and CEO of Comcast. “The winners are companies who can integrate across all devices and platforms with an interface that’s fun and easy to use.”
Comcast is adding these various new services as part of its drive to keep more existing video subscribers from junking or downgrading their video subscriptions. They also want to attract younger, web-savvy consumers who crave broadband speeds but might not want to shell out big bucks for a pay TV bundle.
Roberts kicked off the news developments by demonstrating X2, the MSO’s latest cloud-based user interface for set-top boxes, tablets, smartphones and other web-connected video devices, to the convention crowd in a general session. He showed off a series of new personalization features, navigation guides and search recommendation engines.
The Comcast chairman contended that his company’s new X2 guide will allow viewers to track down the programming they want more easily than before, no matter the source. “It’s about personalization and getting you there faster,” he said. “The whole look and feel is to be easy, personable, fast and fun. And I think we’re just scratching the surface.”
In addition, the X2 interface has a voice-based search capability that will be part of a new remote control. With 60 million Americans, or about 20 percent of the nation’s population, suffering from some kind of disability, Roberts views voice commands as a prime part of the guide upgrade. “Accessibility is a new category for us and a real differentiator,” he said. “What we found is that the more complex the search, the more we want to go to voice.”
Finally, the new X2 platform will allow Comcast to feed Web video content directly to the cable set-top box for the first time. The new X2 offering is an upgraded version of the MSO’s X1 platform, which Roberts unveiled and demonstrated at the Cable Show in Boston only a year ago. Comcast has now deployed the X1 in more than a dozen markets throughout the U.S., with plans to expand the service across its entire footprint by the end of the year.
He added Comcast will begin deploying the X2 before the end of the year. But he didn’t get more specific about the MSO’s launch plans for the latest guide.
Comcast officials also announced their plans for the Cloud DVR service and demonstrated the service at their exhibit booth on the convention floor. After trying it out in Boston and Philadelphia, they plan to introduce the service in a couple of pilot markets later this year.
The planned network-based DVR seems at least loosely based on the “remote-storage” DVR (RS-DVR) that Cablevision Systems has trumpeted throughout the New York metro area. Like that Cablevision product, the Comcast Cloud DVR service aims to create individual copies of each subscriber’s recorded shows and store them in the network as separate files. The service would then make those copies available for customers to watch on any screen they liked.
– Staff
