TiVo doesn't fear RS-DVR ruling

DVR pioneer TiVo reported a quarterly profit this week for only the third time in the company's history. It posted $2.9 million in net income, far better than last year's same-quarter loss of $17.7 million. But, are TiVo's prospects for future success limited by the recent U.S. Court of Appeals ruling supporting the efforts of cable TV firms and telcos to operate remote storage-DVR?  Not surprisingly, TiVo CEO Tom Rogers doesn't think so, and suggests that the legal fight over RS-DVR between the entertainment and telecommunications industries is far from over.

RS-DVR is also called network DVR, but the heart of the case was Cablevision's RS-DVR service. RS-DVR would seem to limit TiVo's appeal as a storage device, though if TiVo maintains strong ties with network operators, its device could have a prominent role opening a window to a new world of video storage. The company is maintaining the case won't have an effect either way. In any case, Rogers may be right about the issue not being finished yet. Hollywood TV and movie studios had sued Cablevision to stop the storage of copyrighted content on its network, and since the ruling, industry watchers have been expecting the Hollywood forces to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. That has not happened yet, but network operators haven't been rushing to release RS-DVR offerings either.

For more:
- read this story [1] at Light Reading's Cable Digital News
- see this Associated Press story [2]

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Will network DVR have its day? [3]
Cablevision started testing RS-DVR in 2006 [4]