Internet PVR

It looks like Shift TV have finally started to offer what I always wanted - on demand access to TV shows via the Internet. No TV, cable, satellite or other feed is necessary, you just select your shows, have them recorded digitallly and then download/stream them at your leisure and watch using Windows Media Player.

Presumably copyright issues are managed by WMP DRM which seems to be working well enough for many publishers to trust - most notably the porn industry and MPA and if those two bodies are happy with it why shouldn't TV land?

The big catch is that Shift TV is based in Germany and only offers German TV - so far. I look forward to them broadening their scope to other European countries, lets hope they can snag BBC channels someday soon. However I expect America to lag far behind on this because the cable and TV companies will have a cow over it. They want to control all your media and make sure you pay a massive monthly subscription to be fed adverts 24x7. As I've mentioned before, we should be able to get show by show subscriptions and discounts down to $0 for eating their ridiculously high side orders of adverts.

Its really too bad I can't get a terrestrial HD antenna on my roof so I could have my own PVR. However really it just shouldn't be necessary with a 6 Mbps pipe to my door already in place. I look forward to the day when wireless broadband (WiMax) and DSL2+ release the cable industry's choke hold on TV distribution so we can have some more enlightened and open means to get content. Believe me, its not going to be pretty getting there.