One Step Closer: Comcast Puts the DVR in the Cloud, Brings the Web To Your TV

Following Monday's announcement that Comcast's Xfinity Internet will vastly expand the amount of public WiFi available to Xfinity users on-the-go by doubling the WiFi broadcast by Xfinity Internet gateways, Comcast had another big Internet-related announcement to make on Tuesday. Comcast is moving the DVR into the cloud, and bringing the Internet to your TV. 

Comcast's Chairman and CEO Brian L. Roberts revealed the next-generation cable platform at NCTA's The Cable Show, a gathering of members of the cable TV industry, on Tuesday, according to the Washington Post. The new platform is going to be called "X2," and will work on all X1 set-top cable boxes, as well as a new, smaller, set-top box that Comcast unveiled on Tuesday.

The smaller set-top box — about one third the size of a regular model — is a step forward in the industry, offloading much of the space required for a hard drive to record shows into the cloud. And because the X2 is essentially a server-based improvement in services, X1 boxes will be able to upgrade over the Internet. The downloadable enhancements are available as of Tuesday on the X1 boxes, and the full X2 experience will be available to customers later in the year.

The Internet-related enhancements coming to the X1 platform immediately include additional Web-based content, interface customization, and integration between screens, home-based and mobile. "The X1 Platform is an incredible example of what's possible with cloud innovation," said Comcast's Brian L. Roberts. "With the introduction of Web-based content to the platform today, and the promise of a faster and more integrated experience with X2, we're adding more functionality to each screen in a customer's home, and transforming our video product into a complete entertainment operating system."

Roberts demonstrated features of the X2 at The Cable Show, which makes the new platform seem a lot more like a computer than a cable box. The channel guide's home screen is customizable to show weather, news, traffic, or other mini apps in tiles, much like a tablet or smartphone. But on top of that, the tiles can be personalized to include TV-related information, such as recently recorded DVR content or social media feeds, like photos on Facebook and updates from Twitter.

There are also recommendations that come from live TV, based on your prior viewing habits, and recommendations based on non-live content like movies and TV shows as well. Comcast is looking to integrate the social web into live TV as a kind of recommendation engine as well, including listing statistics from Twitter to show what TV shows people are "buzzing" about, Common Sense Media age ratings, and movie ratings from Rotten Tomatoes.

Second-screen enthusiasts — people who spend time on a tablet looking up additional videos or web content about the show while watching live TV — will be pleased with the new platform. A new feature called "Send to TV" allows users to "fling" a web page or video to their set-top box and view whatever they were watching on the big screen. Comcast promises many third-party, TV-optimized apps will come as they expand their app marketplace. Finally, Comcast's CEO also demonstrated a new feature of X2: voice search. Saying, "find Don Cheadle," the guide then responded by pulling up about two-dozen movies and TV shows that featured Cheadle, as well as web-based video content, according to the Washington Post.

Siri-like search, a Windows 8-like operating system, and a DVR in the cloud is certainly bringing TV and internet closer together—two forces that, from a purely entertainment-technology standpoint have been inexplicably seperte for all these years.