Cablevision offers real-time computer to TV transfer

by Stevie Smith - Feb 24 2010, 11:59

In a bid to combine armchair convenience with the Internet’s popularity to help keep media consumers planted firmly before their televisions – and not their monitors – the sneaky folk over at Cablevision Systems are offering subscribers access to their very own personal TV channel.

While not strictly true, the ‘PC-to-TV Media Relay’ service will go through an intial trial this coming June, enabling Cablevision’s three million New York-based digital cable subscribers to watch all manner of online content directly through their TV sets.

Put forth as real-time online viewing at the touch of a button, users won’t require any extra hardware or associated equipment, but will be required to download a piece of software in order for their computers to take advantage of the TV transfer process.

Describing the potential of Cablevision’s digital delivery system, COO Tom Rutledge said the company is “putting an end to the need for families to huddle around their laptops or PCs to watch content together.”

“This new service will make it easy for our television customers to take broadband services including Internet video, as well as family photos or anything else displayed on a computer screen and move it to the television with the click of a mouse,” he added.   

Cablevision has yet to reveal the customer costs attached to its PC-to-TV Media Relay service, which is currently restricted to PCs only. The company has also said a Mac version is in the pipeline and a future jump to handheld devices is certainly possible.

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