Interesting wrinkle brought in by aviewer.

It *could* possibly work right now, like the Smartphone apps to watch live TV, except it would need to be in the Apps ("Go Interactive") section and reliant on having Uverse Internet as well.  Note: Theoretically.

But aviewer does bring up what it would take if not in App form.  One of the streams would need to be solely for back and forth communication with "the cloud" in the way that the system would be able to understand and use it.  However, it wouldn't be possible for on-the-fly swapping on the user's end.  Therefore, if you had the setting active, were using 3 streams and had a 4th recording scheduled, your recording would not happen, or you would be told to give-up one of the 3 streams to do the recording.  But if "the cloud" was turned off, then all 4 streams could be used.

This "cloud" business outside of the pure-internet realm is a work in progress.  Cablevision's attempt at a full-cloud DVR in New York City was an unmitigated failure.  Customers absolutely hated it.  Comcast's is just getting some narrow rollouts, and the real world reception hasn't come in yet.

AT&T's probably been working on this idea already.  With the enthusiasm Ericsson has expressed towards MediaRoom, that new partnership could bring it to Uverse sooner than when Microsoft was around.

Just a little more follow up:

Browsing the DSLR Comcast forum for some reactions/IRL experiences with their "cloud DVR", and it borders on the insane.

Take a look at the official FAQs at this embedded link for examples of this, such as:

Will the new X1 DVR with cloud technology be available to existing X1 customers with DVR service?
Yes, in markets where the new service is launched, existing X1 customers with DVR service will be able to upgrade to X1 DVR with cloud technology but will need to request the new functionality. (Oh that's JUST what Comcrud customers want -- calls to inept call center personnel who will insist this service doesn't exist, or will want to roll a truck.)  Additional charges will apply to all X1 customers that do not currently subscribe to AnyRoom DVR service.  (Not surprising in the least.  You already need to pay a $20/month premium just for AnyRoom, plus any additional equipment charges.)

Can a customer take their cloud recordings with them if they move or transfer service?
Unfortunately, customers cannot currently transfer recordings to a new service address.  (WAT?!?!  Why wouldn't "the cloud" just follow you?)

"The cloud", apparently, doesn't offer as much freedom as one would think.  If you record to your HDD, you can't access those outside your home.  Yet if you put stuff in the cloud, downloading to the actual HDD is problematic.  Watching a currently-recording cloud program seems to have bugs as well.  If you have scheduled recordings already on your DVR, then those will continue to go to your DVR, so you must manually change everything.

Besides, it HAS been noted, Comcrud can in the future disable streams that actually go to the DVR, forcing customers to put everything into the cloud.  That gets closer to what the content providers REALLY want:  Total control of *what* you watch, for how long, and no real archiving which is what people do from time to time with the HDD DVRs.  What does that mean for pricing?  An equipment charge AND for how much storage you're using?  Anything's possible.

No thanks, I'll keep what I've got right now.  Somehow it just doesn't float my boat to watch programs on a little 3.5" screen while outside of the house when the 42" screen in the house offers a better experience.  Anyone remember this?  Pretty similar to what your Smartphone is today, just "technologically advanced."

This from Digital TV Europe:

Network DVR: the killer app for cloud TV

Network-based digital video recorders have been termed the ‘killer’ cloud TV application and are no longer in development. The technology is up to speed, the storage capacity is there, security is not a big concern and access and user authorisation can be guaranteed.

It is rights issues, with regard to access across multiple devices and over time frames, which are holding things up. Content providers are still considering whether to offer comprehensive rights licences for multi-screen, or whether to license their content separately for each device the service provider wants to offer it on. Content owners must address operational issues too, such as content window length, cloud-based- storage  allocation per user, and ad insertion schedules. A lot of this is for the lawyers to battle out. A few high profile and expensive court cases are likely before precedents are set.

“The main hurdles centre around the notion of rights and storage costs. The debate in the industry revolves specifically around ‘shared’ vs. ‘private’ copy,” says Boris Felts, VP of product marketing at Envivio.

’Private’ copy means that every user has a unique copy of the content available in the cloud, but requires a considerable amount of storage. To make this available on other devices means you also need the right infrastructure to transcode it. The cost might prove to be prohibitive in some cases.

“’Shared copy’ means that the same recording is only stored once, instead of making multiple copies of the same content for each user. From a cost/technology perspective, this is more manageable, but the legal and commercial framework of this type of application is not always defined and specific agreements with the content providers might be required,” says Felts.

Chris Johnston, vice president of digital media solutions at Brightcove, believes that while content rights and security issues pose challenges, they could become key advantages for both consumers and distributors.

“Consumers will benefit from being able to access content anywhere, anytime, without having to download it – providing they have a broadband connection. Distributors will be able to create a single, secure content store for their customers to access, lowering costs for management and tracking. In some ways, it may even be simpler than what is happening with music today, because consumers historically viewed music as something they ‘owned’, while this was typically not the case for TV content,” says Johnston.

The ability to record content and make that recording available from the cloud to any device is clearly compelling to consumers. As streaming goes from a trickle to a deluge, though, networked DVRs could quickly become sidelined adds Akamai’s director of product marketing for media, Kurt Michel.

“I use my DVR for linear broadcasts. I tell my DVR that there is something that I want to watch and I ask it to grab it. But now with OTT, so much content is available to me when I want to watch it, I don’t need to record it. DVRs won’t become completely redundant as not everything is streamed, but a lot is.

I’ve already noticed that my children rarely record anything and they are the generation to watch.”

Children may set the trends, but they don’t pay the bills. Ultimately it will be the bill payers, whether they be on the consumer side or the content or distributor side who will work out a way to make the cloud pay and turn what was a youth-led initiative mainstream.

Chris

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Funny thing about comcast... Their d.v.r. would have to make pizza while having 10 tb of storage and have holographic tech to even think about switching! On second thought... no way! Their the worst. 

ATT rocks.