[cable]

If Sky do start pushing satellite out of the picture in favour of IPTV, I really hope they incorporate recording into the service. One of my biggest gripes with Glass/Stream is how you're expected to watch whatever you wanted to record on catch up/on demand, regardless if you've subscribed to the service hosting it, if it's being hosted at all. I recall seeing a review on YouTube where reviewer tried to "record" a Nat Geo programme, only to be directed to Disney+, which they didn't subscribe to.

I know streaming is the more popular route nowadays, but I really hate the idea of not being able to record what I want after having the ability to do so for about 20 years.

The Glass/Stream recording functionality is surprisingly good when you get used to it. Take the Simpsons on sky showcase for example, it's seamlessly added to the content rails alongside disney+ episodes. I have gotten used to watching most things on-demand and I quite like the watch from start on every channel if I do want to watch linear channels. I probably don't bother with the playlist feature and find the voice search gets me to what I need. The "recording" you see if not necessarily the recording of the programme that has recently been on, if you watch from start, and taking the Simpsons as an example again, the start of another episode appears at the end which the next programme scheduled on showcase is Will and grace. its not perfect however, I note the wrong episode can played back even if the metadata is correct e.g. with the latest new series 34 episode.

Yes there is a "limited" time to watch compared to recording but I think in the future content providers will be licensing and tightly controlling the length of time recordings can be kept for dictated within the broadcast EPG data. I believe there is a mechanism built into SkyQ and virgin media, I wouldn't be surprised if the functionality existed on Freeview too. Back in the day with Push VOD Sky Anytime and Top Up TV had programmes that aged out. Things seem to be moving away from PVRs with the likes of Sky and Virgin Stream, Freeview Play etc

HDDs in PVRs are the components most likely to fail, as they have moving parts, getting rid of this should mean the device has a longer life and cheaper to maintain. HDDs will be phased out in the nearish future, the cost of flash memory will dictate whether or not devices can host a recording feature or just be used as a live buffer. if the IT industry fully moves to SSDs, the costs to manufacture HDDs will increase for other consumer electronics, SSDs are not exactly the ideal replacement for a HDD in a DVR device so server side video will eventually become the defacto standard.