As part of a five-year agreement with NBCUniversal, any Roku users who sign up to Peacock Premium Plus via the Roku Channel app can also access cloud DVR for live content.
This means that Premium Plus subscribers can record Premier League matches, MLB games, NFL Sunday Night Football and more, after which the content can be accessed at any time for a rewatch via their Roku device.
Although DVR services were popularised by companies such as TiVo and Sky, the practice has largely fallen out of fashion with the advent of streaming services and on-demand content. Still, for live sports and events that aren’t available after they’ve been aired, DVR is the only way to relive what’s happened, and by opting for cloud-based storage, Roku has ensured that you don’t need to have a bulky box like the ones of old, which had inbuilt storage.
Bear in mind that the cloud DVR feature is only available if you subscribe to Peacock Premium Plus via the Roku Channel, so anyone who subscribes to the same tier via Peacock directly won’t be able to access it.
Roku
At the time of writing, Peacock Premium Plus costs $16.99 a month, although there is a slightly cheaper annual price of $169.99 available. On top of live sport, the service also comes with ad-free streaming, offline downloads and unrestricted access to the full Peacock catalogue.
Given just how many streaming boxes and sticks are available nowadays, with great options from Apple, Amazon and more, it makes sense for Roku to invest in a feature like this to give its devices the upper hand on the market.
Alongside the announcement, Roku has teased that cloud DVR may be coming to more services later this year. Given that Netflix and Disney+ are starting to invest more heavily in live sports on their respective platforms, it wouldn’t be too surprising if Roku is looking to bring them into the cloud DVR fold.
At present, this feature is only available to Roku users in the US, but it’s hard not to imagine an appetite for digital recording elsewhere in the world, especially as Sky no longer sells its Sky Q box, which was the last remaining product in its range that allowed for on-device recording.