Over the top or into the snare? Will true over the top take off?

If you have been watching the developments, Comcast, Time Warner and other Cable MSO’s have been experimenting with pseudo over the top services. What are they doing? They are starting to offer many of their premium programs over the internet, with a catch. You must be a subscriber to the MSO’s service and authenticate with your subscriber account to access the content.
This is in direct contrast to true over the top services like Hulu, Youtube and many of the content sites like ABC.com and CBS.com. Who will win?
Based on the recent Emmy nominations, it seems possible that both will coexist. Many of the top Emmy awards are going to the premium subscription channels, such as HBO. Hulu doesn’t offer this today. So unless you are willing to do without streams to this content, or are willing to pirate it the industry will probably settled down into a multi-tier coexistence. However, second to HBO is some “basic cable” channels. Hulu does indeed offer many of the non subscription services. This also doesn’t mean that Hulu or indeed HBO couldn’t offer a subscription service “over the top.”
Could this dynamic help push Hulu, CBS and other true over the top service to embrace over the top delivery to the TV such as Popcorn Hour? Not on its own, but it is one of the many compelling forces that will help drive over the top providers to offer there solution, truly open on any consumption scenario. I for one believe in the next two years or so, you will see a service like Hulu deliver to the TV. If they don’t want to follow their siblings in the music industry they will come.

US Supreme Court upholds lower court decision on “Network DVR” Over the Top next?

It’s final, at least in the US, or until the congress (unlikely) overturns the ruling. I commented before on whom I thought who could be a likely winner from this case. http://digital.limberis.com/2008/11/cablevison-network-dvr-court-victory.html

At the time I identified ATT and other IP TV vendors that have relatively lower bandwidth into the home. I still believe that is the case. I believe ATT and other IPTV vendors will start to deploy this technology.
Now, let’s look at the next stage. What about a general over the top NetDVR application? Such a service could easily work with Popcorn hour and other over the top solutions? Wouldn't it be great if your popcorn hour could “schedule” recordings from over the top services such as ESPN, Hulu etc.? How would you like such a service?