Hands on: Cablevision's Optimum iPad app offers smooth streaming, despite legal challenges

Cablevision's Optimum App for the iPad promises access to 300 live TV channels, video on demand, and an experience that "turns the iPad into an additional television." The good news: For the most part, it provides a smooth, crisp viewing experience and an intuitive user interface. The bad: Just as they did when Time Warner Cable released its streaming app, programmers have begun to challenge Cablevision, with YES Network declaring that "Cablevision does not have the right to offer the YES Network in the manner it is doing so on the iPad," and other networks reportedly grumbling as well.

The app works with Cablevision's Optimum cable system. When first launched, it requests your Optimum ID and password (the app is free, but an Optimum subscription is required to use it). Once that information is saved, subsequent launches bring up a splash screen that includes video-on-demand selections, a summary of programs recorded on your DVR, and highlights from the system's channel guide.

The DVR can be managed from anywhere, but the app's viewing functionality works solely within a cable subscriber's home; according to Cablevision, programming is streamed to the app over the company's digital cable system, rather than via the Internet. That distinction is central to Cablevision's challenge to networks like YES. In a press release announcing the app, Cablevision asserted that the company "has the right to distribute programming over its cable system to iPads configured in this way under its existing distribution agreements with programming providers." As of this writing, YES was still available on the app.

Live programming can be chosen from the channel guide or via a pop-up menu. Video streams start playing almost instantly in a low-resolution mode and usually switch to higher quality after a few seconds. Streaming was largely smooth on a first-generation iPad, though there were occasional stutters and pauses. Free on-demand videos can be accessed instantly; pay videos have to be rented using a television, after which they can be viewed on the iPad.

The app doesn't exactly "turn the iPad into a television." You can't watch programs you've recorded on your DVR, and you can't pause live TV the way you can with a DVR-equipped cable box. But the app lets you watch TV in rooms that aren't wired for cable as well as in locations that never will be, such as patios and bathrooms. Cablevision promises versions for "other tablets and display devices," which will presumably include Android tablets and phones.

—Marc Perton