Aereo to deliver 20 broadcast channels, DVR to New Yorkers with iPad, Kindle Fire, mobile phones

Aereo plans to launch a technology platform on March 14 which will allow New York City residents to watch and record programming from 20 broadcast networks on PCs, tablets and mobile phones, including Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) iPad and Amazon's (Nasdaq: AMZN) Kindle Fire.

Screenshot: aereo.com

Update: Aereo announced that it had raised $20.5 million in financing, including an investment from Barry Diller's IAC. Aereo plans to charge subscribers $12 monthly for its service, which will allow them to record up to 40 hours of local TV programming through its remote DVR.

Aereo is also compatible with Roku and Apple TV, and may appeal to cable cord-cutters that could use those Internet video set-tops to watch live TV channels.

Formerly known as Bamboom, Aereo was founded by advanced advertising and cable technology whiz Chet Kanojia, who sold Navic Networks to Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) in 2008. Navic developed targeted advertising technology that it licensed to Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC), Charter Communications (Nasdaq: CHTR), Cox Communications and other cable MSOs. According to an invitation Aereo sent to reporters, Kanojia plans to detail Aereo's strategy at a press conference Tuesday morning that will feature IAC chairman Barry Diller, who is expected to announce that he backing Aereo.

Targeting "urban mobile" consumers who may want to cut the cord on pay TV subscriptions, Aereo has developed TV antennas that are smaller than a fingernail, and will link hundreds of thousands of the antennas at data centers to storage devices and Web servers that can deliver video that is converted to HTML5 to viewers in New York. Aereo will also incorporate social TV viewing. For several weeks, Kanojia has been sharing shows that he has been watching through Aereo during its beta trial through his Twitter feed.  

While Aereo will draw scrutiny from broadcasters that have fought distribution of their content via the Web, Kanojia told me in an interview last May that he is banking on copyright laws that have allowed Cablevision (NYSE: CVC) to launch its network DVR service to protect Aereo. A key differentiator for Aereo's product compared to ivi Inc.--the Internet video broadcaster that was forced by a court to shut down its service last year--is that each Aereo user is assigned a personal antenna.

Aereo hasn't yet announced how much it will charge customers to rent its antennas, or whether it will expand outside of New York. The company says viewers will only be able to watch broadcast channels via the Web while they are in the city.

Aereo is compatible with the Google Chrome, Safari 5, Mozilla Firefox and Opera Web browsers. Devices that can be used to watch programming include Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) Android phones and tablets, the iPhone 4, the iPod Touch 4, the Apple TV, Roku's over-the-top video set-top, PCs, Macs, and Linux computers.

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