Time Warner Cable (TWC) quietly began rolling out its video-on-demand (VOD) service in New York this month, marking the broadest offering of VOD to date and providing a testing ground for the technology's evolution. Tonight on "Tech Live," see what it looks like and how New Yorkers are responding to the new service.

Heather Whalen is a junior high school math teacher by day and a graduate school student by night. Finding time to mark papers and have a social life is not always easy, but finding time to tune in to the tube at the right time to catch her favorite shows is even harder. Whalen is a lot like other multitasking New Yorkers, which is why New York is prime testing ground for video on demand.

Time Warner Cable started rolling out its VOD service this month in stages to 1.2 million customers. It's the biggest one-city rollout of the service to date.

Larry Pestana, TWC vice president of engineering, explains that the new service is available to digital customers in three plans. The first plan provides free, video-on-demand service for common cable channels such as HGTV and the Food Network. The second plan offers movies on demand for $3.95 per movie, with the option to choose from 100 movies. Finally, for $6.95 per month, users can choose shows anytime from premium cable channels including HBO, Cinemax, Showtime, and The Movie Channel.

The screen interface looks like the TV menu typically seen in hotels. You point and click to order a movie or access back episodes of original programming. With HBO-on-demand, customers such as Whalen will be able to watch episodes of popular shows such as "Sex and the City," "The Sopranos," and "Six Feet Under" whenever they want.

"'Six Feet Under' -- my boyfriend has been watching it and I have missed the first season, so I am way behind," Whalen said. "It would be helpful to watch the first season."

Video on demand isn't new and has been tested in other cities by Time Warner and other carriers such as Charter and Cox Communications. Insight Communications was the first operator to offer video on demand, and Charter, Cox, and Cablevision also offer VOD in varying ways to some customers.

Simon Applebaum, senior editor of Multichannel News, says that in some ways TWC has performed on par with rest of the industry.

"The fact that they are now getting it out to half their customer base by the end of the year speaks volumes. Not just for them, but for the rest of the industry," Applebaum said. "First of all it guarantees that video on demand will be in about 8 to 10 million homes by the end of the year, and that's key. Because now you are going to have a critical mass and we'll see how well VOD does."

Applebaum thinks the one area where Time Warner has lagged is free video on demand. But hopefully, he says, offering some free VOD will get people hooked.

This past summer TWC announced plans to offer a TiVo-like personal video-recording (PVR) service to customers, enabling them to record and play various shows when they want by using their existing set-top cable boxes. Pestana explains that the VOD service is paving the way for an eventual rollout of the recording technology.

"We are looking at being able to offer a box with a hard drive in it that you can store programs whenever you want, such as news or network info," Pestana said. "Right now, Time Warner Cable is not ready to offer a box with a hard drive, which is why the company is moving forward with offering VOD to all its customers in New York."

The convergence between cable providers and PVR service begs the question: How will companies such as TiVo and ReplayTV survive? By combining the two, according to Simon Applebaum.

"TiVo and Replay have to be in the set-top box and, in fact, be a video-on-demand service," he said. He adds that people are not likely to pay for a stand-alone box from TiVo and then an additional monthly fee to store TV programs. Rather, he says, people will wait to have an all-in-one system.