Most of his donations are "indefinite loans" on equipment he thinks is valuable, Hussain says.

Doyle describes it differently.

"I tell the students it's payback time," he says. "Your parents bought Merlins, and now I use the money to give a lot of things."

Before Pforzheimer House spent $10,000 to renovate a library into television studios, much of HRTV's post-production was actually done at Doyle's house, says Hussian, who is also a former Crimson executive. Doyle still hosts training weekends and seminars for HRTV members.

Much of the impetus for multicasting comes from Doyle and Hussian, who pioneered HRTV's Internet presence by placing RealVideo clips of "Survey Says" and "TCR" on the Web.

But the multicasting project is much more ambitious--and, Doyle says, will be far more efficient than the present RealVideo methods.

"Multicasting is a method whereby a server can send out one single copy of the information onto the Internet," says Rick Osterberg '96, coordinator of residential computing support, in an e-mail message.

The process then becomes similar to tuning in to a radio station. Each computer picks up a copy of that same original that is broadcast--thus minimizing server space needed.

Osterberg will make the final decision one HRTV's multicast future since the student group uses College Web space.

"Since video broadcasting and multicasting is a resource-intensive operation, it's something that has to be worked out, and discussed, before jumping head-first into," he says.

Kosberg is confident, however, that Osterberg will clear the necessary hurdles for the multicasting, and that HRTV will be beamed into dorm rooms in the not-too-far distant future.

"HRTV's goal is still to have our multicast channel up and running by April," he wrote in an e-mail message.

Doyle says Harvard's network administrators have nothing but cold feet, and the multicasting project will actually use little of their server space.

"It sounds like some network administrators have been a little afraid of it because it turns the model of the network into something like a television network," he says.

"It is something that can be done properly, and controlling the amount of video data is not a big problem." Doyle says. "It just has to be understood."

So the night may soon come when Harvard students gather 'round their laptops in Lamont to watch the latest episode of "TCR."

And although it isn't cable, for Kosberg and his audience-starved troops, it'll do just fine.