EXCLUSIVE: AT&T HomeZone First Look

**Scott Greczkowski** · 06-10-2006 01:12 PM

I agree with you the pricing should be around $2.99 a movie.

**Mikef5** · 06-10-2006 01:18 PM

Any word on when this service will be available ???

Laters,
Mikef5

**Scott Greczkowski** · 06-10-2006 01:20 PM

Yes end of June in select areas (I don't know what those areas are though)

**MW390** · 06-10-2006 01:36 PM

I have a very quick question on this. If everyone assumes that they have to be in an ATT customer area to get this service, then why is Dish Network's logo on the device?

**Purogamer** · 06-10-2006 01:38 PM

Interesting question.

I'm a dish customer, and an AT&T Customer...seperately...Will this require me to do the joint AT&T/Dish program or can I keep my bill seperate, etc...

Or does the Homezone not really care what's plugged into the cable-in port? Can this be used with everything and dish just happens to be helping out with the cost/rollout/publicity of the device?

Some of the features I could care less about after the review though...

**Shawn95GT** · 06-10-2006 03:27 PM

The Video on demand is cool but the rest of what you listed Tivo does Today, and then some.

I'm not a big fan of the PPV style of distibution. Now if there were no monthly fee I'd feel a bit differently.

I think ondemand would be attractive if on the backend there was a huge farm of DVRs feeding all available content to the ondemand servers. Basicly from the consumer end you'd be able to watch anything and everything time allowing. Who needs two tuners in a DVR when your provider is already recording all 500 channels

.

**AppliedAggression** · 06-10-2006 03:59 PM

Any idea how they distribute the ondemand showings? Bandwidth isn't cheap, and those movies to really be DVD quality are at the very least 1/2 GB, and tha'ts if they're using an advanced codec. Could they be using bittorrent to help dilute the cost of distribution?

I'm not a huge fan of AT&T, well SBC, but this device does open a lot of doors, just not sure how successful it will be. Do you really want to watch a SD movie without all of the extra features for $5, when you have a HDTV and have access to 14 national HD channels and growing. By the time this thing rolls out, Netflix will be offering HDDVD and BlueRay DVDs for similar costs per movie.

This thing isn't going anywhere.

What should they do? Use bittorrent and remove the package speed limit for DSL subscribers (768k for lowest package) on this device. Forget movies, and go for free internet content, there's a lot out there. Make agreements with YouTube, Google Video, Video podcasts, etc, and make your money through a monthly fee and advertising.