offer more variety of rental films.

They're not bad, but there's so many films that have been released over the years & they haven't gotten any of them in.

There are major films worth a watch from time-to-time.....but certainly nothing that good that I wish I had a blu-ray player etc to see them on.

But I suppose in a world where anyone entertains the notion of watching a film or TV prog on a 4" screen, the idea of a good movie doesn't mean much.

Plus I think you'd need the 20meg cable broadband speeds (in this country) to ensure the streaming actually ran smoothly etc. Way more expensive all-in than rental deals.

Ooohh, downloading DRM direct-to-home.
I'm thrilled.

Not.

I'm pretty sure they (the set-top boxes) will be slapped with the same new restriction being placed on DVRs starting April 15th. Following a dictate by the movie industry, Pay Per View movies stored on DVRs - once playback is started - will only be watchable for 24 hours and will be automatically deleted after that time. For many, Blockbuster, Netflix, et al. were going to become the only alternative for getting the latest movies and not having severe time restrictions on when they can watch them.

DirecTv has already notified it's customers of this change. I predict Blockbuster's new service will be a non-event.