AT&T confirmed a previously reported soft launch of whole home DVR. The service, called Total Home DVR, allows up to eight connected televisions to view recorded DVR content. AT&T joins Verizon FiOS who offers a similar product. Both companies are trying to gain a competitive edge, using multi-room DVR strategies to differentiate themselves over cable and DBS competitors. DVR differentiation will be interesting to watch over the coming months. Cable may try to exploit a networked DVR service, which could help level the playing field with multi-room DVR options. Networked DVR received a new lease on life after a recent court ruling in favor of Cablevision, which tried to launch the service last year, but was sued by several movie studios to stop it.
Now into being a 3rd year U-verse customer, I have been blogging about AT&T's three screen strategy over at http://www.3screens.net and talking about potential of true home networking.
Total Home DVR works because of the HomePNA standard that AT&T has adopted.
The real future of home networking will be on the G.hn standard — the next generation standard for existing-wire home networking (a wired and complementary counterpart to the very popular WiFi wireless home networking standard).
G.hn has targeted gigabit per second data rates and operation over all three types of home wires: coax, powerline and phone wires.