Keeping its promise to launch the alluring feature in the second half of this year, AT&T Inc. (T) has announced the first availability of its Total Home DVR offering in the Bay Area with plans to reach its entire U-verse service footprint by yearend.
The service, which AT&T says is being offered free of charge, enables customers to begin watching a movie recorded on a digital video recorder (DVR) in one room, and continue viewing in other rooms without each additional set requiring its own DVR.
AT&T’s Total Home DVR service is powered by Microsoft Corp.’s (MSFT) MediaRoom TV software. The vendor announced support for multi-room DVR more than a year ago. Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) debuted its multi-room DVR offering in August, 2007 and has found it to be a fan favorite with FiOS customers.
Total Home DVR represents the second of two huge milestones targeted for the second half of 2008 for AT&T’s U-verse service, with the first being support for two simultaneous high-definition (HD) stream to each U-verse customer. That was reached months ago when AT&T quietly began supporting the key capability in a growing list of markets.
AT&T’s multi-room DVR service uses the HPNA3 home networking scheme to move content among connected devices in a dwelling. Home networking to support multiroom DVR required innovative measures by Verizon.
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