Dave Zatz quickly ordered-up the Blockbuster OnDemand streamer when it launched and now states that the device isn’t ready for primetime. (his words, not mine) While I won’t steal all of his thunder, the above image is popped up when he tried to play his first rental.
I’ve only rented one flick, the latest Indiana Jones installment. The initial download automatically restarted a few times while attempting to retrieve a license. During the download, video can be watched but transport controls (rewind, fast forward) are disabled – so I waited for the completed download watching. Later in the evening I was greeted by the above DRM error message, requiring a few hard reboots (and WPA2 key reentries).
Christmas is right around the corner and the device’s $99 price with 25 movies sounds like an attractive Christmas gift. You can only imagine that suits pushed out the box before the techs said it was ready. Give it a few firmware updates and a couple of nasty blog posts until the box is really ready for mass consumption. Too bad companies don’t fully test and debug products before releasing them anymore. *cough* BlackBerry Storm *cough*