If you had just three fewer hoops to jump through for HBO on Broadband, it'd be an amazing service. So, if you have Time Warner in Wisconsin, HBO on Demand and Roadrunner broadband (and Windows), you can download to your PC as much as you want from a catalog of 600 shows and movies they'll throw up every month, plus there's a live feed of HBO on the East Coast. Awesome, right?
But then we've got the DRM/studio content restrictions: No transfer to portable devices or burning, and content automatically withers off of your computer when it hits the expiration date in 4-12 weeks. Better than the iTunes timeframe nonetheless. And that whole Roadrunner requirement, it's totally literal, as in you can only pick up new content while connected to Roadrunner.
On the upside, you can register up to five computers per household, and you've got features like series passes that auto-download within five minutes of a show airing on TV. Since the file size runs about 1.2GB for a two-hour flick, the res is probably pretty close to what iTunes offers. Besides, it's free, and you can't beat that. [DVD Dossier via Engadget]