AT&T today has announced a variety of next-generation features that will soon come to DirecTV Now. As part of a larger upgrade to AT&T’s somewhat cluttered video services, DirecTV Now is gaining cloud DVR, streaming quality improvements, and more…
Headlining the changes is of course support for DVR, a feature that competitors such as YouTube TV and Hulu Live TV already offer. At this point, specifics regarding DirecTV Now’s DVR functionality, such as price and storage limits, are unclear, but nevertheless the feature is coming.
In addition to cloud DVR, DirectTV Now is gaining an all-new interface that AT&T says will help unify its video efforts across TV, phone, and tablet.
We all want easy and quick access to our content, regardless of where, when or on what device we watch it,” said David Christopher, chief marketing officer, AT&T Entertainment Group.
“By developing for a single video platform, we’ll deliver new features and platform innovations in a faster, more efficient way. And it will be simple and consistent wherever you watch—TV, phone or tablet.”
Also coming to DirecTV Now is support for parental controls and live TV pausing, as well as user profiles, “download and go,” and 4K HDR support.
Despite the announcement today, many of these features are still in the distant future. AT&T says that “invited DirecTV Now customers” will be part of a public beta program later this summer for cloud DVR and the new interface. Live TV pausing and parental controls will come following the public beta period later this year, while user profiles, download and go, and 4K hardware are coming in 2018.
The launch of DirecTV Now was highly anticipated, though the service was met with some early performance issues and bugs. Over the last year, however, AT&T has made improvements to the service as competition has increased from the likes of Hulu and YouTube.
Speaking to Engadget, AT&T CTO Enrique Rodriguez explained that DirecTV Now has been ‘very successful’ on Apple TV:
“If you look at the work we’ve done on DirecTV Now, it’s been very successful on Apple TV and so you can think of this as a continuation of that transition.”
What do you think of the new features coming to DirecTV Now over the next year? If you’re not already a user, are they enough to make you consider signing up? Let us know in the comments.
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