Hands-on with FiOS Flex View

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At the grand re-opening of a Verizon Plus store in Tampa today, Big
Red was demoing its latest FiOS TV feature, Flex View. As announced,
this feature lets you take your video on demand content with you on
your PC as well as various other Verizon Wireless devices -- no iOS
support though as Apple doesn't license its FairPlay and the Microsoft
PlayReady DRM used doesn't work on Apple's products either. There are
about 2,000 movies available for rent now, with a subset of them
available for purchase. Currently they are all SD with stereo sound,
but HD and discrete surround sound are planed for later versions.
Unlike the FiOS VOD, you can download these shows from any internet
connection and play them back on the go or at home -- resume between
devices is also in the coming-soon category. Overall the user
interface looked good, but we did see lots of blocking artifacts that
we just hope were a result of the in-store demo and not an indication
of what customers can actually expect. The content is linked to your
Verizon FiOS user ID, which means that purchased content can still be
viewed even if you cancel your FiOS TV service. No word on if
Verizon's free VOD selection will ever become available, but we have
to say we really like the idea of watching content on the go no matter
how good our network connection isn't.