It had a distinct advantage over cable-based services such as Viewer's Choice and Request TV, in that due to DirecTV's digital compression technology, it enabled them to transmit more channels that it could reserve to offer pay-per-view content to customers.
(Most cable systems of the era had headend capacities capable of transmitting only one or two PPV channels; at the time, however, some systems had begun to make system upgrades within their service areas to increase channel capacity, allowing them to offer as many as five PPV channels in these so-called "rebuild areas", depending on the provider.)
Furthermore, because a phone jack was built into the Digital Satellite System (DSS) set-top boxes, PPV purchases could be made directly through the set-top-box mere minutes before or even during a movie or event; cable subscribers would have to call a phone number to authorize the purchase hours in advance.
[1][2][3][4] By 2005, the Blockbuster venture had ended and the service was renamed simply to DirecTV Pay-Per-View.
[5][6] In December 2014, it was announced DirecTV Cinema would premiere digitally re-mastered versions by Harvey Weinstein of the films El Cid and Circus World exclusively for the month of January 2015.