1. A method of distributing digital data to customer households comprising: blanket transmitting a plurality of digital data content to customer households in a digitally protected form, wherein the protected form is achieved by degrading the resolution of the digital data content, followed by compressing the degraded resolution digital data content; providing each customer household with a user station, wherein the user station is configured to allow the customer households to preselect and store desired digital data content in the protected form; receiving a request from at least one customer household to view a requested digital data content stored at the customer location; authorizing the at least one customer household to view the requested digital data content, wherein the authorizing allows the following to occur at the user station associated with the at least one customer household: decompression of the requested digital data content, upconversion of the decompressed requested digital data content, wherein the upconversion raises the resolution of the requested digital data content to a resolution at least as high as that of the digital data content before it was degraded, and display of the decompressed upconverted requested digital data without storing the decompressed upconverted requested digital data at the at least one customer household; receiving digital data playback information from each customer household to a central controller system; and billing the customer households for those recorded digital data that are actually played back for viewing.