MovieBeam reviewed by Walt Mossberg
By Marc Perton 
posted March 10th 2006 7:45PM
posted March 10th 2006 7:45PM
Walt Mossberg of The Wall
Street Journal has taken a look at the revamped MovieBeam service and
has found it to be, well, okay. Mossberg seems to really want to like the service, which does have convenience on its
side, given that it doesn't require any trips to the video store, mailbox or torrent server. But the "limited
selection" of flicks, which "omits many movies that are newly available on DVD" was something of a
deal-breaker. Mossberg did like the service's UI, remote control and other features, but the lack of current films (and
the lack of any Sony films, since the studio hasn't signed up to provide movies to the service) proved to be a major
frustration, one that left Mossberg concluding that the best customers for the service would likely be "users who
don't like the hassles of renting DVDs, and don't want to fool with their computers for downloading movies."[Thanks, Carl B.]
FIRST COMMENTS
YAYYYYYYYYYY
lol
I can't wait for the iTunes Movie store!
Has anyone heard the radio ads for this thing? I laugh every time because it sounds like they are calling the thing Movie BeaN. I think it was the third or fourth time before I finally figured out they were saying BeaM.
Seems like a honest review to me.
I don't get this service. It seems like you should either get the box or at least some movies for free. Having to shell out $230 (box + activation fee) seems like a large cash outlay only to get pay additional money to watch the movies. Blockbuster charges $4.50 for new (new being 2 day rentals) titles and this charges $3.99 - that means you would need to rent 460 movies from this to break even if just got them at Blockbuster. I don't see this service making it unless they start giving the box away.
Is that a picture of Count Bakula getting it on?
0_o
If the FCC gets its way and stops backing up on their deadline for fully digital broadcast compliance this RF path might not be available. Now I realize that it is Disney money behind the venture and this is not the only time it has been tested, but don't they really run the risk of control of the delivery medium (RF) that could kill the format before it has a chance to mature? Personally I think it is a good interim solution to VOD. It's a damn dead certainty that fiberoptic to your home is not going to happen in the near future and without that the existing fiber structure will not be available (unless I'm missing my guess) and certainly the internet is not an answer. Cable could be a possible delivery form, but does a coaxial cable have the capability to handle any up coming High Def bandwidth requirements? Probably if it is re-compressed. RF just might be an answer...but it will take time to know this.
Movie Beam needs to go to a monthly one rate all you can watch system much like "NetFlix" and "Vongo.com". I receive my movies at night via computer and play them back whenever I want for a one month fee(recently released movies pay extra) from Vongo.Com. The limited 100 movies a month, poor picture quality on sets larger then 27", no analog rgb output for 1080i HD tvs, along with limited HD selection has put Moviebeam's CEOs long range outlook "in the dark ages". I agree with some of the other comments pertaining to the cost factor in buying your own Moviebeam box and also would recommend giving these boxes away or sell them for $50.00. More and more people are buying HD sets and I find it ownly natural to have more Movies in HD and outputs on The Moviebeam box to accomodate existing and future HD connections such as are on the HD cable box. When over the air tv stations stop broadcasting analog and go 100%digital I predict most of the people will not buy digital boxes but will resort to cable or satellite tv and rent most of their movies both analog and digital via vidio on demand.
If you talk to the moviebeam folks, they are very confident in their abilities to adapt and make this a successful product. I guess we will see.