Take home MovieBeam for $80 less
By Ryan Block 
posted May 8th 2006 2:21AM
posted May 8th 2006 2:21AM
Just as we were kind of wondering to ourselves if there would be enough (realistic) price cuts in the world to legitimize Disney's mildly maligned MovieBeam, they went and did what most device makers do when they've got a big launch followed by a lukewarm consumer response (and generally despondent product reviews). They shaved off $80 from the take-home price -- $50 from the MSRP down to $200 for the box, and also killed the $30 activation fee. The $2-3.00 SD movie prices and $3-4.00 HD movie prices are still pretty reasonable, truth be told, but you've still got to deal with their closed-platform DRMed rentals of questionable quality in watchability via datacasts offering a limited selection of content. Believe us, we want to like MovieBeam, but we're not sure falling prices can save a product that doesn't live up to expectations.
MovieBeam will probably fade away and die, but at least someone is leading the way in what we will all do in a few years. Neither Blu-Ray or HD-DVD will win the HD movie format fight; downloading movies is the real next-gen format...
They've been offering it here for $50, I got mine last week
http://moviebeam.imswebmktg.com/moviebeam/lp_pricepoint/index.php
Jtey thanks for the link. I just order one for $54.11 and with the rebate form they use to have up that I had printed my total price for the moviebeam player will be $4.11.
the required landline phone connection kills the deal for me. With the advent of VOIP, companies shouldn't release new equipment that requires a POTS line... network-enabled, anyone?
The RF group at Dotcast (hey Bro!) did a great job developing this technology. It's not really made for the guy with a digital cable box on his TV, it's for the guy who can't get cable. When you put it in that perspective, it's an incredible piece of technology.
I would maybe consider one, but it doesn't output HDTV throught he component outputs!!! What were they thinking?
From the point-of-view of future-proofing this device, yeah - HDTV would have been nice. But I did want to mention that DVDs are sub-HD resolution.
That said, interesting product, overpriced implementation. Too bad.
Stillw aiting for that Netflix-TiVo solution (or something akin to it, seeing as THOSE talks fell through!)
Moviebeam is stupid. It's a very good concept, followed by a piss-poor execution. Not ONE "puffed-up" Disney executive came to the conclusion that, "NO ONE is going to pay more than twice the price for a 1 DAY movie rental, than they would for the DVD?" You don't have to be Einstein to figure that one out.
Another good idea gone bad. Why cant they just offer this through your broadband internet connection?? This is just plain stupid. And keep a movie for 24 hours and pay as much for it as a rental. I bet this will be free in less than 3 months and it will be off the market at the end of the year. Good bye.