MovieBeam sold, plans three market return tour this year

Looks like Movie Gallery finally got something for the assortment of PBS bandwidth and spare parts remaining from the now-defunct MovieBeam service. The new owner is Indian conglomerate The Valuable Group, headed by Sanjay Gaikwad who apparently thinks serving up a remarkably limited assortment of heavily compressed HD and SD movies on demand is an idea that deserves to fail all over the world, instead of just in the U.S. Since $100 million burned up by Disney and others wasn't enough to make things work, he plans to invest a similar amount over the next two years to relaunch the service in North America, the U.K. and "other overseas markets". Variety notes The Valuable Group already delivers movies digitally to India and South Asian theaters via satellite so maybe they know something we don't about this business model, and with plans to roll out service in three markets with "new, cutting edge features" by year end we'll get to find out soon.

[boisvert00 @ Jul 12th 2008 10:17PM]

Does this mean I should hold on to my box???

[Sheppy @ Jul 20th 2008 9:40PM]

Hold onto those boxes guys. You will be surprised what these guys are capable of delivering0 keeping consumers' interests in mind. They have shaken up the bollywood industry in a matter of 2 years and I for one will wait to see what service offering they come up with next on Movie Beam.

[boisvert00 @ Jul 12th 2008 10:20PM]

ah I redact that comment, I will throw it on eBay anyways, it was such a process compared to today's new options.

[phanbouy @ Jul 12th 2008 11:31PM]

mmm. definitely. do that. throw your box on ebay.

[John H. @ Jul 12th 2008 11:16PM]

citpyrc gnieb ma i

[paul34 @ Jul 12th 2008 11:28PM]

Actually, you're being stupid.

[snowwy66 @ Jul 13th 2008 12:20AM]

i hope the receivers are better, i was changing mine out every 3 months. they made some seriouis vibration once a week when it was doing it's movie swap out. from the hard drive doing its thinking.

[phanbouy @ Jul 13th 2008 1:09AM]

problem? just give it to your girlfriend.

[phanbouy @ Jul 14th 2008 3:20AM]

assuming she likes seriouis vibration

[webguylive-com @ Jul 13th 2008 12:31AM]

I think the problem with most of these movie on demand / download business is that they expect people to pay exorbitant prices for these movies. Why would you pay for movie downloads when you can get great free quality movie downloads via torrent networks.?

[John @ Jul 13th 2008 12:43AM]

Hey, if a company wants to shoot themselves in the foot, then it will help make room for a smaller company who isn't that stupid.

[Unknown @ Jul 13th 2008 12:48AM]

Massive FAIL! MovieBeam is like a horror movie franchise. You just can't kill it!! I went there and the problem is NOT the technology but the licensing in the US for movies. It could work overseas with local movie studios, not US/European ones. (so India maybe) Plus, I thought ONLY the US had that radio wave bandwith they use for transmission?

[Colin Potter @ Jul 13th 2008 5:18AM]

oh wow... it will re-launch at a price similar to the previous launch price, which could instead net you a cheap blu-ray player... or be put towards a pricier one... and then you get really poor quality HD that barely compares to upscaled SD... Sign me up!

[allenvanhellen @ Jul 13th 2008 11:08PM]

Why won't you just DIE?!?!?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

P.S. If it's using PBS / public airwaves, shouldn't this be extremely cheap, since we're subsidizing it with our tax dollars? Not that I would want one, but it's the principle of the matter!

P.P.S. Also, isn't this doomed when TV goes digital and ye ol' analogue TV frequencies used otherwise?

[Skeepax @ Jul 14th 2008 9:26AM]

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