Tampa Film Fan

is moviebeam worth beaming about?

Two Wall Street Journal reporters recently wrote a detailed and thorough review of MovieBeam, a new video-on-demand service. MovieBeam, developed by Walt Disney Co., involves three items: the MovieBeam box (about the size of a DVD player), an antenna and a remote. After paying $250 for these items (there is a $50 rebate you can get) and a one-time $30 activation fee, you have 100 movies available to rent — $1.99 for older titles, $3.99 for newer films.

100 movies are stored in the MovieBeam box; 10 leave and 10 arrive each week. The menu options include a “leaving soon” section so you can find out which 10 movies will be soon be deleted off the system. The main box must be attached to a phone line so that once every two weeks it can automatically call MovieBeam to update its records of movies viewed (charges will be billed to your credit card).

The journalists said they generally liked MovieBeam, but considered the limited selection its major flaw. “Under Hollywood’s release policies, MovieBeam can’t get most films until 30 or 45 days after they appear on DVD.” Sony is the one major studio who hasn’t agreed to allow MovieBeam to show its films, so any Sony titles are currently unavailable.

MovieBeam is currently available in 29 U.S. cities, one of which is Tampa. www.moviebeam.com has an FAQ section and the list of movies currently available. I scrolled through the first couple of pages of the list. It looks very similar to what I have available through Bright House.

Most of my Netflix rentals are TV shows, so MovieBeam isn’t the solution that will allow me to quit Netflix in a huff (I’m on a crusade against Netflix these days). I do rent a lot of movies, however. Hmmm… The MovieBeam website said that they offer lots of extras (deleted scenes, etc.), but the Wall Street Journal article said that they only offered a few extras for very few films. Deleted scenes, outtakes and other extras are sometimes worth the drive to the videostore.

Has anyone tried MovieBeam? I’d love to know what you think of it.