MovieBeam Video-on-Demand

MOVIEBEAM VIDEO-ON-DEMAND SERVICE REVIEW: A Video Store in Your Living Room

July 2007 By —Grant Clauser

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Hollywood keeps churning out the movies and subsequent DVDs, while Blockbuster and Netflix keep the supply of prime films flowing straight to you. However, while there’s always a large selection of popular movies for home theater buffs, there’s not always a large supply when you want them. In comes MovieBeam, which sends new releases and popular recent hits to your TV without you having to ever click a mouse or drive to the video store.

The MovieBeam system consists of two parts. First there’s the set-top-box, a thin component that is actually a hard drive-based DVR of sorts. Its drive stores 100 movies, about ten percent of which are available in high definition (more on that later). A very user-friendly on-screen guide allows you to browse the offerings, watch previews and extras and select movies for viewing. Each movie costs between $1.99 and $4.99 (most are $3.99) depending on how recent it is (the high definition movies are $4.99). When you select a movie, it starts playing immediately, though you can pause, go back and forward or stop it for later viewing. You can watch it as many times as you like for 24 hours, after that you need to pay again.

The second part of the systems is the movie service itself. When you first purchase the box, it’s already loaded with recent releases. You hook it up to a phone line, which facilitates the credit card charges for the movies you “rent,” and you also hook it up to a small, indoor antenna. Every week the system automatically sends about 10 new movies to the box via the antenna, and the same amount of movies are deleted each week, so there’s always a fresh selection. You don’t have any say as to what movies show up, but you only pay for the ones you watch. It’s a bit like having an on-demand version of HBO, except MovieBeam tends to get releases weeks or months before HBO.

The system set-up is very simple—it offers standard analog connections, including component, though the HDTV signal won’t pass through the component cables, only the HDMI. There’s also a coaxial digital audio output. A combination of on-screen prompts and videos walk you through the setup and antenna placement. For me, in suburban Philadelphia, antenna placement was sensitive. If the antenna can’t get a good signal, you won’t get movie updates. If you have an HDTV with an HDMI input, then you can take advantage of the high def offerings. Unfortunately the system doesn’t work with most DVI inputs, even when you use an adapter.

The movies look and sound pretty good. The standard definition movies are in widescreen mode, and look good, though not quite as good as DVDs. The HDTV movies also look good, but due to the MPEG4 compression, you may notice more artifacts than other HDTV sources. The high definition movies are in Dolby Digital surround sound, but only some of the standard definition movies are, though that will change over the next few months.

If you like recent movies, the selection is great. MovieBeam has distribution agreements with all the major studios except Sony. When I was using it (throughout the month of April) Walk The Line, The Chronicles of Narnia, Saw 2 and Good Night and Good Luck were among the offerings. It pretty much mirrors a new release wall of a video rental store, so unless your taste is very eclectic, you’ll find plenty to watch. While I’d like to see the price of the box and the rentals knocked down a bit to make up for the picture quality tradeoffs, it’s a good option for people who watch a lot of movies. yy