Moviebeam is a new service. It is a hard drive that comes loaded with 100 movies. Each week eight movies disappear and eight new one come in via a low rate-of-transmission broadcast that piggybacks on the NPR radio signal.
You have no control over which movies you get.
Anyone have it? Is it a good Christmas gift for my elderly mother? The site give the price of the gear as USD104, but I presume there is also a monthly fee?
I don’t have it (and in fact this is the first I’ve heard of it), but I can’t watch 8 movies in a week: if one of the 8 that disappeared was one I really wanted to see but just hadn’t gotten to, I’d be annoyed. I don’t think I’d mind the random title aspect so much as the time limit – I’d rather be able to choose when the 8 movies get replaced. But maybe your mother wouldn’t mind that part. 
It seems to have minimal operator requirements. I sort of like that for an older person.
OK, one bump then we let this one die.
Anyone?
My husband and I are pretty tech-savvy, especially when it comes to movies, but I had never heard of this until your post. Maybe my husband has, he’s not here to ask. It’s an interesting idea, though not for us. The equipment costs too much and the terms are too restrictive. I would have Misnomer’s concerns, if a movie I wanted to see was there, but then disappeared before I had a chance to watch it, I’d be annoyed too. Plus, we like to own movies, and love the extras that come on DVDs.
When the day comes where you can actually choose exactly which movie you want to see (that you don’t already own) and be able to watch it immediately, without having to leave your home, is when this movie-catering business will have grown all the way up. Moviebeam is the closest anyone else has gotten, so that’s encouraging. I also like that they are supporting High Definition and 5.1 audio.
I think if your mother loves movies, but isn’t a movie fanatic, this would be perfect for her. Does she have eclectic taste in movies? It sounds like that would be a big factor to consider. She would need to understand that movies will come and go and that if she sees an interesting title she should watch it right away.
It would certainly be a unique present. As long as she loves movies, I’d say go for it.
Comcast Cable and other companies are now offering “on demand” movies.
You pull up a menu with your remote and just press ‘play’ on the movie you select.
There are probably over 100 free ones. If you have HBO or Showtime or Encore they also include their “on demand” line-up of free movies.
Here’s some info on HBO’s on-demand.
David Pogue reported on this in June, which is the first I heard of it. They piggyback on PBS signals, not NPR, according to his article. I don’t know if this means that if you can’t get a good PBS signal, you won’t be able to use Moviebeam. From the article . . .MovieBeam is available so far only in 29 major cities (and their suburbs), including Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia and Washington; you can check availability in your area at moviebeam.com. The company plans a large geographical expansion in 2007.The box needs to be connected to a telephone line as well. Pogue also says that the remote control is easy to operate.
Oh - about the cost - also from the article: Preposterous as this may sound, there’s no monthly fee and no minimum; you’re billed only for the movies you watch ($4 for a new release, $2 for an old one). You can rewind, pause, fast-forward and replay a movie you’ve bought — for 24 hours from your first glimpse of the opening credits.
If I were deciding, I’d lean toward a gift of a NetFlix subscription. Very wide selection of material, no hidden fees, no problem if she starts to watch a movie Monday and doesn’t finish it until Thursday.
Hampshire, I meant ANY movie you want. If you have to choose from THEIR list rather than YOUR OWN list, that’s not what I’m talking about regarding movies truly on demand. To have to subscribe to several different services to access several different lists is not what I’m talking about.
ONE service, that has access to tens/hundreds of thousands of movies/TV shows, including ones in High Definition and 5.1, ranging from current blockbuster and indie movies, to the most obscure 1940’s b-movies, is what I’m talking about. Of course I realize such a service will never, could never, happen.
If a service could let me see Ray Lawrence’s Bliss, Return To Oz, Dersu Uzala, War Hunt, the theatrical version (as opposed to the DVD version) of One From The Heart, Fitzcarraldo and the original Cape Fear on demand, that would be the service for me. Not that we’d sign up, because we already own all those movies on DVD. Though, if they offered that kind of selection, we’d probably sign up just to support them!
Papermache Prince, I just checked and Moviebeam is available in my neighborhood. The box costs $99.00, down from $199.00. At the moment the $29.99 Activation Fee is waived, and shipping and handling is free. Standard new movies are $3.99 per 24 hours rental, and Hi-Def new movies are $4.99. Standard older movies are $1.99 and Hi-Def older movies are $2.99.
None of that seems outrageous. It gives people another choice regarding movies, and that’s never a bad thing. Again, it’s not for us at this point in our lives. We already have 1300 DVDs, and we still go out to the theater several times a month, but it’s not something we’d rule out, mainly because of the High-Definition/5.1 factor. If we could choose a setting where we ONLY got sent HD movies, that would up the sexy factor considerably. I’ll have to check into that. We still prefer to own movies though.
I wonder how they secure it. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is cracked pretty quickly.
It sounds like a cool idea, but it requires a landline. I’m very surprised that they didn’t offer an option to plug it into a network. Even if the internet connection is dialup, it’s no worse than being on the phone line, and it would work for people who don’t have a landline.
Other than that, I’d probably get this if it were in my area (instead of Netflix) and they wanted to offer the hardware for rent. I often end up watching first run popular movies anyway, and this would eliminate the turnaround time that’s the biggest downside of Netflix for me.
I am loosing interest. It sounds too complex and in truth Mom is not a movie nut. Still I am desperate for a Christmas gift.
As for movies-on-demand, just call up the video store and little guy brings the DVD over on a motorbike. No problem.
Does she have TiVo or something TiVo-flavored already? If not, think about that. We got my parents a TiVo and a lifetime subscription a couple years ago for Christmas, and they looooove it.
A lifetime TiVo subscription? How much does that go for?
More importantly, how hard is it to use a TiVo? Living over here, I have never seen one.