Several months after being acquired by video rental retailer Movie Gallery, rumor has it MovieBeam service is being shuttered next week. While I haven’t received a phone call or email notification (as a former customer), it wouldn’t surprise me if the service is killed – following in the footsteps of Akimbo’s dedicated hardware.
MovieBeam, originally a venture of Disney and later backed by Cisco, never seemed to gain much traction. In addition to competing against the embedded cable and satellite service providers to provide video-on-demand, MovieBeam had to overcome hardware sticker shock (are you listening, Vudu?) and an extremely limited selection of HD content – the kind of video us early adopters wanted. Additionally, MovieBeam leased broadcast TV spectrum to deliver movies… Which may sound good, but I have a much better Internet connection than I do aerial reception. Not to mention, a landline is required for billing (though I got it to sporadically work with a 25′ phone cable to my Vonage router).
Click here for my June 2006 review and video walk-thru.
(Thanks for the heads up, Glenn!)
Akimbo, Moviebeam…… next is Vudu.
Got the box when that special offer was on here… but the service never made it to my area. Oh well.
I can’t wait to see what happens if/when Netflix gets in this game.