[opendtv] Re: As an Alternative to a Trip to a Video Store, Movies Through a Set-Top Box - New York Times - opendtv

[opendtv] Re: As an Alternative to a Trip to a Video Store, Movies Through a Set-Top Box - New York Times

From: Richard Hollandsworth <holl_ands@xxxxxxxxx>
To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2006 13:51:14 -0800 (PST)

Moviebean advert showed up in San Diego paper this morning.
Moviebeam User's Guide doesn't say anything about receiving anything other than 
downloaded movies:
http://www.moviebeam.com/opencms/opencms/images/common/USER_GUIDE_2006.pdf
That's quite a shame, since it already contains everything found in an OTA STB.
Check out the tiny indoor antenna.....probably a simple loop.
They don't say anything about attic/roof mounted antennas....other than call 
the service number if you have problems....

Here are some links to PBS National Datacast service, verifying that it is 
carried on PBS DTV stations vice older Dotcast service on NTSC:
http://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?SESSIONID=&aId=9583
http://www.pbs.org/digitaltv/dataNS.html
http://www.nationaldatacast.com/

So does that mean fewer annoying pledge drives??????

                    <holl_ands>

=================================================
Mark Aitken <maitken@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: Funny, no where in this article does it 
ever speak to the fact that what 
you get "for your money" is a complete OTA (that would be over-the-air) 
STB (set top box) that outputs HDMI and analog video. Might add a little 
incentive to buy it if it has a good receiver. But then, I am just 
assuming that it would (after all, why would anyone offer a crap OTA 
receiver...?)
:-)

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/14/business/media/14movie.html

February 14, 2006


  As an Alternative to a Trip to a Video Store, Movies Through a Set-Top
  Box

By SAUL HANSELL 


Will people pay $230 and hook a new gizmo up to their television sets so 
they do not have to drive to the video rental store?

That is the question to be answered by MovieBeam, a service being 
introduced in 29 major markets today. The service was originally 
developed and tested in three cities in 2004 by the Walt Disney Company 
. 
Disney has brought in new investors and streamlined the service's 
pricing to offer it on a broader scale.

MovieBeam is built around a technology that broadcasts movies slowly 
over unused portions of the television signals to set-top boxes that 
store them on a hard disk. Users will have a choice of 100 movies -- 
mainly those that have been recently released on DVD's -- with 10 new 
titles replacing old ones each week.

Consumers will buy the MovieBeam box for $250 from electronics stores. 
They can send for a $50 rebate, but must also pay a $30 activation fee, 
making the effective upfront cost $230. The service does not charge a 
monthly fee, but movies cost $3.99 each for current titles and $1.99 for 
older ones. (The company will also offer some movies in a 
high-definition format for an additional $1.) The customers will be able 
to watch the movie for a 24-hour period.

Tres Izzard, a former Disney executive who is now the chief executive of 
MovieBeam, said the service was meant to appeal to the 30 million people 
who rent at least four movies a month. Four-fifths of those rentals, he 
said, are releases of the sort that will be in the MovieBeam service.

"The hard drive is the back wall at a Blockbuster," Mr. Izzard said. He 
said that the service would allow customers to rent those films without 
driving or waiting for DVD's to come in the mail, as they do with 
services like Netflix 
.

Michael Gartenberg, an analyst with Jupiter Research, said he was 
skeptical that people would pay more than $200 for a box from MovieBeam, 
plus a fee per movie, when cable systems are offering movies on demand 
at similar prices through their digital services.

"The pricing model seems to be somewhat questionable here," he said. 
"People will ask why they need to spend that much money for a box."

Mr. Izzard argued that digital cable reaches only a minority of cable 
households and that MovieBeam might be more economical to viewers who 
like movies but do not want the other channels offered by cable systems. 
The service does not have to appeal to everyone, he said; it will break 
even if it attracts 500,000 customers. The company will sell the boxes 
at a slight loss.

Disney sold a majority of MovieBeam for $48.5 million to a group of 
investors including Cisco Systems 
, 
Intel 
 
and several venture capital funds. The MovieBeam box will be sold under 
Cisco's Linksys brand name.

The major studios have agreed to provide movies to the service, except 
Sony 
, 
with which negotiations are continuing, Mr. Izzard said. Disney's 
studios will make movies available on the service on the same day they 
are released on DVD. The other studios will make them available several 
weeks later when they are released to video-on-demand services offered 
by cable systems and Internet rental services like Movielink.

As with other video-on-demand services, most of the rental fee is paid 
to the studios. Still, studios have been wary about the expansion of 
video-on-demand services because they could eat into DVD sales, the 
most-profitable form of movie distribution.

Mr. Izzard said that with MovieBeam's broadcast system, the cost of 
delivering a movie was negligible. In contrast, industry executives say 
sending a movie over the Internet typically costs 50 to 75 cents for a 
transmission.


-- 
><>   ><>   ><>   ><>   ><>   ><>   ><>

Regards,
Mark A. Aitken
Director, Advanced Technology

<><   <><   <><   <><   <><   <><   <><

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Follow-Ups:
- [opendtv] Re: As an Alternative to a Trip to a Video Store, Movies Through a Set-Top Box - New York Times
  - From: John Shutt

References:
- [opendtv] As an Alternative to a Trip to a Video Store, Movies Through a Set-Top Box - New York Times
  - From: Mark Aitken

[opendtv] Re: As an Alternative to a Trip to a Video Store, Movies Through a Set-Top Box - New York Times

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