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MovieBeam

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MovieBeam
Company typeConglomerate
Industryvideo-on-demand
FoundedSeptember 2003
United States
FounderThe Walt Disney Company
Movie Gallery
Defunct15 December 2007
OwnerThe Walt Disney Company
Movie Gallery
ParentThe Walt Disney Company
Movie Gallery

MovieBeamwas avideo on demandservice started byThe Walt Disney Company,specifically its subsidiaryBuena Vista Datacasting, LLC.[1][2]Movies were sent wirelessly into the subscriber's home by embedding digital data (datacasting) within localPublic Broadcasting Service(PBS)[3]stations' analog TV (NTSC) broadcast to deliver the movies to a set-top box. The data was embedded usingdNTSCtechnology licensed fromDotcast,and distributed to TV stations viaNational Datacastthrough thevertical blanking interval,the same method used to provideclosed captioning.Up to ten new movies were delivered to the player each week. The player also contained free movie trailers, previews, and other extras.

The set-top box was sold for a one-time fee ($149.99 as of August 2007). The cost of viewing a movie varied from $1.99 for older movies in standard definition to $4.99 for newer releases in HD. Movie rentals expired 24 hours after the rental period began.

The box featured the highest-end connection hardware of the time, includingHDMI,component videooutputs, andcoaxialandopticaldigital audio outputs. The box also hadUSB 2.0andEthernetports, although these were not activated in the last release of the firmware. An HDMI orDVI-Dconnection was required to watch HD content in720presolution.[4]

MovieBeam connected to the servers by telephone line to trigger billing of rented movies. The modem may or may not have worked withVOIPlines, depending on the quality of the connection.

Disney spun off this company in January 2006. Intel Corporation, Cisco, Disney and several venture capital firms including Intel Capital,Mayfield Fund,Norwest Venture Partnersand Vantage Point Venture Partners had invested $48.5 million in MovieBeam.[5]

On March 7, 2007,Movie Gallery,Inc., attempting to diversify beyond physicalvideo rental,acquired MovieBeam, Inc. Movie Gallery at the time stated that the expected cost of acquisition, plus operating expenses for 2007, was $10 million.

On December 5, 2007, MovieBeam began calling its customers informing them that MovieBeam would be ceasing operations on December 15, 2007,[6]and on that date MovieBeam officially shut down service.[7]

As with most over-the-air paid television services, MovieBeam required a perfectly clear over-the-air signal in order to download the film data from the vertical blanking interval, and there was a possibility in a certain month that the MovieBeam customer would have no interest in any of the films offered (nor of extra or trailer content); though not wasting any digital bandwidth, it would then needlessly use energy to download unwatched content. Most viewers already received those stations through cable and satellite providers, which offered much more robustpay-per-vieworvideo on demandservices of film content, including from Disney. Presumably, cable services offering MovieBeam's channels were fully-compatible with MovieBeam and the MovieBeam set top box could download content that way, but providers were free to filter out VBI data services which duplicated their own offerings for the sake of full picture clarity and which would waste cable bandwidth.

Because of the over-the-air method of download, the films, if purchased, were excessivelycompressedand of lesser quality thanDVDorBlu-ray.Sealing the service's limited life would be that the service used full-powerNTSCanalog broadcasts instead of digitalATSC 1.0;NTSC had an upcoming expiration date of February 17, 2009 via full-power stations (laterrevised toJune 12, 2009) due to theupcoming digital transition.There was no public knowledge of a new digital-specific revision oncoming to the system.[8]

See also

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  • Disney Channel#Other services,describing Disney Family Movies, a scaled-down version of MovieBeam utilizing traditional cable pay-per-view providers
  • Disney+,Disney's current-day streaming platform

References

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  1. ^"Disney to offer MovieBeam on-demand movie service via datacasting".TVTechnology.NewBay Media.Archivedfrom the original on 19 April 2014.Retrieved18 April2014.
  2. ^"Wysk Company Profile for BUENA VISTA DATACASTING, LLC".Wysk.Archived fromthe originalon 18 April 2014.Retrieved18 April2014.
  3. ^"[1]Archived2015-10-06 at theWayback Machine",PBS / National Datacast (URL accessed 26 January 2008).
  4. ^""MovieBeam".Archived fromthe originalon 2006-11-18.Retrieved2006-12-30.",MovieBeam (URL accessed 29 December 2006).
  5. ^"Disney to launch over-the-air on-demand movie service - Geek".geek.15 February 2006. Archived fromthe originalon 15 April 2018.Retrieved14 April2018.
  6. ^"[2]Archived2018-03-13 at theWayback Machine",[MovieBeam Ceasing Operations] (URL accessed 5 December 2007).
  7. ^"[3]",[On-Demand Video Service MovieBeam Closes] (URL accessed 19 December 2007).ArchivedDecember 21, 2007, at theWayback Machine
  8. ^"[4]Archived2008-01-11 at theWayback Machine",[MovieBeam's (sort of) video on demand] (URL accessed 26 July 2008).
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