Renting Movies With a Box and a Beam - New York Times

This is a $200 set-top box which allows you to rent ($4 new releases, $2 older ones) movies, and gives you 24 hours to watch them. It can give you up to 100 movies at a time.

I have a feeling this will be on one of those "Top 50 Stupid Products of 2006" lists. There are about 30 different ways right now to get movies from rental stores, movie channels, NetFlix, PPV, PPViD, etc... But, the companies say why they are better than these..

BLOCKBUSTER MovieBeam offers the same sorts of movies at the same prices — but you don't have to make two trips to the video store. You never have to pay late fees. And you never find that all the good movies have already been checked out for the weekend by 7 p.m. on Friday night.

Well, Blockbuster is already competing with the other ways to get movies. I don't think this will take people away from Blockbuster who still (for whatever reason) use Blockbuster. Blockbuster also has a mail service, and you can keep a movie for more than 24 hours.

NETFLIX DVD-by-mail services carry just about every movie ever released on DVD. You get to watch a lot of movies each month for a fixed monthly fee, and you can keep the movies for as long as you like with no late fees. But you may have to wait for weeks for your turn to check out the most popular movies. And your movie selection on a given night is limited to the three you've ordered ahead of time. With MovieBeam, you never declare yourself in the mood for a mindless Adam Sandler comedy, only to find that all you've got on hand are three World War II documentaries.

I don't find it takes weeks to get new releases. I also make sure my queue is a mix of different genre's so I'm NOT stuck with three WWII documentaries. And, if I were, I must have wanted to see them. As well, let's look at price. If you watch 3 DVDs each weekend, that's 12 movies for $20. With Moviebeam, lets say you watch 12 movies, half new ones and half new releases. That's $36 (not to mention the $200 for the box that will likely become outdated pretty quickly and that you only havd 24 hours to watch the movie). So, forgetting the $200, by the above estimate, you'd save $192 to use Netflix. Even if you upgraded to the 4-at-a-time plan, you'd be better off.

HBO After a movie finishes its run in theaters, it generally moves through the system in this sequence: hotels and airlines; home video (like Blockbuster); pay-per-view television; and finally, maybe nine months after the theatrical run, movie channels like HBO and Starz.

HBO sucks. Let's see.. it's a Friday. You'd think some cool movie would be on tonight at 8, right? Nope.. a Big Love marathon starts at 8. But, HBO Family has Footloose on at 8:45! HBO sucks. It's only good for The Sopranos, Big Love, Deadwood, Curb, etc...

Anyways.. I use Netflix for newer movies, and HBO for their original shows. When something I haven't seen, or haven't seen in a while, comes on I record it.

PAY-PER-VIEW Standard pay-per-view offers a very small selection, doesn't let you choose when to start the movie and doesn't offer any pause/rewind/replay features.

Right, and PPV is pretty much on its way out.. see below..

VIDEO-ON-DEMAND PAY-PER-VIEW This newfangled movie-delivery system is probably MovieBeam's biggest competitor. You can start a movie whenever you like, and even pause/rewind/replay it. Here again, though, the selection is very small, and upgrading to the necessary digital cable box can inflate your monthly cable bill by $10 or more.

I think the VoD stuff has a fairly decent selection. MovieBeam can say it has 100 movies, but maybe an average person will want to see 7 of them. I have a billion TV channels, but that doesn't mean there is anything on. I don't know how much extra I pay for a digital box. I don't think $10. And, I have an HD box and not sure if MovieBeam will be giving me my movies in HD like VoD does. Also, even if it does cost $10/month, that's 20 months before it would cost what the MovieBeam would have costed.

So, doesn't sound too appealing to me. All movies on it should be $2, and you should be able to watch them for up to a week (not 24 hours). That way, it would be $24 for those 12 movies, and I wouldn't HAVE to make sure I watch within a certain time period.