afiggatt
join:2007-07-12
Sterling, VA
| reply to TK Junk Mail
Re: Comcast, Verizon, others? offer OnDemand
said by TK Junk Mail  :For a huge majority of the country this service wasn't needed or any cheaper than OnDemand services from various providers. MovieBeam was for people who don't have high speed broadband or cable VOD (or want to use it). Not all cable systems have VOD or much VOD yet. The idea was a simple box people would hook up to their OTA antenna and have access to the most popular movie titles. No need to go to the video store or wait for Netflix delivery. MovieBeam did supply some HD movies, but not many as far as I know because of the hard drive size and the limits of download speed.
When I heard about it, I figured this would never succeed because of the limited selection. They could download only so many titles per day and store only so many. Unless you are house bound or a long way from the local video rental outlet (which may be the video rental kiosk at the grocery store), why not rent the DVD? There is a market for something like MovieBeam, but like the failed broadcast "cable" USDTV, just not big enough to make a sustained profit. |
