As a recent convert to the magic of HD, this is actually a pretty interesting concept. MovieBeam, which was founded—then seemingly abandoned—by Disney, is now streaming HD movies by piggybacking over PBS data signals. The service sends ten new moves per week and they can be stored on a storage box by Linksys that can hold up to 100 movies.

At $3.99 per first run movie AND a lengthy download time AND the absolute potential of having millions of hacked boxes out there, this is smacks highly of first mover disadvantage in the race to get HD video into the home. However, until HD-DVD/Blu-Ray hits, I guess this is a clever way to scratch that HD itch.

MovieBeam offers first HDTV online movie rentals [Yahoo.com]

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