There’ve been no shortage of reactions to Disney’s new MovieBeam video-on-demand set-top box which is being test marketed right now, and we’re going to add our own fuel to fire.
Honestly, while we wouldn’t go for it ourselves (the movies aren’t letterboxed, and somehow we doubt it’ll have the selection of indie and foreign films we favor, plus there’s a $30 activiation fee on top of the monthly and per-flick charges), we suspect that a good number of people (especially those with kids) will like the convenience and will automatically trust the Disney brand name. The big problem is that MovieBeam doesn’t improve on what’s already out there; DirecTV and plenty of cable systems already have video-on-demand services that don’t require an additional box or monthly fee, and cost about the same or less than the price of watching a movie with Disney’s service.
We do give Disney points for trying to do what all the cyberpundits have been urging the movie studios to do forever, i.e. cut out the middlemen and using an innovative high-speed wireless network to offer direct, on-demand video. On that level, they deserve at least some mild approbation, if for no reason than that they’re cutting Blockbuster out of the equation. MovieBeam isn’t exactly what we’ve been wating for, but at least it’s better than that asinine “disposable DVD” they’re trying to sell.
