Comments on: MovieBeam On The Cheap, Only $49

By: Former Subscriber

Former Subscriber — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 19:37:12 +0000

IMHO the convenience element is a positive, but the picture quality, lack of DVI support, and per movie charge seems to be a MAJOR consumer acceptance factor. Ours collected dust until we sold to a bidder on ebay.

As for the company, the margin per rental is minute, with a lion’s share going to the studios. It will take another ice age before moviebeam recoups it’s investment capital. Oops, scratch that investors, they will never recoup. It’s a BUST.

By: Dave Zatz

Dave Zatz — Wed, 31 May 2006 19:55:48 +0000

I've been pleasantly surprised as well. There are a few negatives, but overall it's pretty neat (for $50 or less). I should have my review up in the next few days.

By: Steve Pierce

Steve Pierce — Wed, 31 May 2006 19:51:49 +0000

I have been using this service for 2 weeks now. Very convenient. Picture quality is good. Some people can never be satisfied. They want everything for free. Grow up. You get what you pay for!!!

By: julio

julio — Wed, 24 May 2006 04:18:27 +0000

i just recieved my moviebeam device and its amazing the sound and picture quality are top notch plus standard def movies are upconverted to hd for you !!!

By: Dave Zatz

Dave Zatz — Mon, 15 May 2006 16:07:25 +0000

Michael, I’m with you both on monoprice.com as the place the get cables at a fair price and that MovieBeam will ultimately fail. There are just too many competing services out there that don’t require additional boxes and/or cash outlays.

The video store is no longer an option for me… the crummy parking, out of stock movies, and long lines to pay the surly cashiers no longer interests me. Maybe you guys have better brick & mortar options in your area!

Long term, I’m hopeful the Xbox 360 drops in price by about $100 (right around when the PS3 will debut for a million bucks) and offer movie downloads either on their own or with some partnered Movielink or Akimbo service. Lately, I have less hope of seeing such a service on TiVo as they move towards ad-based revenue. I’d like to be wrong on that one…

By: Michael Portuesi

Michael Portuesi — Mon, 15 May 2006 15:54:31 +0000

Dave,

I’m sure that you could use your own HDMI/Toslink cables with the Moviebeam. But most of us don’t have that stuff lying around, so we’d still have to get that stuff from somewhere.

My guess is that you could get those cables for about half of what Moviebeam charges, by going to monoprice.com. But that still makes it a $70 gadget, not a $50 gadget. For a lot of gadget freaks, that’s inconsequential – but not for a cheapskate like me.

I guess the big reason why I don’t like this service is that it has failure written all over it. After you’ve seen enough weird consumer gadgets, you start getting a sense for the ones that have that “whiff of desperation” around them. To me, this is one of them.

By: John Fassbender

John Fassbender — Mon, 15 May 2006 12:08:19 +0000

This just seems silly to me. Why pay them money so you can only rent movies from them?

There prices aren’t any cheaper than the rental store and in some cases higher.

In my opinion, too much money for the convenience of not going to a video rental place.

Now if they offered movies BEFORE they came out on DVD, that might be a different story.

By: c.Lake

c.Lake — Mon, 15 May 2006 03:01:29 +0000

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…… Yeah..