“Movie rental service MovieBeam, once backed by Walt Disney, Intel and Cisco Systems, will close down Saturday, stranding people who paid $200 for its set-top box with a useless piece of hardware,” Brian Deagon reports for Investor’s Business Daily.
“The MovieBeam box stored 100 movies that were continually refreshed through a wireless connection. Backers invested some $50 million in the venture before selling it a year ago for $10 million to Movie Gallery, the movie rental store chain, now in Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization,” Deagon reports.
“The collapse of MovieBeam follows the recent sale of Movielink, a movie download Web site backed by big Hollywood studios that pumped $148 million into the money-losing venture. BlockBuster bought it for $6.6 million,” Deagon reports.
“Analysts say these services were in large part simply ahead of the times. But a new crop of players — including Apple, TiVo, and Netflix — believe the time is right. They’re looking to steal market share for fee-based movies, TV shows and videos from cable and satellite TV companies,” Deagon reports. “‘There’s not a success story out there yet,’ said Michael Greeson, an analyst at research firm Diffusion Group. ‘A lot of people overestimated consumer appetite for these video services. The original models were really far ahead of the consumer market.'”
Deagon reports, “Not even Apple, which launched Apple TV in March, has succeeded, at least not yet. Apple TV is a set-top box that delivers video from the PC, downloaded through Apple’s iTunes, to the TV set.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: Besides movies, Apple TV also plays music, TV shows, movie trailers, podcasts, photos, home movies, and YouTube videos.