Entered CNET Catalog: 02/11/2006
SKU: CNETMOVIEBEAMSYSTEM
Manufacturer: Moviebeam Inc.
Product summary
The good: The MovieBeam System MB2160 lets you view a rotating list of 100 top movies, including some in HD. Once the device is purchased, there are no subscription fees, and ordering movies is a simple and quick process.
The bad: The movie selection is spotty, the picture quality is iffy, and the player and the movies, which can be viewed on only a pay-per-view basis, are rather expensive. Additionally, the MB2160 requires way too many connections to operate smoothly.
The bottom line: Although it has the potential to be something great, the MovieBeam System MB2160 is currently marred by lack of choice, disappointing picture quality, and expensive pricing.
Editors' review
- Editors' Choice: No
- Reviewed on: 04/13/2006
Editors' Note: As of December 2007, MovieBeam shut down its content service, making this hardware effectively useless.
Experts in the home video industry and the press, as well as people such as Bill Gates, say that the traditional method of renting a DVD or other physical media will eventually give way to a new method of simply downloading a file to watch on a TV at home. The main questions are when and how, and if you ask MovieBeam, the answers would probably be now and using our box. The company, a private venture backed by Disney, Intel, and Cisco, among others, is attempting to create a new avenue for movie rentals with the relaunch of its hardware and service, which allows rentals from a rotating list of 100 titles from almost every major movie studio, including at least 10 in high-definition. The first new MovieBeam player is called the System MB2160. At $200 with rental fees ranging from $2 to $5 for a 24-hour rental, the MovieBeam System MB2160 requires a strong initial commitment on the consumer end. Given the price, the issues we found with the hardware, and the paucity of movies available at launch, we can't recommend MovieBeam as a good alternative to traditional rental models, even for early adopters who crave films in high-def. The MovieBeam System MB2160 is an excellent example of minimalist style, and we found the slim, 2-inch-tall box uncommonly attractive for a home-theater component. Punctuating its silver face is a series of three status LEDs on the left side. The first doubles as power button and a status light, the second indicates the antenna status, and the third illuminates when your film is showing in high-definition. On the right side is a simple and unassuming menu navigation panel. There's nothing in the way of a front-panel display for time or the like, but this product doesn't warrant it.
A small, unique-looking, pear-shaped remote replicates the front panel's menu navigation and power button and adds the standard transport controls: rewind, fast-forward, play/pause, and stop, as well as forward and reverse skip. While the sparse layout keeps the remote compact and surprisingly ergonomic, it omits some important functions. We'd like to see a volume control, for example, especially one that could command a TV or a stereo system, so you could use the MovieBeam's remote exclusively. A dedicated subtitle key would also be welcome.
We found the MovieBeam System MB2160's menus straightforward and easy to navigate. The main menu has a dynamic listing of "top features"--the newest and most popular movies available on the service, at least according to MovieBeam--as well as options to jump to a list of your currently rented movies, the movie search page, or system settings. A preview of the featured films plays on a minidisplay on the bottom-left of the screen, and selecting the preview allows you to watch it in full-screen model. The main screen displays any major problems with the hardware, along with a troubleshooting option, if applicable. For example, if your antenna or phone line is disconnected, choosing the troubleshooting option will make the MB2160 try to reestablish the lost connection.
The Find Movies menu allows a multitude of movie-sorting options without seeming cluttered. You can view the list in alphabetical order, as well as by arrival or departure time (see Features), genre, rating, and actor or director name. If you've hooked up the MovieBeam via HDMI, you can pull up a short list of the movies available in high-definition. Once you've selected a movie, you're brought to a brief overview page where a preview clip is shown on a minidisplay alongside the movie details, including rental options (high- or standard-def), prices, and whether the movie is in wide-screen. If you choose not to rent the title, you can back out into the master list or skip through the movie pages with the forward/backward buttons.
The MovieBeam experience may be a bit off-putting for those weaned on watching DVDs. Movie navigation is not broken into coherent chapter skips; rather, pressing the skip-forward button moves the film ahead in 5-minute increments. The rewind functions are imprecise as a whole, as a quick tap of the button sends you back a good 15 seconds, with no slow-rewind option to cover smaller bits of action. However, we appreciate the "jumpback" of 2 seconds or so that a movie makes after being unpaused, ensuring we don't miss any action when play resumes. MovieBeam works like no other rental system we've encountered. When you buy the box in a store, you don't actually take it home; the company ships it to you in a day or so. Your new MB2160 arrives with its 160GB hard drive filled with the latest batch of 100 or so movies, up to 10 of which are in high-definition. As many as 10 new movies are downloaded each week via a proprietary antenna broadcast, and 10 older ones disappear. As a user, you have no control over which new movies arrive, which disappear, and which of the current rentable movies are available in high-def.
In addition to Disney, MovieBeam has an unprecedented range of support from almost every major Hollywood studio--namely, 20th Century Fox, Lions Gate Entertainment, NBC/Universal, New Line Cinema, Paramount Pictures, and Warner. The one missing link is Sony/Columbia Pictures, which MovieBeam claims will be onboard soon. Studios will enable select titles to be available for rental the same day they're released on DVD, but support has been stingy so far, with no recent movies available in HD. Why The American President and Analyze This are in HD while newer, more visually intensive films such as Batman Begins and The Chronicles of Narnia get the standard-def treatment is a mystery.
Compared to DVDs commonly available for rental, the films on a MovieBeam box are more like VHS than state-of-the-art. First off, not every wide-screen movie is actually shown in the correct aspect-ratio format. Many are "modified to fit your screen" (a.k.a. 4:3), including films we'd like to see in wide-screen, such as Flightplan and The Transporter 2. On the audio front, only HD movies get Dolby Digital 5.1-channel surround sound (DTS isn't supported), and in a survey of the HD movies on our review sample box, only about half had 5.1-channel soundtracks. The rest, along with all of the standard-def movies, were basic stereo. MovieBeam flicks are mostly devoid of the special features common to DVDs, such as deleted scenes, commentaries, and extended making-of features. Thankfully, some of the movies were the extended unrated versions, particularly The 40 Year Old Virgin and Wedding Crashers. We also discovered two or three making-of shorts tucked away in a menu separate from the movies, none of which lasted longer than five minutes.
It's tough to pick 100 movies when the studios supporting the service have libraries in the thousands, so MovieBeam deserves credit for providing a range of relatively new movies, hits from the last few years, and a couple obscure flicks (try The Gingerdead Man--evil really hasn't ever tasted so good!). There isn't much in the way of classic movies, though--we couldn't find any movie made before 1994. While we give the MB2160 credit for listing movies that it's about to delete, we wish that the customer had more control over which movies enter and leave the player.
Rentals are strictly pay-per-view--there's no all-you-can-watch subscription plan--and break down into four price categories. Older standard-definition movies cost $2, older high-def movies are $3, newer SD movies go for $4, and newer HD movies run $5. It's worth noting that, as of the date of the review, there are no $5 movies. Paying the rental fee allows you to view the movie as many times as you want within a 24-hour period. While that's par for the course for many on-demand services, we felt it was a bit short. A 48-hour rental period would have been better suited to those frenetic weekends.
The MovieBeam System MB2160 offers a multitude of A/V output options. For standard-def, there are composite- and component-video jacks, as well as S-Video; you'll find an HDMI output for high-def. A set of stereo analog audio outputs joins one output each for coaxial and optical digital audio for surround soundtracks. A composite-video pass-through allows the MB2160 to serve as a receiver for a single device, such as a cable box, when the MovieBeam unit is idle--a useful addition for TVs where inputs are scarce. Three ports currently go unutilized: an Ethernet jack, an SD memory card slot, and a USB port. The system ships with a small antenna used to download new movies via proprietary broadcasts. The box isn't sold in cities that don't receive MovieBeam broadcasts; you can check availability in your area on the company's Web site.
The device's output is limited to 720p high-definition--no 1080i or 1080p--and only via the HDMI connection. Unfortunately, the component-video output is restricted to standard-definition 480i or 480p. Not only is this an annoying copy-protection countermeasure that renders MovieBeam's HD films unwatchable on HDTVs that lack digital video inputs, it caused early incompatibility with Mitsubishi HDTVs.
While the abundance of inputs and outputs on the MB2160 are welcome, we felt the designers could've done a lot more to reduce cable clutter. At the very least, you'll run four sets of cables to and from the MB2160: the power cord, A/V wires, the antenna cable, and the phone jack. Add a stereo output and an A/V input for pass-through, and it gets uglier. The antenna receives movies, and the phone jack provides MovieBeam with your rental records, all while an Ethernet input that could've handled both tasks goes unused; we hope it'll be activated in the future. The double whammy of needing a landline phone and a residence suitable for receiving antenna signals (we experienced problems in a basement apartment, for example) severely shrinks MovieBeam's potential audience. For its part, MovieBeam claims it makes sure that any interested customers meet both requirements before shipping an MB2160 to them. While noncritical viewers, especially those with smaller televisions, will likely have no problems with MovieBeam's image quality, we felt that as one of the first sources available that can deliver movies in high-definition, its images should look better. For image-quality comparison tests, we matched
both a standard- and a high-definition MovieBeam film presented via HDMI against its DVD counterpart, upconverted to 720p via HDMI from a Denon DVD-3910. We first watched the HD version of The American President, and while the image looked demonstrably better than the nonanamorphic DVD version, it still had a couple of issues. We noticed more video noise than we expected in certain areas, such as the white wall behind the president as he walks toward the Oval Office. Furthermore, quick movement degraded the image significantly. When the camera jerked to follow a character, for example, the noise intensified noticeably, making the wall appear blocky and discolored instead of white. Scenes with less camera movement had less noise, naturally, but it was still there.
We also noticed a few compression artifacts in The American President that we hadn't seen before. As the camera pushed toward the White House at night, for example, we saw a brief reddish-blue trail that followed the branches across the night sky--it disappeared soon after. We didn't see that artifact on the DVD. Detail in areas such as the stitching of the stars in the flag in the intro and the newsprint in the papers thrown on the table were comparable to that of a good DVD but didn't have the sharpness and pop we've seen on some HD images. The newsprint appeared a bit softer than it could have, for example.
The image quality of other HD movies we watched varied noticeably. The animated The Iron Giant, for example, evinced many of the same issues as The American President, including some roiling video noise, false contouring that looked like bands between lighter and darker areas, and a generally softer image than we expected. A presentation of Mission to Mars, on the other hand, looked better than either of the others. There was little false contouring in Luke Graham's dreadlocks, and background video noise appeared somewhat less prevalent than we'd seen before. There was still some softness in the image such as in the Mars patch on the older astronaut and in the blades of grass in Graham's garden. We'd expect that an HD presentation of the film on HBO, for example, would look more detailed.
We also compared a standard-def movie, The Bourne Identity, to its DVD doppelgänger, which was presented in anamorphic wide-screen. On the MovieBeam's SD presentation, the opening nighttime sequence, where Jason Bourne is found at sea, appeared littered with artifacts, to the point where the stormy sky seemed nearly indistinguishable from the rough waters. Later on, when Bourne retrieved his valuables from the bank, the lack of detail in the MovieBeam version of the film became glaringly apparent. The textures of his many foreign passports were barely noticeable, and the fine print on them was illegible, whereas both were much more easily seen on the DVD. The vibrant colors of the scene--Bourne's brown sweater and the garbage pail's red lining, in particular--looked washed out and pallid on the MovieBeam presentation. In all, the MovieBeam version of The Bourne Identity fell well short of the DVD and looked worse than many VOD movies we've seen on cable TV.
Many of these issues can be chalked up to the highly compressed nature of the films stored on the MovieBeam box. If the 100-movie roster filled the hard drive to capacity, the average movie file would be 1.6GB. High-def movies take up more space, obviously, and according to MovieBeam's rep, the numbers come out to roughly 5GB for a HD movie and 1GB to 1.5GB for a normal movie. Those numbers are significantly less than those of a typical high-quality DVD, which can hold up to 8.5GB, while Blu-ray and HD-DVD discs start at 25GB. MovieBeam utilizes powerful Windows Media Video compression, as opposed to the older MPEG-2 compression used for DVDs, but even so, its films could benefit from less aggressive bit crunching, either by using larger files for fewer movies or a bigger hard disk.
User opinions
Select a User Opinion to view: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15out of 15 user reviews
Huge Disappointment
Pros: You don't have to drive to the video store
Cons: Bad selection, no Dolby Digital, Poor HD selection
1) The selection of HD movies available is abysmal. Very few blockbuster movies... the ones that could most benefit from HD, are presented in HD. Instead, they have B-level horror flicks and fake documentaries that weren't even shot on HD. I just don't get it. And there are only 4-5 HD movies available at any given time.
2) Very few movies, maybe 5% of the titles, have Dolby Digital soundtracks. Again there seems to be no rhyme or reason: big action movies won't have 5.1 sound, and tiny romcoms will. I don't get it.
3) 24 hour rental period is WAY too short. Often times I find myself falling asleep and wanting to continue the movie the next day. Can't do it unless you start early.
4) Customer Support has stopped answering the phone. You now have to leave a message. This doesn't bode well.
5) If for some reason you lose antenna strength, it won't reconnect to the service unless you redo the guided setup. If you don't happen to notice the problem for a couple of days, you don't EVER get the movies that were broadcast during those days.
Bottom line: If you value convenience WAY over quality, Moviebeam may be ok for you. Otherwise, you'll just be frustrated.
out of 15 user reviews
Great Idea - Really Poor Implementation
Pros: HDMI Output and HD Movies
Cons: Very Limited HD Movies. Horrible Antenna Idea.
1. The box is made by Linksys but uses a phone cord to make calls even though it has an Ethernet port? Are you kidding me, Linksys?
2. Very few HD movies.
3. The antenna is way too touchey and can't rely on signal staying strong.
4. Box will just lock up during playback.
My suggestion - cool idea - but implement download via Ethernet (even at slow rate like antenna) or wifi and make it mostly HD.
Just too many other places to get movies now that are less hassle for this to work. The phone line thing is a complete show stopper for me.
out of 15 user reviews
Recommended; DVD quality video and superb convenience.
Pros: I don't have to make any more late-night return runs.
Cons: Antenna placement very demanding, at least in my house.
Antenna placement, which is a must for new movies to be loaded onto the hard drive, was tricky. I'm about 12 miles from the broadcast point, but I'm in a slight valley. I ended up placing the antenna on one of my speakers, and I think it's getting assisted by the speaker cable. Most places I tried in our great room, even with large windows facing the signal's point of origin, had weak, unusable signal strengths. On the back left corner of my subwoofer I got almost a perfect signal.(90 of a possible 100) Overall, I'm glad I got it, and my spouse likes it as well. One of the nicest things is that every movie, other than some Disney films, has its associated preview, so you don't have to depend on a written review.
out of 15 user reviews
Dissappointed by Moviebeam
Pros: Sadly, nothing to say pro about Moviebeam as of yet
Cons: Lack of current movies makes Moviebeam a miss
I'd truely love to see, every Tuesday DVD release day those same movies showing up on my Moviebeam.
Phillip
out of 15 user reviews
Great solution for on-demand movies
Pros: On-demand movies, good picture quality, HDMI capable
Cons: Some-what limited movies
Set-up is very easy. The cost of the Moviebeam movies are exactly the same as for pay-per view - $3.99. Older movies are $1.99. If you watch an HD movie, they are $1 more. I've heard people complain about this, but come on. If you are the type of person that has a multitude of electronic gadgets (like me), then I don't think $1 is going to kill you. I like the convenience that Moviebeam gives me to select a movie from a large number choices and watch it whenever I wish.
I think the picture and sound quality of the Moviebeam service is near excellent. I've read the reviews criticing this, and I respectfully disagree. I have a 60" LCD rear-projection HDTV, and I think the picture is very good. Can I see some artifacts? Sometimes yes -- but you have to look very closely. Unless you are a very picky videophile, I don't think it will bother you.
The biggest draw-back for me was the investment price of $200 to buy the Moviebeam device. But, I found a promotional code that allows you to buy the equipment for $49(use PR49B). This gadget is definitely worth $49. I also purchsed the HD cable kit ($39). Some of the reviews say this only comes with an HDMI cable. That is not true. This kit includes an HDMI cable, digital coax cable, and an optical cable. Maybe you can get all 3 of these cables for less than $40 - but is very convenient to just order it all at once.
Regarding movie availability, every movie that is available on my DirecTV pay-per-view schedule is also available on Moviebeam. But now, I can watch them WHEN I WANT TO.
Overall, I think this is an excellent product, and at $49, it is a "no-brainer" to me. I would highly recommend
The HDMI output on my Moviebeam box quit working -- it was outputing garbage. I called Moviebeam customer support. They were extremely helpful. First, they answered the call immediately -- no long waits on hold. Second, the service person was very knowledgeable. They had me perform several tests and ultimately concluded I needed a new box. Within 2 days I had a new box and they even credited by account $10 for the trouble of having to return the defective unit. I did not have to pay to return the defective unit, they provided a return shipping label.
I continue to be very happy with the Moviebeam service. Most technology companies have horrible customer service -- that is NOt the case with Moviebeam. I hope they keep up the good work.
out of 15 user reviews
I am a big fan, works better than I ever expected
Pros: HDMI output, easy connection, easy menus, great picture, "Now in theater" previews, ther is always 100 movies to choose from
Cons: Odd shaped remote, the antenna is ugly, and no rental packages
I began doing some research on the good ol interweb when I discovered a coupon code that brought the price down to $49.99, which is a relatively small investment and with that I was sold because I could send it back if I didn't like it.
So once I ordered it, it was at my door two days later, I unpacked the box and set it up with the supplied component cables (the setup took about 10 min from unpack to browsing the menu. Since I don't have cable or a dish blocking my HDMI port on my TV, I changed out the cables.
The movies look great, I have watched two movies from this service, one was standard def @ 4:3, the other was wide-screen and it was upconverted to 16:9 which looked on my widescreen TV, just as good as CSI. I have spent a few hours just watching previews of movies (both theater and rental releases), other free content includes shorter than on the dvd extras, but you can watch them without renting the movie first.
I really like it, the only thing I wish it had was rental packages, where you pay a monthly fee for a certain amout on rentals.
out of 15 user reviews
Offers HD at the push of a button
Pros: no scratched discs, pay for what you watch, HD fodder for hungry HT Buffs
Cons: only HDMI HD, landline
out of 15 user reviews
Good Intro for a Great Idea
Pros: Instant library. Free previews. No monthly fees.
Cons: Not for everyone. Limited to 10 HD movies.
out of 15 user reviews
Missing The Boat
Pros: Great Technology & A Growth In Home Entertainment
Cons: Over Pricing & Lack of Unique Opportunity
Beaming movies to your home is great but not at the price they offer them for. Their prices are just a few cents cheaper than the in-store prices and when you factor in the unit they are more expensive by far. They are also more expensive than the mail-in programs with much more initial commitment. That's the deal; they will scare everybody off with the initial unit cost. Unless they can show the public that they will be getting their money back in value and savings. They have tried admirably to do so. However, their movies are not that much cheaper and their titles are way behind the new release curve, which if I might add is a big deal! Once you factor in the unit cost I just can't justify switching over to this service.
Here it is. They got too greedy. Charging for individual movie rentals is a thing of the past. They could charge $250 for the box or what ever they want because the way to get the subscribers on is to give them something more. Charging them a monthly fee of $19.99 and allowing them to rent as many movies as they want or allowing them to rent more movies per month than the normal in-store or online rental company. It's digital right, so what does it really cost them? Throwing away the individual rental pricing is a necessity to overcome large scale commitment issues and their new release deficiencies. The only other option that might help is to reduce their new release price ($3.99) to the regular movie price ($1.99). If it's digital then it should not cost more to beam a new release film over than a regular feature.
Why am I making such a big deal over pricing? Consider the following: Say I get an average of 7 movies per month from an online service costing me $19.99 per month, which I do. This means that on a yearly basis I am paying a flat fee of $239.88 for 84 flicks, oops did I mention the first month is free bringing it to $219.18. Ok, let's compare this to Movie Beam’s prices. Say I purchased the unit and I received a $50 Mail-in rebate to begin watching movies through this great technology. Before I rent one movie the unit itself plus sales tax is more than what I would spend in one year despite the fact that a mail-in rebate is a scam and a huge hassle. Annoyance aside let's crunch the numbers. I would say that 95% of the titles that I get on a monthly basis are new releases (which are much newer than what they have to offer). That means that at 79 new releases and 5 regular titles for the year I will be spending a whopping $325.16 at Movie Beam before sales tax. Oh wait; let's not forget the $29.99 fee for activation which is also a scam to squeeze extra money out of the masses. Without any surprises on just the basic stuff it takes for me to do the same thing I am doing now, it will cost a grand total of $599.55 with an assumed sales tax of 8%. Now sit back and ask your self how unhappy would you have to be with your current movie provider to spend $380.37 more for the first year and $105.98 for each additional year. Pretty unhappy is the answer.
I am no expert by any means, but with these numbers it does not take one. I am heavily involved with all aspects of retail sales and I understand the common consumer. I do not want this opinion to be taken as a complaint. I have nothing to complain about. Movie Beam has introduced a wonderful new technology that has the potential to make waves instead of ripples. I foresee one of three things happening. 1) Movie Beam staying the course and eventually be driven into the ground along with the technology by existing programs and costly marketing campaigns. 2) Movie Beam staying the course, and with a better chance of occurrence, a new company or an existing company will adopt the technology , become their biggest competition, and drive them into the ground with little effort. 3) The best possible solution for Movie Beam; To eventually pull together their marketing team again and seriously look at the potential money there is to make. Then, restructure their system to offer the general public something new, something they haven't experienced before. That's when they'll explode getting so big so quick that it will not leave much room for other companies to come in and trump their hard earned business. Then after they have sold half the nation a $200 unit that will beam them movies, they can sit back while the American consumer will be paying them on a monthly basis for years to come, guaranteeing an enormous growth for a company that has huge potential. If they choose to ignore the public and continue down this course they will be throwing away millions of dollars and missing the boat. Needless to say, I am very interested in the outcome and will be keeping an eye out to see what happens. As for signing up, not interested… for now.
out of 15 user reviews
This product suffers from design flaws that have casued it to be useless in my system
Pros: Great Menu and search features
Cons: compatibility issues; product does so what is promised; Picture on SD is not as good as a decent DVD player
Tech support followed up with me last night. It appears that the problems are more widespread than initially thought- this product WILL CURRENTLY NOT DISPLAY MOVIES IN HD ON ANY MITSUBISHI HDTV (including those TV's that do not have DVR's). Please be sure to verify that your TV is compatible with this unit before purchasing. If I was able to adjust my rating (which I can't) I would adjust it to a "2" (and would also fix all the typos in my first post!). I will post an update if the problem is addressed.
out of 15 user reviews
Super easy and now HD
Pros: Great for HD owners who want to watch NEW MOVIES
Cons: Library content limited, but I don't care.
Something they don't point out in the article (maybe it's obvious) is that you can take the box to someone else's house and still watch the movies on demand (as long as the box has "called in" recently).
The cost is the same as Blockbuster, and the movie availability is the same too now! The 24 hour thing wasn't ever a problem since you don't 'rent' the movie until you're ready to watch it.
It's the only way to get HD movies "on demand" that I've ever heard of.
I just ordered one and once I've played with it a little bit, I'll let you know if this new service is as good or better than the last version.
out of 15 user reviews
It's not perfect, but it beats late fees!!!
Pros: Not Available
Cons: Not Available
out of 15 user reviews
Imagine when this gets hacked
Pros: Not Available
Cons: Not Available
out of 15 user reviews
Good Idea if you have an HDTV
Pros: Not Available
Cons: Not Available
out of 15 user reviews
The whole idea stinks right out of the box...
Pros: Not Available
Cons: Not Available
And what about these 100 titles? The idea that the “Movie Studios” are backing this idea makes me suspicious to begin with. My guess is that movie companies will pay high prices to get their film into that 100 title list. I won’t have the flexibility of NETFLIX (to get the titles I want), I’ll be forced to choose from the titles “they” want me to watch.
The cost of the machine is high…too high. Everyone seems to forget that you can already download full resolution video through Windows Media Player and have the same 24 hour window to watch them…and you can choose what you watch. With the MovieBeam set up fees, device charges, movie viewing fees? This one stinks from the start.
When it all boils down, this looks like a great way to throw money down the toilet. SO WHAT if they are offering new titles the day they are released? There is no value comparison when I can still walk down to Blockbuster, get the DVD and have access to watch it many times during the week. I guess, in theory, this type of device is a nice idea…but it is not a nice value. It’s a pretty face with nothing new to offer.
