Tuesday, February 14, 2006

MovieBeam Launches Services

Burbank-based MovieBeam today said that it has launched its movies-on-demand services nationwide, in 29 major metropolitan areas including New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. The firm said that its new service uses a set-top box and a indoor antenna to retrieve new movies, and will feature every new release and favorites from every major Hollywood studio. The company said that there will be no monthly fees for the $3.99 pay-per-view service, but that the service will require the purchase of a $199 set-top box hardware and an activation fee. MovieBeam also confirmed a venture investment of $48.5M in a new, Series A round of funding from Cisco, Intel, Mayfield, Norwest Venture Partners, and VantagePoint. The funding had been reported by socalTECH last week. MovieBeam was previously a Disney spinoff, and had shut down operations in April of 2005 after a market test.