Disney Plans VOD Mouse-in-a-Box

[Gregg Lengling]

Movie Beam service will be datacast to proprietary box

By Anthony Crupi


Once upon a time, the Walt Disney Co. adhered to a contrarian approach to video-on-demand. While the other major studios cavorted across the digital landscape like the seven dwarfs, the Mouse remained the sole holdout, suspicious of the prevailing business models and vigilant of its copyrights. If Disney were the eighth dwarf, its name would have been Leery.

Now it appears that this particular fairy tale may have a surprise happy ending. In an address to the National Association of Broadcasters last month, Disney chairman and CEO Michael Eisner revealed that the entertainment giant was finally ready to make its content available on demand--but on its own terms.

The new VOD effort, dubbed Movie Beam, was specifically designed to thwart the efforts of would-be digital pirates of the Caribbean. Eisner described Movie Beam as a service that "uses leftover broadcast 'bits' to download recent theatrical movies into set-top boxes"--a fair approximation of how datacasting works.

A wireless technology first devised as a cheap alternative to standard Internet connections, datacasting can be leveraged to send large hunks of data down a one-way conduit, via the vertical blanking interval and other unused areas of analog spectrum.

While Disney has been close-lipped about the infrastructure behind Movie Beam, it's safe to assume that Dotcast, a top datacasting firm, may be involved. (Disney also happens to be a key investor in Dotcast.)

A Dotcast spokesperson could neither confirm nor deny a role in the Movie Beam launch.

The set-tops, which will be manufactured specifically for Movie Beam, will have enough memory to store up to 100 titles. Beyond that, a Disney spokesperson declined to reveal the technology partner behind the development of the box.

Whatever the case, the Movie Beam approach is certainly unique. "They're bearing the burden of the hardware, the software and the content," said Jupiter Media analyst Lydia Loizides. "It's an interesting move. I'll say that much."

Getting the boxes into the market will be no mean feat. "If they lease the boxes through Blockbuster, they'll eliminate that steep price of entry," Loizides said. "But to do that, they're going to have to make friends with foes."

THE NEXT QUESTION:
Will demand for a slate of exclusive Disney content be enough to carry a VOD service?
GOING GOOFY?
By Jonathan Blum, Kagan

If datacasting is ever to find a market, Movie Beam is going to be the vehicle. Media monster Disney is betting big on the idea--and it is novel--but there are issues: Of the many challenges ahead, demand for the DVR that enables the service is fixed. We estimate that new sales for DVR will remain essentially flat to 2011. How Movie Beam grows in this market is not yet clear.