MovieBeam to Offer Online HD Movie Rentals

Disney's thought-moribund MovieBeam project has rebounded to life, offering high-definition digital movie rentals over the air through set-top boxes.

Last year, the Disney-founded MovieBeam digital movie rental service looked dead before ever having hit the market. Disney took a $24 million write-down on the effort, and rumor was to expect a whole lot of nothing from the effort. But last month, Disney, Intel, Cisco, and VC firms injected over $48 million into the operation, and, suddenly, MovieBeam is ready to go: MovieBeam announced today that it plans to begin offering first-run films from six of the seven major movie studios in standard digital video format