By WALTER S. MOSSBERG and KATHERINE BOEHRET
After a long day at work, there's something calming about filling a bowl with popcorn and watching a movie at home. But the experience can be diminished if you have to drive to the video store to rent a DVD. And it's worse if you get there only to find that the film you want is out of stock.
Even if you subscribe to a DVD-by-mail service, like Netflix, you may have to wait for the most popular films, and the movies you have on hand at any one time might not fit your mood. Plus, you have to pay a monthly fee.
Now, a new company called MovieBeam is aiming to ease those DVD issues. It is selling a $200 digital gadget prestocked with 100 movies -- some in high definition -- that you can rent at the click of a remote-control button for as little as $1.99. There's no drive to the video store, no chance of a movie being out of stock, no monthly fee, no waiting for the mail.
I don't get it. This device/service adds another box to your Home Entertainment setup (many potential customers probably already have a DVR/Tivo, a DVD player, a video game console and/or a cable set-top box) which at this point seems limited to a (smallish) selection of movies falling between the DVD and pay-per-view windows. No mention of an iTunes-like selection of TV programming, even though the device's developer (Disney) was the first company to offer video to iTunes.
Not to mention yet another remote.
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