• by Rob Kendt , June 20, 2006

While the bandwidth battle rages in cable and broadband, the movie-rental service MovieBeam made news earlier this year by bypassing those pipes. MovieBeam delivers complete, ready-to-watch Hollywood titles to homes in 29 American markets via “datacasting” — sending digital content over spare PBS airwaves. A $200 set-top box decodes and stores 100 film titles, with 10 new releases delivered each week. Viewers can watch films on-demand for $4 each ($5 for high-definition titles).

Datacasting isn’t MovieBeam’s only ace. The set-top boxes, co-branded with Cisco’s Linksys, include Ethernet and USB ports, and starting in the fall, broadband will allow viewers to create Netflix-style queues of personalized choices and niche titles. This positions MovieBeam to add sell-through capability and device portability to its home-rental model, once Hollywood sorts out content ownership issues. “The platform is built to do that today,” says Michelle Cox, a spokeswoman for MovieBeam.