MovieBeam’s final cut

The reports turned out to be true. Despite Movie Gallery having both my email address and a direct digital link to my MovieBeam box, I received the official confirmation that the service was shutting down via quaint snail mail — quaint enough to arrive two days after the service was slated to be terminated. Moviebeam.com finally reflects the service’s defunct status.

There were still a few movies listed on the service for a while, but then the device began an unusual self-destruct procedure where it started erasing the titles featured on the service. I could just hear cries of “Dave… my mind is going.” in the background.I thought it somewhat poetic that the last film listed on my box was the Nicholas Cage movie Next.

Word on the street seems to be that — unlike the hard drive in the defunct RCA Akimbo box — the MovieBeam receiver’s hard drive is unfit for reuse due to use of an encryption chip (clearly developed before the current green trend) so it looks like the only souvenir I will keep from the product is its antenna that I’m going to try to reuse as a picture frame.

However, it’s not nearly as cool as the little Newscatcher pyramid that I still have from the vintage 1997 AirMedia Live push service.