New Disney / Samsung HDD Video Set-Top Box

MDMurphy writes "Disney announced a new set-top box built for them by Samsung that will hold movies downloaded over the air via what they call MovieBeam in an internal HDD. You'd pay a monthly rental fee for the box and $2.39 - $3.99 per movie for a 24 hour viewing period. Dotcast Inc. provides the movie beaming, sending the digital data out over terrestrial TV broadcast stations. "

Comments

TV broadcasts have always been free to recieve...

[isaac]

I wonder about the legal issues here, since licensed broadcast TV signals have always been in the clear and legal for anyone to recieve. I'm not sure if it's clear that TV broadcasters can deliver encrypted pay services on their sidebands, or that it would be illegal to break such encryption, DMCA notwithstanding.

Of course, with the current roundheeled FCC majority, it's probably a safe bet that if TV broadcasters wanted to start "premium" terrestrial pay services, they'd probably be allowed.

-Isaac