Paramount Pictures plans to debut “Jackass 2.5,” the third installment of the “Jackass” movies, online, skipping the multiplexes entirely. “2.5” will launch Dec. 19 on Blockbuster’s new online property, Movielink, where it will be streamed free for two weeks. Then, beginning Dec. 26, it will be released on DVD, through video-on-demand and in Apple’s iTunes Store. An interesting experiment, and one that could pave the way for first-run broadband movies.

But will it succeed? Paramount certainly seems to think so. After all, the film is sort of a long-form version of the rough-edged, occasionally tasteless DIY content that predominates online. Said Tom Lesinski, president of Paramount Pictures Digital Entertainment, “When you think about what people generally consume online it’s fairly low-end user-generated content, yet there are hundreds of millions of people online watching video every day.”

Or as another executive candidly told the New York Times: “There’s more vomiting, nudity and defecation. The stuff that consumers really want.”

Getting a reported price of under $20 million, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal, will hardly cover costs of upward of $100 million–even “Ishtar” didn’t do that badly.

The compromised Movielink, the bastard child created five years ago by movie studios (Paramount Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Universal Studios, Sony Pictures Entertainment and Warner Bros.) with too-onerous digital rights management claws, lackluster marketing and high prices, has been widely mocked even by execs at the studios themselves.

When I recently brought it up during a visit to one studio, in fact, an executive there did a most excellent rolling of his eyes that needed no further explanation.

But now it is Blockbuster’s problem to correct, which is mainly how to battle online rivals like Netflix and others chipping away at its business either via mail-order rentals or video-on-demand services.

From top to bottom, Blockbuster is deliberately and willfully infringing on our patented methods. Netflix invented a 100 percent better mousetrap that Blockbuster copied.
- Netflix spokesperson Steve Swasey, April 5, 2006

Apparently, Blockbuster isn’t as hopelessly tethered to its VHS rental-business past as you might think. Yesterday, the video-rental retailer acquired studio-owned movie download service Movielink and with it a potentially significant foothold in the video-on-demand market. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but early this year when rumors of an acquisition first began to circulate, analysts had estimated that Blockbuster might pay as much as $50 million.

Founded in 2002, Movielink is backed by Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Universal Studios and Warner Bros. Studios. But while its impressive catalog makes it one of the Web’s largest digital-movie libraries, the service hasn’t caught on because of its strict digital-rights management software and prices (roughly the same as a typical DVD). Still, it’s likely a good acquisition for Blockbuster, whose market value has declined to just over $800 million from $8.4 billion, largely because of its failure to buy Netflix when it had the chance.

Blockbuster chair and CEO Jim Keyes called the deal the next “logical” step in the company’s transformation. Presumably, that means the next phase in Blockbuster’s re-creation of the Netflix business model, which the video-rental chain has been diligently following for the past few years. Netflix, of course, is spending some $40 million this year on its own VOD service, which is already up and running.

And what of Amazon Unbox? Xbox Live Video and Movielink? What of AppleTV and the iTunes juggernaut? Adapt or die, says Forrester. Only with ad-supported content will these ventures be able to compete with free TV-quality web streams. There simply aren’t enough media junkies to support the download model they’ve developed. “The people who pay to download video are extreme media-philes,” Forrester analyst James McQuivey told Variety. “They are not the tip of an iceberg. They may grow their own spending, but there aren’t many people like that left. In the video space, iTunes is just a temporary flash while consumers wait for better ways to get video. They’re already coming.”

And what of Amazon Unbox? Xbox Live Video and Movielink? What of AppleTV and the iTunes juggernaut? Adapt or die, says Forrester. Only with ad-supported content will these ventures be able to compete with free TV-quality web streams. There simply aren’t enough media junkies to support the download model they’ve developed. “The people who pay to download video are extreme media-philes,” Forrester analyst James McQuivey told Variety. “They are not the tip of an iceberg. They may grow their own spending, but there aren’t many people like that left. In the video space, iTunes is just a temporary flash while consumers wait for better ways to get video. They’re already coming.”

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.

The MovieBeam box plugs into your TV and comes loaded with a selection of 100 movies that could include titles such as “The 40 Year Old Virgin” and “Cinderella Man.”

The MovieBeam service doesn’t require a computer or Internet connection, and it operates independently of your cable or satellite provider. The MovieBeam box, which looks like a slim DVD player without a slot for DVDs, is basically a smart hard disk drive that connects to your TV and receives new films every week via a small, inconspicuous indoor antenna.

MovieBeam’s service isn’t available everywhere, but is up and running in 29 metropolitan areas that cover a fair sprawl of the country, including Boston, Orlando, Dallas, Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago and Philadelphia.

We’ve been testing MovieBeam, and we generally like it. But it has some drawbacks — most notably its limited selection, which is nowhere near as large as a video store or Netflix, and omits many movies that are newly available on DVD.

MovieBeam, which was developed by Walt Disney Co., and is now an independent firm partly owned by Disney, is only one of a number of new digital services aiming to compete with the likes of Blockbuster and Netflix.

Most of these competitors, including older services like MovieLink and CinemaNow, and newer ones like Vongo, are based on the Internet. They offer downloadable movies for a per-film fee, or via a subscription.

But these sites require a high-speed Internet connection and, even then, you may have to wait while a film slowly downloads. Also, the movies they sell wind up on a computer, and aren’t sent directly to a TV set, where most people prefer to watch movies.

Others, such as Comcast’s On Demand service, do arrive directly at a TV set, and are instantaneous. But they can be costly, and also suffer from a limited selection.

This $200 (after a $50 rebate) MovieBeam product consists of three main pieces: the thin, flat box that resembles a DVD player, an antenna and a remote. The box comes with cables so that you can attach it to your TV, your phone jack and the antenna. A one-time $30 activation fee is applied when you first use it, and each individual movie can be rented or selected for either $1.99 for older titles, or $3.99 for newer ones. Certain titles that are available in high definition cost a dollar extra. A credit card that you designate when buying the device is charged appropriately.

The MovieBeam’s antenna is the key to this device. It receives movies through a “datacasting” service that is run invisibly from Public Broadcasting Service stations. One hundred movies are always on your box; about 10 leave and 10 arrive each week, constantly changing your library. On average, each movie stays on your system for 10 weeks, so you’ll have plenty of time to watch it, if you choose.

After a consumer buys the device online or in a store, it is loaded and shipped with 100 movies already on it, just as ours was sent to us. You can’t choose which 100 movies you get. They are preselected by MovieBeam. This is a major downside, which the company aims to fix later this year by introducing an option that will allow users to fill at least some of the 100 slots with films of their own choosing from an Internet-based catalog. But these will be older films, not hot new ones.

We set up MovieBeam in just a few minutes, positioning the antenna near a window for the best reception before walking through the on-screen setup steps. The main box must attach to a phone line because once every two weeks, it automatically calls MovieBeam to update its records of the movies you’ve watched; your credit card is charged once monthly.

We liked MovieBeam’s interface, and its chunky little remote was simple to use with just a few buttons — though we found it annoying that it lacked any volume controls. We easily searched through movies using a main menu that displayed the DVD case of each movie. For faster searching, movies can be sorted by genre, actor, director, arrival time and title. A special section labeled “Leaving Soon” lists the 10 titles that will be deleted next, including dates when they’ll leave the system.

When we selected a movie to get more details about it, a screen appeared including the title, date until which the movie was guaranteed to be on our box, names of the actors and director, rating, release year, duration, genre and summary. A small window in the right corner of this screen even played the movie’s trailer, which could also be watched in full-screen view. If a movie is available in high definition, a tiny “HD” is marked next to its title.

To rent a movie, we simply selected an on-screen button labeled “Rent Now” and listed the movie’s price. We watched “Cinderella Man” and “Wedding Crashers” — each cost $3.99, and all rentals are viewable for the next 24 hours. The quality of each film was very good, like that of a DVD.

The selection of movies is far smaller than Blockbuster or Netflix offers. But it was fair, including older favorites like Jim Carrey’s 1994 hit, “The Mask” and “Erin Brockovich” from the year 2000, as well as newly released titles like “Hustle and Flow” and “Mr. and Mrs. Smith.” Child-friendly movies like “Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus” were also available, and parental controls are offered, including weekly spending limits and other restrictions.

But some movies just were not on MovieBeam, even though they were already out on DVD. Under Hollywood’s release policies, MovieBeam can’t get most films until 30 to 45 days after they appear on DVD. Because of Disney’s role in the company, movies released by Disney do appear on MovieBeam as soon as they come out on DVD. Thus, “The Chronicles of Narnia” will be on MovieBeam, as well as DVD, on April 4.

Other prominent films, like the Oscar-winning “Walk the Line,” which is already out on DVD, won’t show up on MovieBeam for another month or so. Others, like Best Picture winner “Crash,” have passed the point, under Hollywood rules, when they can be shown on services like MovieBeam, even though they remain available on DVD.

Still other films, like “Junebug,” aren’t on MovieBeam because they were released by Sony, the one major studio that hasn’t agreed to distribute its films through MovieBeam.

Another downside of MovieBeam: It lacks the extra features, like deleted scenes, interviews and commentary, found on most DVDs. There are some of these extras on MovieBeam, but only for a scattering of the films, and only in limited amounts.

In some ways, we liked having a variety of movie genres on our box — some of which we might not have chosen otherwise. But we wished we could fill the hard disk with films of our own choosing.

Still, MovieBeam is a smart solution for users who don’t like the hassles of renting DVDs, and don’t want to fool with their computers for downloading movies.

• Email: MossbergSolution@wsj.com

So my decision to abandon my old — yet reliable — Lotus Organizer software was a difficult one. But two serious issues prompted my switch: accessibility and flexibility. I use multiple computers in my office, my home and on the road — a mixed bag of Windows PCs and Apple Macintosh models — and I needed a calendar that I could access from every one. I also needed one that would allow both me and my assistant to update my calendar and instantly see the results.

For many people working in large organizations, with Microsoft Outlook or other calendars on servers, this is already a reality. But for consumers and small businesses, it’s a hassle. It’s a pain to keep updating calendar programs that live on multiple computers, even if you only use one type of computer, and even with the help of a PDA or smart phone, like my Palm Treo. And it gets far worse if you use both Windows PCs and Macs, or if you’d like to occasionally rely on public computers or borrowed computers on the road.

But there’s new hope in this area. Web-based calendars, which live on the Internet and can be accessed from any Web-connected computer, are getting much more powerful and sophisticated.

AirSet by Airena Inc.

So, for the past three months, my assistant Katie Boehret and I have been testing two Web-based organizer programs to see which one would replace Lotus. We tested a free organizer called AirSet by Airena Inc., as well as a $39.95 per year (after a free two-month trial) program called Trumba OneCalendar by Trumba Corp.

Each company set us up with our own password-protected calendars, and we quickly learned a few things. Because of the Internet’s nature, we had to adjust to waiting a bit for Web pages to load before performing tasks such as viewing future months or dates to add appointments. The Web also prevented us from simply dragging and dropping appointments from one calendar square to another, like we did in Lotus. And of course, when the Internet isn’t available, neither is my schedule.

Trumba is primarily a calendar, while AirSet is a broader service that includes a rich address book, automatic map links to meeting locations and a coming program that will work with mobile phones to access and update your calendar.

But we focused on the calendar features in each, as calendars are the most heavily used feature in most people’s computer organizers. We didn’t pick a winner because tastes in calendars can vary with work style. For us Trumba was better and easier, but for you, it might be AirSet. Both work well.

If you’re hoping to transfer your currently used calendar over to either of these, both programs will automatically synchronize with Microsoft Outlook, and AirSet also syncs with Palm Desktop. But any other type of calendar can only be moved using a special file format and it won’t synchronize perfectly.

Both programs also allow you to “publish,” or share, your calendar with other people, using different colors to represent each colleague or family member. And each allows you to “subscribe” to other people’s calendars, or to public calendars, like sports team or school schedules. The dates on such calendars are added to your own, and can be turned on or off.

Trumba OneCalendar by Trumba Corp.

The two programs are similar in many ways, but a few differences stood out to us. For one thing, we liked the overall look of Trumba better than AirSet. Its colors and the Web-page design are simple and attractive.

We also noticed a few small organizational distinctions. For example, my calendar’s appointments are organized by times (12 p.m. lunch with rock star, 2 p.m. meeting with tech legend) while some people and families have weekly activities and don’t need to know times — just that the activity falls on a certain day. Trumba lists an appointment or activity’s time first, while AirSet may list the time or activity first (Soccer Practice 2 p.m., Piano 4 p.m.) depending on how much data you enter in an appointment. We prefer Trumba’s method, but this is a personal inclination.

I started off with AirSet, quickly setting up a group named Walt’s Office. Groups help you distinguish schedules — such as personal and professional — from one another. Each group is labeled with a different color; AirSet automatically assigns colors to groups while Trumba lets you pick each group’s representative color from 24 shades.

I gave Katie permission to view and change the content in my AirSet calendar, and both she and I were able to view these changes, as long as we refreshed the page on each of our computers. Tabs labeled with your group names run across the top of AirSet, and you can easily switch from one group to another by clicking on each tab. One condensed tab shows you all of the groups’ activities in one calendar.

We entered the Subject, Location and Address into our AirSet appointments after selecting a “New” link in the appropriate date box. When we entered specific address information, a “Map It” link appeared beside the address and we could click on it to be directed to Google Maps and a geographical view of the meeting spot. This feature would probably be handy for professionals who drive to new meetings often rather than parents who are more familiar with neighborhoods and locations for activities.

Next month, AirSet will offer another attractive feature for small businesses — Mobile AirSet. This is a miniversion of the program that will sync data from your cellphone to the Web site and vice versa using your cellphone’s Internet service. We tested this using a demonstration phone from the company, and calendar events were pretty simple to open and change by pressing a few buttons on the phone. This service from AirSet will cost about five dollars per month.

AirSet imports contacts from Microsoft Outlook or Palm Desktop, including names, phone number, Web sites and emails. Trumba, on the other hand, only lets you import lists of email addresses.

Trumba’s groups run down the left-hand side of your calendar in list format, labeled “Your Primary Calendar,” “Shared With You,” “Emailed to You” and “Subscribed To.” Katie accesses four Trumba calendars daily: my office calendar, her personal calendar, my personal calendar and a free public calendar that she subscribes to called U.S. Holidays.

A small box aside each calendar name can be check-marked when you want to view that group’s activities — if you’re given permission — merged with your own calendar. This means you can view a variety of combinations of groups rather than just all of the groups’ appointments at once.

Reminder emails for appointments can be set up on both programs, which we did easily. AirSet emailed us daily reminders of the next day’s schedule every evening at the same time. Currently, AirSet and Trumba offer to send free reminders to your cellphone using text messaging, and AirSet can also send free daily schedule summaries using the same method.

If you want to publish all or just one of your Trumba calendars on the Web, so others can view them, you can do so using a five-step publishing wizard. Katie and I each did this very easily in just a few minutes, making sure to keep my calendar password-protected as we published it online. Publishing might come in handy for sports teams, clubs or work-related appointments — allowing everyone to view and/or subscribe to your calendar’s Web page.

AirSet’s Web-publishing process is more complicated for the average user, including instructions on how to cut and paste HTML code to give you — and anyone you give permission — access to your calendar on the Web.

Whether you’re more tech savvy and like some of AirSet’s richer features or you just like the straightforward approach of Trumba OneCalendar, you’ll almost certainly find it advantageous to keep various schedules and calendars organized together in one easy-to-access Web-based calendar. Both programs are free to start, so it might be worthwhile to schedule some time for testing these two organizers.

With reporting by Katherine Boehret

• Email me at mossberg@wsj.com