Walt Disney Co.’s short-lived on-demand movie service, MovieBeam, relaunched Tuesday as an independent company, flush with $48.5 million in private equity investment from Cisco Systems Inc., Intel Capital (Intel Corp.’s private equity arm), Disney and investment partnerships Norwest Venture Partners, Vantage Point Venture Partners and Mayfield Fund.

Disney is still the largest investor, though it does not have a controlling stake. MovieBeam executives were tight-lipped about individual stakes. Despite the popularity of mail-in movie subscription services like NetFlix Inc., MovieBeam executives chose to continue down the path of an a la carte service.

Rather than compete with NetFlix, which allow users to keep movies indefinitely, MovieBeam seeks to replace the trip to the video store.

“The vast majority of rentals go through the video store. That’s our competition, that’s what we’re trying to be better than,” said Chief Executive Tres Izzard.

But the cost structure can be a hurdle: There’s the initial investment in the set-top box (about $250,) and the activation fee (about $30), and users pay a per-movie fee of $3.99 to watch a new release. It’s $1.99 for a library title, with a $1 add-on for HD movies.

Originally launched in 2003 as an on-demand movie service, MovieBeam service was suspended in early 2005 for what the company called “technology upgrades.” By mid-2005, Disney company filings revealed it was seeking to refinance the operation and give up its majority stake. Disney eventually decided to write off the investment, taking a $24 million charge in the third quarter of last year.

The new MovieBeam is similar to the old service in that it involves another set-top box in the home-entertainment landscape, and the concept is the same: pre-loaded with 100 movies, with 10 new movies being “beamed in” every week.

But this time, movies will be available in high-definition, and all Disney movies and Disney-affiliated movies will be available on the service the day of the DVD release, unlike of most video-on-demand services.

“We’ll be simultaneously broadcasting 10 movies a week to everybody that has a MovieBeam box,” Izzard said. “Over the course of the year, that’s a billion and a half movies. And because we’re going over the airwaves, the cost is almost nothing.”