If you’re the owner of a video rental store, it may be time to start thinking about getting into a different business. Netflix, a US-based online movie rental service, is offering a new feature that allows its subscribers to instantly view movies and TV shows on their PC.

Without the need to visit the video store, there’s no need to ever leave home

The “immediate viewing” feature differs from current services in that it does not require the often time-consuming download of a large video file. This new feature will be rolled out to subscribers in stages over the next six months.

Subscribers will continue to receive DVDs by mail from the company’s catalog of over 70,000 titles, but will have the additional option of instantly watching about 1,000 movies and TV series on their PCs. The new feature will be included in subscribers’ monthly membership plans at no additional cost. According to the company the phased roll-out is designed to ensure that subscribers have a “great initial experience with the feature”.

“We named our company Netflix in 1998 because we believed Internet-based movie rental represented the future, first as a means of improving service and selection, and then as a means of movie delivery,” said Reed Hastings, the company’s chief executive officer.

“While mainstream consumer adoption of online movie watching will take a number of years due to content and technology hurdles, the time is right for Netflix to take the first step.

“Over the coming years we’ll expand our selection of films, and we’ll work to get to every Internet-connected screen, from cell phones to PCs to plasma screens. The PC screen is the best Internet-connected screen today, so we are starting there.”

It’s probably still more convenient for many consumers to simply go to their local video store to hire a movie. However, now that its becoming possible to stream movies in real-time, video stores will start to loose their last remaining competitive advantage.

It may take Netflix a few years to perfect its technology and movie offering, and probably about the same time for competitors to get their “immediate viewing” offering right, but rest assured, the day will come when the local video store is no more.

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Entry was posted on Tuesday, January 16th, 2007 at 3:06 am under Science and technology, Technology.

Read more entries by John Pospisil.
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