San Francisco - Online movie rental company Netflix is teaming up with South Korean LG Electronics to develop a set-top box that will allow consumers to stream movies and other content directly from the Web to their televisions, the companies said Thursday. The system is set to be unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next week.
Netflix pioneered online movie rentals with a flat monthly fee that allows subscribers to rent several movies at once. The system relies on the US postal service to send and return DVD's but would be superseded by the new approach which according to analysts could also hasten the decline of the DVD, much as online music is causing the demise of CDs.
Netflix already allows its subscribers to watch more than 6,000 movie and TV titles on their PCs directly from the Netflix website.
The new Netflix-enabled LG player is slated to be available in the second half of 2008 and will allow users to watch movies on their TV sets. The movies will also be available in high definition format. Subscribers will still need to use a computer to pick out which programs they are interested in streaming. The selections will then show up on the TV screen.
"Internet to the TV is a huge opportunity," commented Reed Hastings, Netflix's founder, chairman and chief executive, in a statement. "Netflix explored also offering its own Netflix-branded set-top boxes, but we concluded that familiar consumer-electronics devices from industry leaders like LG Electronics are a better consumer solution for getting the Internet to the TV."
"Consumers crave compelling and immediate content, and the Netflix online streaming movie feature can provide that instant gratification," said Kl Kwon, President of the Consumer Electronics Division of LG Electronics USA.
