Video rentals: Apple vs. Netflix?


Posted by Dennis Sellers Jan 3, 2008 at 10:04am

It may be shaping up as a war between Apple and Netflix. It’s rumored that Apple will add video rentals to the iTunes Store soon. Meanwhile, Netflix and LG Electronics, a global consumer electronics company, are joining forces to develop a set-top box for consumers to stream movies and other programming from the Internet to HDTVs—bypassing the need to use a personal computer.

The collaboration is expected to deliver a new online home entertainment service via technology embedded in an LG networked player planned for the second half of 2008. With the availability of the networked LG product planned for later this year, Netflix subscribers can watch movies streamed from the Netflix web site on their large-screen home theater HDTVs, in addition to the current capability to watch movies instantly on their computers.

On top of catalog of more than 90,000 titles on DVD delivered through the mail, a growing selection of more than 6,000 familiar movies and TV episodes delivered instantly over the Internet to Netflix members’ personal computers or TVs will even more strongly position Netflix
in online movie rentals, which it pioneered in 1997, says founder, chairman and CEO Reed Hastings. “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,” he adds.

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