Netflix Comes to Media Center

Subscribers to the Netflix video rental and streaming service can now watch more than 12,000 movies on demand from the Windows Media Center interface in Vista Home Premium and Ultimate editions. The deal improves the entertainment capabilities of high-end Windows PCs and could be a precursor to extending Netflix to other Microsoft products, such as the forthcoming Zune HD.

Stream On

Launched in 1998 as a mail-order DVD rental service, Netflix now boasts more than 10 million subscribers who pay between US$4.99 and US$47.99 a month for the right to order DVDs and Blu-ray (high-definition) discs through the mail. In 2007, the company began allowing subscribers to stream some movies to their Windows PCs, and then extended support for this service to other devices, including Macintosh computers, Blu-ray players from Samsung, TiVo digital video recorders, digital media receivers from Roku, and (in Nov. 2008) Microsoft’s Xbox 360. Because of licensing restrictions imposed by content owners, Netflix allows only about 12,000 movies to be streamed, whereas its DVD library includes more than 100,000 titles. However, content owners are gradually warming to the idea of making more content available online, and the number of titles has steadily increased—originally, only 1,000 movies were available for streaming. (Netflix’s DVD library totaled about 70,000 at that time.)