SimplyWebtastic

Here’s a Netflix service that I only recently discovered while I was adding more movies to my movie queue.  Originally, Netflix users were allowed to watch selected movies online, but they limited the viewing time to about 17 hours per month.  Now, Netflix is expected to announce on Monday, January 14, 2008, that all rental packages, above the intro $4.99 package, will be able to watch unlimited Internet movies.

For those of us who enjoy watching movies on our PCs or laptops, this is certainly a welcome change.  However, current viewing is only limited to PCs and not Macs or Linux PCs.

This move was well planned by Netflix to take-away some of the lime-light from Apple’s anticipated announcement on Tuesday of it’s own move into online movie rentals.  Rumored price for Apple’s rentals is $3.99 for movies that are downloaded and watched within 24 hours.  Apple’s option does offer users a little more flexibility as to where they can play their movies.  PCs, Macs and the iPod devices should all be supported.

The real battle should occur later on this year when Netflix teams up with LG Electronics to introduce a “Netflix box” which will allow these movies to be played on TVs.  Apple already has a similar device which sells for $299 to transport video from computers to TVs.  No price has been announced yet for the LG device.