LG, Netflix Partner On Movie Rental Televisions

Author JoeDigital

A joint announcement from Netflix and LG Electronics on Sunday stated that the two companies are set to introduce TV sets that can screen Netflix movies directly from the Web without an external box.

The U.S. DVD rental company and the Korean electronics giant launched set-top boxes and Blu-ray DVD players last year that were equipped with the same Netflix software. Netflix also announced other partnerships, including one with Microsoft’s Xbox 360 to embed the movie software in its game consoles.

Subscribers of Netflix who buy one of these devices can hook it up to their TVs to watch movies that can be downloaded from the Internet instantly, as part of their monthly rental plan. The company eventually hopes to equip all home-entertainment screens with instant movie-viewing capability.

However, only around 12,000 of Netflix’s more than 100,000 movie titles and television episodes will be available for instant viewing — an option the company introduced in 2007.

LG’s new high-definition televisions, which will be on view at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, are targeted at those Netflix customers who want the convenience of Internet-to-TV movies without the clutter of a set-top box or an additional DVD player.

Swasey said, however, that the Los Gatos, California-based company, whose trademark red envelopes are shipped to nearly 9 million subscribers, has no immediate plans to tie up with mobile phone companies, despite the growing popularity of smart phones like Apple’s iPhone and Research in Motion’s BlackBerry. “There’s a limited market for people who want to watch a 2 1/2-hour movie on a 2-inch screen,” he said.

Tim Alessi, LG Electronics USA’s director of product development, said the Netflix-enabled LG TVs should be on the market by spring. The new televisions use broadband Internet technology and are available in four models — LCDs with 42-inch and 47-inch screens, and plasma TVs with 50-inch and 60-inch screens, he said.

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