Netflix Inc. and TiVo Inc. have revived a plan first announced in 2004 to stream movies and TV content to TiVo users’ digital video recorders from Netflix. Testing is under way in several thousand U.S. households and the service is aiming for an early December rollout, the companies say.
TiVo, a provider of television services for DVRs, and Netflix, an online movie rental service, will offer Netflix and TiVoSeries3, TiVo HD and TiVo HD XL subscribers access to thousands of movies and TV episodes. The service will be offered at no additional charge to customers who subscribe to both services.
The agreement provides Netflix, No. 17 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide, with a new technology partner to stream a library of more than 12,000 choices of movies and TV episodes directly to TVs. “For Netflix and TiVo subscribers, this collaboration offers an easy way to enhance the enjoyment of watching movies in the comfort of their living rooms,” says Reed Hastings, co-founder and CEO of Netflix.
Added Tom Rogers, president and CEO of TiVo, “Joining forces with Netflix creates the ultimate video-on-demand service and solidifies TiVo’s leading position as the one-box solution for aggregating, searching and delivering the best content available anywhere right to the TV. Adding Netflix to our already vast library of content differentiates TiVo even further from any other offering in the market today.”
Movies streamed from Netflix via specified TiVo DVRs is done through a wired or wireless broadband connection and a Netflix Queue-based user interface. Members visit the Netflix web site to add movies and TV episodes to their individual instant Queues, which will be automatically displayed on subscribers’ TVs and available to watch instantly through the TiVo service.
Netflix took an independent run at streaming movies in May with the introduction of the Netflix Player by Roku Inc., a $99 dollar device that enables users to view movies and shows whenever they want, for no additional fee beyond their monthly subscription.
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