It's no secret that Netflix wants to offer online movie
downloads — they've been talking about it for months and mention
of a "Netflix Player" turned up the other day — which is why
it's hardly surprising that the San Jose Mercury News is
reporting that Netflix is finally getting very, very, very close
to launching its on-demand rental service (can you feel it?).
The service is described as being similar to MovieLink and
CinemaNow, two not-particularly-loved online movie download
services which have been kicking around for a little while now,
but really got us going was mention that they're going to be
offering a set top box, presumably with an internet connection
for downloading movies and a hard drive for storing 'em (Akimbo,
anyone?). It's no longer clear how TiVo is still mixed up with
all this, but if they're not hooking up with TiVo anymore then
Netflix has few options but to offer some other way for people
to watch the movies they've downloaded on their TV rather than
their computer, and a set top box