Netflix is looking beyond its basic mailorder DVD rental business. It has teamed up with South Korean electronics maker LG to stream movies and other programming straight to LG's hi-def tvs. Netflix hopes to sign up more electronics makers in the near future.
Reed Hastings, chief executive of Netflix, said he hoped to strike other such deals and that Netflix would soon be viewed as a movie channel that might appear on myriad devices.
"We want to be integrated on every Internet-connected device, game system, high-definition DVD player and dedicated Internet set-top box," he said. "Eventually, as TVs have wireless connectivity built into them, we'll integrate right into the television."
The move could help transform Netflix from a successful company with a cumbersome dependence on physical media and the Postal Service into an important player in a rapidly emerging digital media landscape.
That landscape has recently been characterized by a frenzy of experimentation, as technology and media companies try to figure out how to bring the unlimited media choices of the Internet to the traditionally restricted confines of the television.
The players include cable, satellite and telephone companies. Newer entrants include Amazon.com, which lets customers buy movies over its Unbox service and download them to their TiVo boxes. Wal-Mart, which experimented with movie downloads on its Web site, pulled the plug on the service last month when Hewlett-Packard, its partner in the project, stopped supporting the technology.
Then there is the digital media heavyweight Apple. At the annual Macworld expo opening on Jan. 15, the company plans to announce a deal to allow users of its iTunes service to rent films from some Hollywood studios and watch them on their computers and iPods.
Richard Doherty, research director of the Envisioneering Group, a market research firm, said Netflix's model had the virtue of being free to existing subscribers and relatively easy for consumers to understand. "You're already a subscriber and you don't pay anything extra. That’s called a slam dunk in most businesses we follow," Mr. Doherty said.
The companies said LG products with Netflix's movie service would begin shipping in the second half of this year. They did not say which devices would have it.
Mr. Doherty, who was briefed on the Netflix announcement and LG's other plans to be unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next week, said LG could integrate the Netflix service into a future version of its dual-mode HD DVD/Blu-ray DVD player, which now sells for $799, and a new line of high-definition TVs with wireless connections to the Internet, among other products.
Netflix will be competing with a number of companies to be consumers' number one choice for downloadable movies. The company has a decided advantage in the upcoming downloadable movies war: it has 7 million customers who are already happy with Netflix and already have an account set up.
