The Netflix Set-top Box

Read Content Producer Lolaness' preview of the Netflix Set-top Box.

Netflix took the movie industry a step closer to The Age of Convenience and is planning industry leaps with their new set-top box for movie downloads. Announced at a recent Independent Film & Television Alliance production conference, Eric Besner, VP of Programming at Netflix, revealed the unit could be available within the year. The set-top box would replace customers’ Netflix snail mail accounts and will place movies in their rental queue for download overnight. While most movie download sites limit viewing to computers, unless burned on DVD, the Netflix set-top box will connect directly to the television through high-speed cable. 

The announcement comes a year after reports that Netflix would join TiVo in offering movie downloads. That created quite a buzz causing stocks of both companies to jump, but it never manifested. There was also a rumor that leaked out a few months ago when a Netflix user saw a glitch in the Website that showed an option to download a movie. With all this anticipation something better give or the tech and gadget blogs will run Netflix out of town. The new set-top box move by Netflix is geared to push the company further ahead it’s leading role in the video rental market, but also make it a major player in the growing movie downloads niche. With downloads from cable Internet, there is unlimited amounts of storage of movies and shows for a provider like Netflix. Even though the official Netflix business and design plans have yet to be rolled out, the proprietary set-top box could make movie downloads more accessible to a hesitant market.