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Netflix launches in Canada

The popular American movie-streaming service Netflix has officially landed in Canada.

CEO Reed Hastings chose the now defunct Circa as the place to announce that Netflix expanded to its first country outside the U.S. And things are looking good for the Los Gatos, California company.

The nuts and bolts of the service are as such:

  • The subscription rate will be $7.99 per month for unlimited streaming of movies and television.
  • There will be no DVD mailing system in Canada, at least not until 2015.
  • There will be around seven thousand titles available for streaming.
  • The focus will not be on new releases, like video stores, but on older movies and television shows. Those do include recently released titles, like the third season of Mad Men.
  • This is not meant to replace cable, but augment it.
  • Netflix is offering a month-long free trial for Canadian users.

Here’s what it looks like in action:

Zip.ca, the closest thing to competition Netflix has in this country, has been bullish on the streaming market as of late. Zip.ca will still own the DVDs-in-the-mail service, since Netflix isn’t going there, but will be expanding into streaming.

Check the Zip.ca Twitter account for the tough talk from its CEO, Rob Hall.

The reason Netflix is not doing any mailing, according to Hastings, is that the overwhelming majority of Americans using his service prefer streaming – 10-12 million of them, he estimates.

Much ado has been made of Netflix limited titles, and lack of newer titles, but the real barrier to success in Canada will be a question of hardware.

In order to stream, though, users have to have an internet connection, obviously, and any one of a computer, a specially formated television, like a new Sharp Aquos model, an iPad or iPod, or any one of the three major video game portals (Wii, Playstation and Xbox).

This puts Netflix at an immediate disadvantage in terms of penetration, since the majority of Canadian movie consumers still watch movies on their televisions, and a small fraction of those are Netflix ready.

But, even so, it seems only a matter of years till streaming in some form is available on all televisions. And by that time, the number of titles will probably be up to everyone’s satisfaction also.

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