So Netflix doesn’t have a set-top box yet for downloading rented movies and playing them on your TV screen, but this is the next best thing. They’ve started rolling out a WatchNow feature, where subscribers can watch movies on their computers. That is, the movies stream, you have full fast-forward and rewind capability, and no commercials. You’re limited to a certain number of viewing hours (18 if you’re on the 3-at-a-time plan), but it goes strictly by time–that is, if you watch five minutes of a movie and decide not to watch any more, you’re only down five minutes, not the full length of the movie. They’ve got 1,000 movies in the program so far–compare to iTunes’ 250 movies available for download–plus some TV shows.

DID I MENTION THIS IS FREE FOR SUBSCRIBERS? In other words, if you’re already a subscriber, you pay nothing extra for this. You continue to get your three or four or however many DVDs a month by mail, PLUS you can watch these streaming movies for 18 or so hours, depending on your plan. I have four-at-a-time DVDs. Add 18 hours of streaming which I calculate to be roughly 9 movies a month. Extra. Free. Immediate.

Granted, they’re not full downloads. Granted, you can’t watch them on your TV (unless you have a PC-to-TV connection). But it’s still a heckuvalot better than anything else out there, especially if you’re already a Netflix subscriber. It’s only out to a limited number of people right now (not me, *pout*), but they’re supposed to release it to everyone by June of this year.

See a screencast of it at Hacking Netflix.