The US online video rental service Netflix is to launch in the UK and Ireland in early 2012.

Netflix confirmed its first move into Europe on Monday, six years after shelving previous plans to launch in the UK.

British and Irish film fans will be able to subscribe to Netflix for a monthly fee – probably about £5 a month – to rent an unlimited number of TV shows and movies to stream online. The company did not reveal exact pricing for subscribers.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/oct/24/netflix-uk-launch-201 etc ...

This is great news. Basically you can stream TV shows and movies on your PC or console - all of them support it - even the 3DS will have Netflix soon.

I wonder if they will have local content from ITV / RTE? If so, it may be time to finally cancel Sky / UPC.

This sounds great in theory but I fear with all the streaming my internet bill would shoot up into the hundreds...

Switch to a plan that includes lots of data. My Vodafone @ Home plan has a 300GB monthly cap.

That would be a good option but I think I have unpaid bills from all major providers at this stage, so switching is not an option at the moment.

You'll have to change your name!

I know, if only I had a more common name!

And Stewie will be out of work a month after NetFlix goes live.

They probably won't have brand new releases but yeah the likes of Xtravision will take a hit for sure.

I'd probably go for it, if they can do it for under a tenner on month incl. Vat.

I'd like to know the quality though, I mean if you output from laptop to tv via hdmi, will the picture/sound be broadcast quality.

I think recent tv / movies are slightly sub HD (due to compression) but better than DVD quality. Older stuff is SD. It would work on your Xbox too. Though if you have an old Xbox it might be too noisy for media playback. I know mine is.

Oh wow! Routing it through the Xbox would work great. My Xbox makes a bit of noise when playing DVDs but that is all.

I'd be all for it. I have Sky in a second room for €7 a month or so. I'd gladly get rid for Netflix.

Yeah I hope the streaming service is around the €7 mark too. It would be great if they also offered a postal option too but they seem to be phasing that out in the US.

NetFlix single-handedly put all the video stores in the US out of business.
There used to be Blockbuster video stores all over the place, and Hollywood Video stores.
All gone.

You don't think torrents had a role to play?

Their own fault for not sticking with the times.