Movies by Download

The delivery of movies via the Internet has been the ultimate dream - or nightmare, depending on your point of view. Now it looks like that vision will finally be coming true. On Thursday, TiVo, the maker of digital video recorders, and NetFlix, the DVD-by-mail subscription service, announced a joint venture to develop a system for downloadable films, due sometime next year.

As a fan of both DVRs and NetFlix, I can only imagine how something like this could wreck my life – in a good way, that is. For the past month, I’ve been watching the entire run of the awesome, but doomed, TV show, Freaks and Geeks, thanks to NetFlix. And with a new DVR box from Comcast, I’ve been sucking down every episode of ESPN’s World Series of Poker. Meanwhile, the New Yorker magazines are piling up on my coffee table, and when my daughter yanked my bookmark from the hardcover I’m reading, I didn’t even care.

With NetFlix and TiVo behind movie downloads, I can’t see how they’ll fail. Of course, Hollywood will need to hop onboard. But I’m guessing/hoping they’ll take a cue from the music industry’s ridiculous posturing during the Napster craze, and get with the program early on.