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Netflix (NFLX), the online DVD rental service which rents 70,000 titles to nearly 6.3 million subscribers formerly announced today that, for no extra charge, subscribers will be able to watch movies on their computer.

The high-quality service, which allows the movie to start in seconds, will take about six months and over $40 million to roll out across its network. There will be 1,000 titles available to begin with (the same number of titles Netflix started with in 1999), although mostly older films, according to this Forbes.com article.

At basic DSL or cable modem speed the movie can be downloaded with excellent resolution using an easily downloaded application that resides in the user's browser.

The free viewing isn't unlimited. A typical subscriber paying $18 a month to be sent three DVDs at a time, will receive 18 hours of free viewing. Netflix doesn't monitor usage, just the time spent viewing so you could concievably watch as many two-hour films as will fit in your available time or browse through 18 hours of movies, never once watching a full film.

According to Quentin Hardy, the article's author, he said there are glitches to overcome from loading the application (which rejected his browser, only working on Microsoft's Internet Explorer) to blocking further access after a bit of browsing incorrectly assuming the maximum number of films was running on his computer.

Chief Executive Reed Hastings is looking at future potential as well as evidenced by this quote from the article, "We'd love to have this on cellphone screens, computer screens and televisions connected to the Internet."

Read the full article here.