US movie and TV subscription service Netflix is now available in Bermuda.For just $7.99 a month the same price as in the US - local residents can get unlimited movies and TV episodes downloaded instantly over the Internet to their TV or computers.But there’s a catch!The service costs the same as America, but the library of movies and shows the Island’s residents will have access to is not the same.Due to licensing and other issues the library is far smaller and does not appear for now to include many new releases.And many of the movies and shows available in Bermuda are dubbed in Spanish and Portuguese without the English versions being available as well.Also, Netflix’s service here is streaming-only, with no DVD-in-the-mail option.To compare, Netflix’s streaming library in the US is about one-fifth the size of the 100,000 selections in the physical DVD section plus new movies are not available on the streaming service until several months after their retail release date.It’s not clear if the library will grow over time.A Netflix representative admitted yesterday the US market does have access to “way more” movies as it has had the service longer and she said new movies are not available on the streaming service for at least three to six months after they are released.The launch in Bermuda is part of Netflix’s rollout in Mexico, South America and the Caribbean by September 12, as part of a major international expansion.The company has also announced a deal with CBS to offer content in these regions.While the new service is a concern to local video rental stores, Games + Flix owner Kirby Brackstone said he is confident that for now he will still be able to compete with the movie rental giant.”I went on and signed up and most of the movies available are in Spanish or Brazilian Portuguese and the selection is very limited,” Mr. Brackstone said. “There is nothing really current I could see.”He said he could find no episodes of the popular TV shows House, Dexter and Weeds.He also pointed out Bermuda and his store actually get many new release hit movies a few weeks before the US.And new releases are not available on even Netflix US for at least a month after his store gets them in.For example, he said his Dundonald Street store has had the summer hit “Thor” for two weeks already and it is only just being released in DVD tomorrow in the US and probably won’t be available as a download in the US until October.“We are not that worried at this point in time,” he said. “We feel our unlimited plan is very competitive and we certainly have a lot more titles.”For $25 per month you can take home as many titles from Games + Flix as you want as long as you only have three DVDs out at a time.Netflix hasn’t been available in Bermuda before, not because of any local Government restriction or lack of approval, but mainly because it simply had not set up the servers and technology to service the market and was not set up to accept Bermuda credit cards and IP addresses.Mr Brackstone compared the new Netflix service to shopping online.Bermuda CableVision yesterday said it had no comment on the new Netflix service.Netflix subscribers can watch movies and TV shows on their computers or they can watch instantly via certain game consoles (Wii, Xbox, PS3), or any other device that streams instantly from Netflix such as certain Internet connected Blu-ray players and Internet-connected High-def TVs (HDTVs).In addition, digital video recorders and Internet video players; Apple’s iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, as well as Apple TV and Google TV, can all be used to stream/view Netflix movies.In an interview published last week with Associated Press, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings declined to say how many movie and TV titles would be available to Latin American and Caribbean consumers.The AP report said Netflix has been scrambling to fill a potentially big void in its video library that will be created in March if it loses the rights to stream movies and TV shows from Starz Entertainment, part of Liberty Media Corp.AP said Netflix had been trying to renew the Starz deal, which included recently released movies from Walt Disney Co’s various studios, only to have the talks collapse last week when Starz announced that it wouldn’t renew a contract that allows Netflix to stream recently released movies and TV shows online under the $30 million annual deal.Those developments have raised fears that Netflix might lose subscribers in the US, and that has driven down the company’s stock price significantly.