SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - The owner of Videoland says the launch of Netflix streaming in Canada this fall will pose no threat to Yellowknife video stores, which are currently besieged by a variety of competing and increasingly popular entertainment delivery platforms.

Norman Tam, owner of Videoland, left, doubts the impending launch of Canadian subscription-based streaming services from popular online renter Netflix will have a negative impact on his video store, citing the north's stringent bandwidth caps. Here, Tam serves customer Paul Hann and his son Joseph in June. - Guy Quenneville/NNSL photo

Last month, Netflix, the popular American shipper of DVD and Blu-ray rentals by mail, announced that steaming of movies and TV shows online – a service that comes free with American subscriptions – will be offered exclusively to Canadian Internet users for a yet-to-be-disclosed monthly price.

Shortly thereafter, Zip.ca – the leading shipper of rentals in Canada – also announced plans to launch a similar service in both French and English.

The competition is tougher than ever for North American video stores. Among the contenders are Northwestel's Video on Demand (VOD), personal video recorders (PVRs), video rental kiosks offering $1-a-night DVD and Blu-ray rentals, Internet movie downloads both legal (iTunes) and illegal (BitTorrent sites), as well as subscription-based programs, like Netflix, that deliver movies by mail and charge no late fees.

On Sunday, Movie Gallery on Old Airport Road closed its doors for good after six week of liquidation, one of 181 Movie Galleries to close nationwide (with all locations in the United States closing as well).

But Norman Tam, owner of one of Yellowknife's two remaining video stores, Videoland, said the download caps currently placed on users by Internet service providers like NorthwesTel and SSI Micro will limit the popularity of online streaming.

NorthwesTel's priciest residential Internet package offers users 20 gigabytes worth of data transfers a month. To put it in perspective, a standard-definition (read: non-high-definition) $3.99 digital download of a two-hour movie on iTunes takes up 1.66 gigabytes.

For every extra gigabyte used beyond the monthly cap, NorthwesTel users are charged $10.

For those reasons, "In Yellowknife, it's no threat at all," said Tam of streaming. "Down south, it's unlimited downloading. Up here it's limited."

Dave Henriques, president of Movie Experts Inc., an online consortium and discussion group bringing together owners of independent video stores across Canada, put it more bluntly.

"Netflix will be in and out of Canada in the next two years..." he said. "It's a business model that truly has gotten no traction even in the US. If they weren't publicly-traded, they wouldn't even be doing it. It's just noise, more than anything.

Netflix "will quote stats saying two thirds of their customers have streamed at least 15 minutes in a month. And that always strikes me as a nonsense number to quote because what's 15 minutes? There isn't a single movie that's 15 minutes! It's not a meaningful number."

George Hardy, who until Sunday worked as a clerk at Movie Gallery, said streaming is a bigger threat than people think.

Asked if streaming will further make it difficult for Yellowknife video store owners to operate, Hardy said, "Guaranteed. They took us out of the U.S."

Iris Wagner, owner of Choice Video, declined to comment for this story.

In June, Wagner told Yellowknifer that if she doesn't find buyer for her store first, she will close it down next year.

Tam is already making his plans in case that happens, saying he may open a second store downtown.