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Warner Archive Instant streams a small lineup of classic films and TV shows for $9.99 per month

Warner Archive Instant streams a small lineup of classic films and TV shows for $9.99 per month

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Warner Archive Instant
Warner Archive Instant

There's a staggering variety of options for streaming movies and TV shows to your computer or TV, but most of those focus on fairly modern content. Not so with the new Warner Archive Instant, a service that streams vintage films and shows from the vast Warner Bros. catalog. It's an offshoot of the existing Warner Archive DVD and Blu-ray site, but the digital selection is unfortunately rather limited — there are only 123 distinct titles available as of now. While most of these aren't typically found through other outlets, it's still a pretty small selection, particularly for the $9.99 monthly fee associated with the service. Warner says that it'll be constantly adding and rotating new content in and out, but for now it's not the most robust offering around.

The other big knock is that the only Roku owners will be able to stream this content to their TVs — no other set-top boxes are supported right now. That's the only way to view these titles in HD, as Warner's site says streaming in 720p or 1080p isn't available on PCs or Macs for now. If you're a big classic movie fan and want an easy way to get stream content onto your computer, you'll probably be willing to put up with these caveats — many of these titles aren't widely available on other digital services.