Zip.ca announced a partnership with , a Marin County, Calif-based digital media content publishing to enable the former Canadian SMB to yet again follow in the footsteps of its U.S. counterpart Netflix.

"Pushing movie through the Internet is the natural evolution of the home entertainment market. From on air broadcast, the future is getting video data into your living room," said Curt Millar, CEO of Zip.ca.

Millar said consumers can expect to be able to download onto their PCs Zip.ca movie and TV episode offerings by fall this year. The Ottawa-based video subscription service already provides Canadians with more than 72,000 DVD titles which they can order online and have delivered to their homes via regular mail. "Now instead of having to wait for one to four day, viewers can start enjoying their shows and movies on their PCs or hopefully pretty soon any Internet-enabled device," said Millar.

Many Canadian residents already download movies and other video content onto their computers. Not a few are done through peer-to-peer file sharing sites which circumvent digital rights management tools set up by the content producers.

A recent study by revealed that during the month of January. According to Media Metrix, Canadians watched 3.1 billion videos in January alone -- half of them on popular video-sharing Google site