Audio/Video, Home Audio, Home Video
Amazon Launches on Roku Player
roku posts
Audio/Video, Computers, TV, Home Video, Televisions
Many Netflix Customers Opting for Streaming Flicks
We already covered the numbers of Netflix's impressive earnings this past Monday, but there was another story lurking in there, too: a potential sign of the coming apocalypse for physical media. According to ArsTechnica, Netflix is reporting that many of its customers are substituting streamed movies for mailed ones, taxing the USPS less and their broadband connections more. CEO Reed Hastings is playing coy about whether this is a strong trend or just the curious behavior of early adopters. Since his company gets paid either way, he probably doesn't care, but you can be sure those companies who are still firmly attached to profits from plastic discs are going to be watching this pattern rather closely. (As if Sony needed any more bad news.) [From: ArsTechnica]
Relevant Links:
Roku's Netflix Player Handling HD Content "By the End of the Year"
If you're not a Netflix subscriber and aren't interested in becoming one, please pardon yet another post about streaming content from the formerly DVD-exclusive renter -- but for those non-Xbox owning, non-Live subscribing readers who want to get in on some HD Watch it Now action, we have some good news for you.
Earlier indications were that other Netflix-friendly devices would see updates enabling high-def support and now, in what appears to be an official confirmation from Roku's VP of Consumer Products, that company's little $99 box will indeed be "delivering Netflix in HD by the end of the year," complete with a tweaked interface to suit all those extra pixels. Additionally, streaming here will operate over lower bitrates than the Xbox is expecting; good for those with iffy download speeds, but perhaps coming at the cost of quality.
Finally, and teasingly, Roku devs are said to be working on "another major new feature" that will blow your mind. Oh, how we do love surprises.
[Via Hacking Netflix]
Roku Netflix Player to Stream Content From Other "Big Name" Providers
Roku's Netflix Player got off to a hot start after launching just over a month ago, and apparently its creator has big plans for the plainly designed $99 box. According to a recent report over on Forbes, Tim Twerdahl, Roku's vice president of consumer products, has affirmed that a routine software update would be hitting later this year to enable content to be fetched and streamed from other "big name" providers. Regrettably, the conversation ended there, so there's absolutely no telling which "providers" he's referring to. Still, we're certainly intrigued by the idea of this thing becoming more versatile in the coming months, but wouldn't the name have to be tweaked at the very least? [Via Silicon Alley Insider]
Roku Netflix Player Hands-On, First Impressions
- The box is extremely small and light; looking inside, it just looks like a single, small PCB.
- Most of the vertical space it does consume seems to be for its myriad ports, including composite, component, S-Video, HDMI, and TOSLINK.
- The guided setup out of the box is really brief and painless. It supports 802.11b/g with WEP, WPA, and WPA2, and we were online in a cinch. Activating the box is as simple as hitting netflix.com/activate and entering a short code -- really easy and instantaneous.
- The remote looks cheap at first blush, but it's actually got a pretty good feel to it. The buttons are clikier than they are mushy.
- The interface, at its best, is simple and slick looking. It has almost no options and is ridiculously straight-forward. The interface, at its worst (namely, during movie playback), is still pretty decent, but lacks some polish.
- While fast-forwarding, you get still image markers to help indicate progress. It's nicety to ease the pain of skipping through streaming video (which we know presents some unique technological challenges), but it can use a little work. Chapter/scene markers, as in the Apple TV, would be a good start.
- Movie selection is done completely within Netflix's site, so don't expect to do any browsing through the device interface. If you want to load and watch any content on the box, you have to make sure it's in your Netflix Instant Queue through a browser. This part is definitely the biggest drawback for power users, but it does ensure a crazy simple device UI with zero learning curve.
- Movies don't load instantly (even on a 25Mbps connection), but they do load pretty quickly.
- Video quality is so-so. Definitely worse than a DVD and not even quite up to a standard def Apple TV vid. But it's certainly passable, and Netflix seems genuinely interested in bumping up the visual fidelity in the future.
- We saw some really wacky stuff going on with the HDMI, and the device did not play well at all with our HDMI switch. Roku let us know they're aware of some HDMI problems, and will be pushing out bug fixes and software updates as they're completed.
- Netflix dispatched a team of a couple dozen engineers to Roku to build the Netflix Player. Netflix didn't want to be the only hardware partner (which we already know), but clearly wanted to make sure whomever released the first box really nailed it.
- Netflix (and Roku) understand that the device's value doesn't just end with playing back Netflix content, and anticipate the box having content coming in from other providers as partnerships get hammered out.
- The box only outputs at 480i (over composite and S-Video) and 480p (over component and HDMI), although Roku will enable HD content (and menus) as soon as Netflix gives the thumbs-up. From the sound of things, it seems like they want to do this sooner than later, which we clearly hope they will.
Roku Reveals First Netflix Set-Top-Box, Reviews Flow In
Read - Roku Netflix Player officially introduced
Read - PCMag review (4 out of 5)
Read - CNET review (7.7 out of 10)
Read - Wired review ("...just shy of totally amazing.")
_thumbnail.jpg "Vintage Keyboards")
