Inside the Tech of the Roku Netflix Player

MojoKid writes "A little over a week ago Netflix unveiled the Netflix Player, developed by the team at Roku, a set-top box for watching on-demand movies and TV. This interview with Tim Twerdahl, the VP of Consumer Products for Roku, goes into some detail about the guts of the box and the future of the set-top box. Of course the system runs an embedded Linux OS, but interestingly also runs on a Nexperia (Philips) media processor."

incredibly insightful!

[gEvil (beta) (945888)]

Wow, that was one of the most in-depth interviews I've ever read. They go really into the details of what makes it run and how the system works. Well worth the read!

Re:incredibly insightful!

[Technician (215283)]

Wow, that was one of the most in-depth interviews I've ever read. They go really into the details of what makes it run and how the system works. Well worth the read!

The only part missing is the part about the service is at the mercy of the delivery ISP. If you think bandwidth shaping is bad for torrents, see what the Cable TV providers do when this competes with the cable company's own offering. I have enough Buffering..... playing. buffering...........playing...buffering....... to know this service will be at the mercy of the bandwidth providers. When it takes 6 hours to deliver a 2 hour movie, it won't be popular for many. Some will be lucky and actualy get enough bandwidth, but the number 1 complaint will be related to low resolution as a solution to interuptions to buffer content.

Too much of the contry has better bandwidth provided by Fedex, UPS, and Blockbuster. This will only get worse with high def content.

Re:incredibly insightful!

[garett_spencley (193892)]

That's a great point / warning and it's one more reason why we (pretty much everywhere) need net neutrality legislation.

My ISP has a maximum transfer / month and I don't see anything wrong with that. They tell me what it is, give me a way to check my usage and I can purchase more if I want / need it. With that kind of setup there's no reason for ISPs to shape traffic (unless 3rd parties pay them to, which is something the legislation needs to make illegal) so I don't think the ISPs have much to lose following a similar model. If bandwidth is their concern there's ways to cover that without harming / deceiving their consumers.

How about deregulation instead? Grump warning.

[Odder (1288958)]

I'd rather see real competition in network service than some kind of BS regulation for monopoly service. It's fine to require neutrality out of companies that use public servitude lines but it's not OK to limit access to that servitude. A better solution will be open spectrum [greaterdemocracy.org].

The details of the box are going to be what you expect. A tivo like mix of free and non free code that GPL 3 is designed to bust. I want one of these things like I want a tivo or a paperweight.

Re:How about deregulation instead? Grump warning.

[garett_spencley (193892)]

I completely agree.

I've always been torn with this issue because on the one hand I believe that any kind of infrastructure that "the people" require needs to be public and open for anyone. On the other hand I believe in small government and don't like to give too much power to the governing body. So which is the lesser of the two evils ? (I know some people have strong opinions on that but I'm pretty much torn for reasons that would take me off topic).

So as a Canadian I had an idea with regards to how Canada (or anywhere) can handle that. In Canada (and other British Commonwealth nations) we have something called a "Crown Corporation" [wikipedia.org]. The only crown corporation in Canada currently being The Bank of Canada (which serves a similar purpose to The Federal Reserve in the US). If all necessary infrastrucure (which doesn't have to only be telecom / internet ... we're talking electricity, water etc.) then you solve the problem of giving the government vs. giving the market control. Then every voting citizen is awarded an equal share in the corporation and it's run like a business but the voting public gets a say. The government doesn't have control, a corporation does but it's a corporation that's owned entirely by the public.

I'd love to hear replies pointing out the flaw with my idea because I'm sure there are some.

Re:

[darkwurm (542639)]

Canada has lots of crown corporations. Canada Post, Royal Canadian Mint(that ones quite profitable too),Via Rail, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp, and many more.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_corporations_of_Canada/ [wikipedia.org] Has a large list of them.

Re:How about deregulation instead? Grump warning.

[stinerman (812158)]

I'd rather see real competition in network service than some kind of BS regulation for monopoly service.

Unfortunately, that is quite an undertaking -- creating conditions where network service isn't a monopoly.

At this very moment there is exactly one cable provider servicing Sandusky, Ohio: Buckeye Cablevision. Buckeye Cablevision has a franchise agreement with the city to use the city's rights-of-way. This agreement is not exclusive; any other cable company is more than welcome to negotiate a similar agreement without supplanting Buckeye.

Why doesn't this happen? Everybody agrees that the ROI is insanely low. A new company would have to roll out new infrastructure and then go through the process of trying to convince current Buckeye customers to switch to their services (pretty much everyone who wants cable already has it, so new customers would be negligible). Undoubtedly, some will, but not enough to justify the investment in infrastructure.

This situation is called a natural monopoly.

The only way to foster competition in a natural monopoly is, oddly enough, via government intervention. One solution is to have the government buy the infrastructure via eminent domain and open access to anyone on non-discriminatory terms. This would immediately foster competition.

I'd prefer this solution to net neutrality legislation myself, but I'd prefer net neutrality legislation to simply deregulating the cable/telephone companies. The only thing that keeps them from going all out with anti-customer policies is the current (weak) regulation.

Re:

[menace3society (768451)]

The only problem with 'free' competition among fiber ISPs is that municipal fiber costs a lot of money to put down, and until you do your network is worthless. That's a lot of capital to invest, making it exceptionally difficult to break into the market. The only way to make it work would be for someone like MS to subsidize their fiber branch with their other profitable branches so they can get a foot in the door, but that in itself is anti-competitive in the other direction.

Also, since all the telecom co

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[A nonymous Coward (7548)]

The only part missing is the part about the service is at the mercy of the delivery ISP.

No, the only missing part is your closing italics tag.

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[ElizabethGreene (1185405)]

Kind of a left turn from TFA, but maybe next time we should ask if Netflix can be goaded into releasing an obviously-linux-compatible player application?

o_O

-ellie

One box

[Enderandrew (866215)]

My only complaint is that I don't want tons of different boxes. That is part of the reason I stayed away from Tivo and waited for my cable provider to offer DVR in my cable box. I already have on demand movies and TV through my cable box.

I'm not sure why I should purchase a second box to add functionality I already have, despite the fact that this box would presumably offer a much larger library of content.

Re:

[benwaggoner (513209)]

My only complaint is that I don't want tons of different boxes. That is part of the reason I stayed away from Tivo and waited for my cable provider to offer DVR in my cable box. I already have on demand movies and TV through my cable box.

I'm not sure why I should purchase a second box to add functionality I already have, despite the fact that this box would presumably offer a much larger library of content.

This is the exact same library and the exact same encodes as their PC streaming service, so if you have a PC already hooked up to your display, you don't need another box. I don't know if that'd help in your case, but this isn't about NetFlix pushing another box; it's about them making a box available for those that the HTPC didn't work for.

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[zeroduck (691015)]

System requirements for Netflix watch now:

• Windows XP with Service Pack 2 or higher, or Windows Vista
• Internet Explorer version 6 or higher
• Windows Media Player version 11 (DRM version 5145) or later
• An active broadband connection to the Internet
• 1.0 GHz processor
• 512 MB RAM
• 3 GB free hard disk drive space

I can't use their service (Linux only). An easy set-top box is advantageous for a lot of people because it's just easy (easy setup, don't have to watch on your computer screen in an office chair).

Re:

[Enderandrew (866215)]

I have used a TiVo brand TiVo. I've used Cox's DVR, and now I use DirecTV DVR. The only thing my cable company didn't offer was the 30-second skip buttom, but DirecTV does, so I'm fine now.

The service is cheaper, and I'm quite happy.

INSIGHTFUL +5 TO ARTICLE

[SolidAltar (1268608)]

Roku: Third, we've heard feedback from home theater purists who said that they don't want to hear fan noise.
HotHardware: Is that right?
Tim: Yep. Quite a few people don't want to hear the hum of a fan in the background while watching TV.

Re:

[NeverVotedBush (1041088)]

Tim: However, market research has also shown that there are some home theater aficionados that actually love to hear multiple, noisy, loud, clicking and whirring fans. We've decided to just use a low-quality chipset and codec to meet those people's expectations...

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[Darkness404 (1287218)]

Roku: Third, we've heard feedback from home theater purists who said that they don't want to hear fan noise. HotHardware: Is that right? Tim: Yep. Quite a few people don't want to hear the hum of a fan in the background while watching TV.

But wasn't that kinda like what happened at Apple...

Steve : We've heard feedback from people who said that they don't want to hear a fan in a computer

Apple Guy But on the Apple III we need to have at least a fan, or air vents...

Steve : No! We will just make a huge heatsink! No fans, no air vents!
Apple Guy But...

Steve : NO BUTS!!!! The Apple III will ship with no air vents and no fans and that is final!!!!


5 months later....

Customer : Ummm... My Apple III is displaying ra

Re:

[Joe Jay Bee (1151309)]

Give them credit (and I'm going to sound like a total Apple fanboy here, but I don't care), that's a pretty ingenious solution, even if it was their fuckup. With a simple, one step process they saved both the cost of a recall and replacement program to them, and the cost and irritation of having to send a computer back/take it in for repair to their customers.

Re:

[tgibbs (83782)]

Apple's problem with the Apple III was the use of socketed chips. That made field repairs easy, but the pins tended to build up corrosion. Repeated heating and cooling cycles may have also played a role by causing the chips to gradually work their way out of their sockets. This was a problem with the Apple II series as well, but hobbyists were less troubled by having to pull off the cover occasionally and reseat the chips. Business users found it unacceptable. For the Mac Plus (which also did not have a fan

Of course the system runs an embedded Linux OS

[frovingslosh (582462)]

So the obvious question is, where do I get the source code?

Re:

[garett_spencley (193892)]

Unless they've altered any GPL'd code then the public ftp mirrors (like ftp.kernel.org) should do just fine ?

TFA states they use a custom built Linux but that doesn't mean they've altered any source code. Custom built can mean they've changed a few config files or rolled their own "distro" (for lack of a better term).

Re:Of course the system runs an embedded Linux OS

[by Anonymous Coward]

TFA states they use a custom built Linux but that doesn't mean they've altered any source code. Custom built can mean they've changed a few config files or rolled their own "distro" (for lack of a better term).

That's nice, but the GPL says if YOU distribute binaries then YOU have to offer source to the recipients. Saying "you can get it the same place we did" doesn't satisfy the requirements.

Re:

[Ian Alexander (997430)]

Why is parent being modded down? They're totally right.

Check it: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0-faq.html#SourceAndBinaryOnDifferentSites [gnu.org]

Why is parent being modded down?

[frovingslosh (582462)]

Why is parent being modded down? They're totally right.

Are you new here? You don't just get modded down for being wrong, you get modded down if someone else doesn't like what you say, particularly if it's true.

Re:Why is parent being modded down?

[Ian Alexander (997430)]

Assuming you're not trolling, it depends.

Amazon is required to post the source code to their GPL'ed components; this would include the Linux kernel and any modifications they made to it.

However, using a GPL'ed kernel with non-GPL'ed userland is totally fine in most cases. (see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0-faq.html#PortProgramToGL [gnu.org]). Assuming you meant more than just the Kindle's now kinda-rickety-looking 2.6.10 kernel (Source: Wikipedia), which looks like it was uploaded in 2004 when you said "Kindle's code", you're probably SOL. I don't know what Kindle's userland looks like but I'd be surprised if the interesting parts were GPL.

Unless they've altered any GPL'd code

[frovingslosh (582462)]

Unless they've altered any GPL'd code

Well, call it a hunch, but we're talking about Linux on a "new" CPU and on custom hardware, including no hard drive, flash memory, and special data in and video out circuitry. I suspect there may be a few changes to "standard" Linux. And just as Linksys had to do when they built routers that used GPL code, this project should be required to release the sources. And users shouldn't have to speculate if anything was changed or what was, it should be available as source. They may not want to do that, but it's the price that they agreed to when they chose to build on GPL code rather than go the much more complex route of completely building their own from scratch.

This little Linux box with it's special video hardware could be a very slick platform to build upon. I certainly hope that, if they don't release the sources on their own (and I rather expect that they just might not play nice), they should be made to do so.

Re:Of course the system runs an embedded Linux OS

[MojoStan (776183)]

Subject: Of course the system runs an embedded Linux OS

So the obvious question is, where do I get the source code?

Matt Lee [gnu.org] of the Free Software Foundation asked essentially the same question [roku.com] on the day Roku's Netflix Player was launched (May 20). One Roku guy answered (on May 20): "Our GPL Source has not been posted yet, but it will be in the next small number of days." Another Roku guy answered: "We will post the source code just as soon as humanly possible. As you can imagine things are pretty busy around here..." (Don't read the whole forum thread. Your brain will shrink.)

AFAIK, the source code hasn't been posted yet. When it does get posted, "Netflix Player" will probably get its own tab here [roku.com].

The sad truth...

[neokushan (932374)]

It's not exactly what you'd call "inside" the tech of the box, here's all you learn:

*It uses a custom-built linux (of which no details are given)
*It has flash memory inside it
*It has an NXP processor

The summary actually contains more technical details about the box than the article itself, purely because it mentions that the NXP is made by Philips.
I know it's Sunday and all, but come on, try harder.

Re:

[MtHuurne (602934)]

Actually, Nexperia is the name of the chip family and NXP is the name of the company that makes it. NXP is the company that was created by splitting off Philips Semiconductors from the rest of Philips.

I agree with your point though: the article is very light on technical details, especially considering its title.

Roku

[jdb2 (800046)]

"Roku" Kanji : å... , Hiragana ãã , Katakana ãfã( pronunciation approximated by "row"-"koo" ) is the word for the number 6 in Japanese. Don't know why Netflix chose it as a name for their player. ( maybe it's just a coincidence )

jdb2

/.'s Unicode Handling sucks

[jdb2 (800046)]

Whether you use Unicode or the equivalent HTML character entities /. seems to mangle them. Pretty lame.

jdb2

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[MightyYar (622222)]

Roku isn't a Netflix name, it's a separate company. It's name is due to the CEO having started it as his sixth company, IIRC.

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[jdb2 (800046)]

Heh. Yeah. RTFA goes a long way, which I failed to do -- I just glanced at the summary. Sorry for the confusion.

jdb2

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[SeaFox (739806)]

Maybe so customers wouldn't try to hook up three at the same time to their TVs?

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[Elias Ross (1260)]

ROKU also means "record" in Japanese works "rokuga" (recorded video), "rokuon" (recorded audio), "kiroku" (written record), etc.(Can't seem to get Slashdot to display the characters.)

Future capabilities

[proxima (165692)]

I'm tempted by one of these, being a Netflix subscriber who doesn't use the streaming service at all (I use Linux and Mac OS X). Since this thing runs Linux, I suspect that Netflix is offering their videos in a different form than the normal desktop version, perhaps even without DRM. It's my understanding that the reason there is no Mac client is because the MS-designed codec/DRM is not available for OS X.

It's also tempting to get one of these for these for what the future might bring. Netflix could up their quality and this device is supposed to theoretically do up to 720p. It doesn't seem unreasonable for them to implement streaming from local sources (especially things like music). Still, I don't want to buy a device and end up disappointed when they don't do anything with the feature set. I've been burned by that before, with an iriver mp3 player a few years back that was supposed to add ID3 database capability to a firmware update. It never came.

The one thing you probably can be guaranteed of is more movies from Netflix. It'd be interesting to know which movies/shows they've tried but have been unable to get the digital rights for. The rate of growth of the movie database will have to slow at some point; let's hope it's not anytime soon.

Before I get this, I need to hook up a Windows computer to my internet connection and see whether I get the "best" video quality from my DSL. The complaints I've seen about Netflix video quality are often due to people not being able to sustain the highest quality download. Since we already seem to be right around the max of DSL/cable modem speeds to get in the realm of DVD 480p quality, any HD movies will likely need some serious caching capability or really nasty compression. I'd rather have low-compression 480p than high-compression 720p, but that's because I don't have an HDTV.

It's too bad the cable and phone companies are competing in the streaming movie segment; it'd be nice to have Netflix mirrors sitting at my ISP, but that doesn't seem too likely. It's also unfortunate that without some sort of net neutrality agreement, my ISP could make Netflix streaming all but useless quite easily.

Still, for $99, it shouldn't be too hard to get your money's worth. They certainly priced it right.

Re:

[tmalone (534172)]

My main complaint with Netflix has been quality. I like that shows never seem to studder, but often times my eyes get tired of the blurry video. I hope they plan to add the option to cache more of the movie on this box because there is no way I'm gonna pay $100 for this thing if I'm stuck with blurry video, only now on a larger screen.
The price point is good but I see no compelling reason to buy it unless it offeres more features. They should've added some AppleTV like abilities. Otherwise I'll just plug

Re:

[prockcore (543967)]

It's my understanding that the reason there is no Mac client is because the MS-designed codec/DRM is not available for OS X.

No, there's no mac client because Apple won't license fairplay to them. They found porting MS's drm over to OSX wasn't possible, so they are trying to find alternatives.

interesting for firefox & linux users

[JustNiz (692889)]

Netflix's current streaming video service (on the watch instantly tab) is basically useless to a lot of people because it only works under IE, thereby meaning windows only.

The advent of this technology holds out hope that someday Netflix might also actually support the rest of us customers who would like to watch streaming stuff but aren't using IE and/or Windows.

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[value_added (719364)]

Gosh, is there anyone who can't be bothered to run XP in a virtual machine?

Sure. Me. The vitualisation options for BSD users are limited, but that limitation is offset with the nifty implementation of jails and the ability to run Linux software if needed. Apples and oranges, perhaps. That said, how does running a VMWare instance of XP on Ubuntu, for example, help in the context of video?

I don't know much about video in general, but my guess would be that video playback on a virtualised OS would be pret

Re:

[CastrTroy (595695)]

Are the any VM's fast enough to decode video with good sound without skipping?

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[ya really (1257084)]

Are the any VM's fast enough to decode video with good sound without skipping?

Perhaps VMware Fusion, it supports directx 9 (without shaders, but not needed for video).

http://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/features.html [vmware.com]

I have VMware workstation currently which has 8.1 directX support. I haven't tried playing an HD movie or even a dvd yet on it, but I haven't thought about it till now, perhaps I'll try and see how it fairs. I currently have fedora 9 x64 on there with GDM.

Re:

[pablomme (1270790)]

Just tried under Sun's VirtualBox (host=Ubuntu,guest=XP,cpu=AMD64 X2) with a .avi movie (vcodec=xvid,vrate=24fps,resolution=672x368,acodec=ac-3,arate=48kHz) and it works fine. Seek is not snappy, but that's about all I can complain about.

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[Firehed (942385)]

Why would you pay software licenses for XP and VMWare or Parallels for the sole purpose of doing what this box does at half the cost?

Re:interesting for firefox & linux users

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus (1223518)]

Umm. IETab doesn't "fool" anybody. It just embeds an actual IE rendered page into a FF tab as a matter of convenience. Other than the UI convenience, there is no difference between IETab and IE. IETab is about as useless on Linux or Mac as a Vista DVD with "Fedora" written on it in white-out.

Re:

[mitgib (1156957)]

IE Tab is not available for Linux. [mozilla.org]

Got mine yesterday - Mini review

[laing (303349)]

I don't usually buy something when it first appears but in this case I made an exception. I ordered my ROKU on the day it became available and I received it yesterday (Saturday).

My first impression was positive. The unit is much smaller than I was expecting it to be and it can connect to just about anything. The one shortcoming I found is that the unit ships with only minimal cabling. There was no ethernet cable, s-video cable, or hdmi cable included. The only cable provided (besides the power supply) is a 3-pair RCA composite video/analog stereo sound cable. The unit can use WiFi or hard-wired ethernet and I prefer to use hard-wired when possible. Fortunately I had a cable handy and it took me less than 5 minutes to get the hardware set up.

The unit defaults to DHCP so it had no trouble configuring itself to work on my network. The first thing the unit did was to download a software update and restart. I've got a 15 megabit symetrical fiber connection for my Internet service so this went pretty fast. The picture quality is surpurb and the sound is excellent. The unit takes about 3 seconds to buffer content before it will play and it displays a progress meter while buffering. The user interface is simple and easy to navigate. My only complaint at this point is that you cannot browse all the available content from the TV. With one exception, you must log into your Netflix account via the web and add "watch now" selections to your queue. I'm going to complain about this and I fully expect a future software update to address this shortcoming. The exception mentioned above relates to content with multiple episodes. The unit will allow you to browse and view additional episodes (if any) of the shows in your queue.

All in all this is a cool gadget and definately worth the one hundred dollar price.

--
This space for rent

Re:

[TechForensics (944258)]

I beg to differ. I am a *very* happy Netflix subscriber and the catalog of films for instant viewing is *huge*. You probably don't get to see all offerings until you subscribe and have access to the browsing interface. Not only is it ready for prime time, it is raising the bar. (The flaw is that Windows is required to view the instant titles.)

MFX Media

[tepples (727027)]

The porn market is free due to it's mainstream exclusion. It is as close to Adam Smith's capitalist fuck fest that you can hope to find. There are many providers and vendors. If you want porn, you can buy any kind you want right now.

But recent viral videos such as 2 Girls 1 Cup and 4 Girls Finger Paint have boosted the name recognition of one scat porn producer: MFX Media. If you didn't already know, what most people call "2 Girls 1 Cup" is just the trailer for the 62-minute Hungry Bitches [mfxmedia.com].

Re:Can we hack it to a MythTV frontend?

[notanatheist (581086)]

Intel DG45FC, full HD support, HDMI (unknown if that includes audio), integrated 7.1 audio, Gigabit, SATA, load of USB. Diskless and cache to RAM with standard DDR2 up to 4GB. Fully assembled would likely be under $300 and put the Roku to flying shame. If their media player is anything like their music player be prepared for disappointment. AppleTV is probably better. FWIW, this post not intended as a troll. I'm speaking as someone who has owned both an HD1000 and M1001.