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An Early Review of Roku's Netflix-Streaming Appliance
Posted by
timothy
on Sat Jun 07, 2008 09:12 PM
from the standard-of-living-gets-another-upgrade dept.
from the standard-of-living-gets-another-upgrade dept.
Robert Green writes "Following and complementing the Netflix instant streaming video service for the PC, Roku has produced a Set-Top Box offering instant streaming of Netflix video to your home television set. Set to compete with Apple TV (major announcement pending), it began shipping last week and here is one of the first reviews." As has been discussed before, the device is fairly limited, but inexpensive (around $100).
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Inside the Tech of the Roku Netflix Player 100 comments
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."
Firehose:Product Review: Roku-Netflix Instant Movie Player by Anonymous Coward
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RTFA ??? Huh (Score:2)
The big drawback right now is video selection. While there are over ten thousand titles available, it's possible to get through everything you may really enjoy in just a couple of months. I really think they (netflix) need to step up the licensing and video transfer to make this service great. I have to imagine that it will happen sometime in the near future as the instant video on PC has always felt like somewhat of a beta test program to me.
Bold highlights added by me. Is this supposed to be the answer for marathon movie watching couch potatoes? I realize that I watch much less tv than do many people, but really, do people rent 2 and 3 movies a night? for months on end?
Wow
Re:RTFA ??? Huh (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Bold highlight added by me. Most of the titles are crap, but I pr
Re:RTFA ??? Huh (Score:4, Informative)
The implication is not that you can watch 10,000 movies in a couple of months, but that there are very few you're interested in watching. There are 260 movies on my Netflix queue. 25 of those are available from this new device to watch instantly. Of those, I need to remove about 15, which are old TV shows available on Hulu.com for free. The remaining 10 are mostly really old, bad movies that are on there for bad movie nights. Seriously, the selection is awful.
Parent
So what is the rez on this? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:So what is the rez on this? (Score:4, Informative)
It's not about "resolution" as you're probably thinking about it. For right now, it is 480p, but that's not what is important.
The amount of compression is varied depending on the speed of the connection. Netflix says it's pretty good at 1.5mbit, and perfect at 4mbit.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What I don't understand: is there any advantage to this box over just having my computer output directly to my HDTV (in my case with HDMI) and using full screen with the streaming player on the Netflix website?
You don't have to have your computer in the same room as your TV. You can use a remote control to select movies, play them, pause, etc.
Are people just too dumb to buy a cable for their computer to output to their HDTV?
Not everyone has or wants to have a computer in their living room, or an extra computer sucking down electricity. It's fine for us geeks, but not necessarily for other people. It's not a matter of being "dumb" just priorities.
Re:Advantages over computer - HDTV? (Score:5, Insightful)
I've noticed a certain lack of critical though on Slashdot lately. I mean really, you could have answered your own comment if you had thought about it for just a moment. Really thought about it, like ran through your head situations where people have different living situations/setups than you. You would have had your answer.
This is a comment in line with people who bitch at people bitching about high gas prices cause they ride their bike 8 miles a day to work. "Why would anyone possibly need a car," and "everyone should just bike to work." Its like, people think that everyone must be exactly like them - no family, non-professional job, snow-less southeastern US, and young. They have no capacity to think critically and put themselves in someone else's shoes or see the situation from a perspective that isn't theirs.
Just think for a fucking second and realize the rest of the world isn't you.
Parent
Re:Advantages over computer - HDTV? (Score:5, Funny)
Oh sure that sounds innocuous enough, but that can only lead to reading my posts before I hit submit, which is the gateway into spell checking, and before you know it, I'm actually RTFA before I post. It's a downward spiral.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Subtitles? (Score:4, Insightful)
Misspent youth playing in speed metal bands before turning into a hardcore geek has unfortunately robbed me of a nice chunk of my hearing. So, subtitles are a necessity.
Cheers,
imag0
No subtitles; No menu features (Score:5, Informative)
I suggest either Anthony Perkin's (IIRC) MyNetflix plugin or the better vmcNetflix plugin (both for Vista)
But here is the deal:
What you get is essentially VHS. Both in terms of features & resolution.
No subsitiles option (forgien you have them; English you don't)
No menus and therefore no special features.
Selection:
This is an odd mix.
You don't have the full Netflix selection.
New releases are hit and miss. It really depends on what the studios let Netflix put on there.
The selection compaired to other VoD systems is very good. Especially the TV shows (which aren't in HD anyhow).
Also I al amazed by how quickly they are adding titles to the VoD service
So, Netflix VoD is not a replacement for TV.
Or cable VoD services (for new releases)
However, with your normal Netflix subscription (~$15) it is free. And that makes a huge difference.
Now I have a massive selection of shows I can watch anytime I want. I have access to TV shows that really aren't rerun anymore.
Parent
My review of the Roku... (Score:4, Informative)
The box works up to my expectations, with one exception... It's tied to the remote servers. In most cases, where you're watching a movie, this isn't really an issue.
However, I've had the box 5 days, and last night late the Netflix servers that hand out the video were down. We'll see how frequently that happens.
The other place it comes up is when you're seeking. It has a nice interface where you see stills go by as you are seeking forward or back, but once you select it you then have to wait for it to re-spool the data. Even if you seek forward 30 seconds (the buffer seems to hold several minutes) it will still take a while after seeking to start playing.
It's a great box, but as soon as they have one that I can stick an 8GB memory card in, or a hard drive, or the software for the PS-3, I'll be ready to switch.
By my calculations it's around 600 to 900MB/hour. So even a 2 or 4GB SD card should be able to do pretty nicely. Grab a full movie or two at full resolution, instead of having to stream it it could suck it down at a slower speed, seek more responsively, and hopefully not be so dependent on the Netflix server if it's down for a bit.
So, in short: I really like it, but I'm looking forward to the next rev.
Sean
Enjoy it while you can (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The product is too good: But AT&T, verizon and COmcast will kill it.
Netflix has been the one company which has fiercely focussed on customers instead of quarterly profits and pleasing the wallstreet flip-crowd.
I was a customer for 2 long years, and once am back in US, i plan to resume it.
I was looking forward to Roku, but...now i guess Netflix is going to hit because the blood-sucking vampires at Comcast/Verizon/AT&T think that reducing service is better than providing better service at higher c
Killed by Comcast (Score:3, Insightful)
1: Claim to only "delay" Bittorrent traffic while actually killing it with reset packages.
2: When called on the carpet by the FCC, claim that you were only taking "reasonable network management" approaches.
3: Pretend to appease the FCC by claiming in the future that you will "slow all net traffic equally" when managing your network.
4: Heavy users (i.e. those streaming videos to RoKu) find this 8Mbs promised and paid for bandwidth reduced to <800Kbs rendering RoKu unable to stream. And with no onboard storage, no preloading of content ahead of viewing.
5: When Comcast video services are never slowed no matter how contested the network becomes, poo poo critics as oversensitive wusses.
6: PROFIT!
Re:How About No? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How About No? (Score:5, Interesting)
You're basically turning Netflix's 3-a-time plan into a N-a-time plan, but the only advantage of having them all to hand at the same time is if you want to watch them a second time. Either you've got a huge appetite for re-runs, or you are wasting your time ripping and filling drives with movies that you'll only ever rewatch a tiny fraction of.
Parent
Re:How About No? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that actual watching the movie part is completely secondary. Just the having of all of them is enough.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It makes a certain amount of sense at first, but after you think about it, you realize that with Netflix as your movie library, you don't have to worry about refreshing your media when it gets obsolete, and you can watch anything you want, within a couple days of when you think about it. Or right away, depending on what you want.
If your media costs fifty cents per burn, you could conceivably be paying two or three times your netflix subsc
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If I could stream ANY movie that they had (not just their terrible selection of B and C grade movies and some TV shows), I wouldn't do this, since I usually watch the movies I ripped while I wait for my next 3 to come in.
I guess that's what BitTorrent is for.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I used to use my laptop as a dvd player. Somehow the act of plugging everything in, turning off the screensaver, rooting around for the proper cables, making sure that the remote control's software was actually working etc really took the spontaneity out of watching a movie.
Re:advantage over plugging laptop into TV? (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, you don't have to plug your laptop's TV-out into the TV, nor do you have to plug speakers into your laptop!
Parent