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Inside the Tech of the Roku Netflix Player 100

Posted by kdawson from the no-disks-please-we're-videophiles dept.
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."
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Inside the Tech of the Roku Netflix Player More

Inside the Tech of the Roku Netflix Player

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  • incredibly insightful! (Score:5, Funny)

    by gEvil (beta) ( 945888 ) on Saturday May 31, 2008 @07:38PM (#23613713)
    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! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Technician ( 215283 ) on Saturday May 31, 2008 @07:48PM (#23613789)
      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! (Score:4, Interesting)

        by garett_spencley ( 193892 ) on Saturday May 31, 2008 @08:05PM (#23613869) Journal
        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.

        • 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. (Score:5, Interesting)

            by garett_spencley ( 193892 ) on Saturday May 31, 2008 @08:35PM (#23613989) Journal
            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: (Score:2, Informative)

              by 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: (Score:1)

              by Odder ( 1288958 )

              Open Spectrum needs little more regulation than a body that warns radio operators if their equipment is out of spec and harmful to other traffic. There is so much spectrum available that a device would have to be broken or operating in primitive broadcast mode to interfere with anyone else. No licenses are needed, just reasonable standards using proven technology. It will quickly kill wired communications and broadcasters and it's the most important thing to happen to publication since movable type.

              In

            • As a capitalist I have to say that corporations are not always the answer. You just can't waive a magic wand. So my question to you is this: Why would it be different if a Crown Corp ran it rather than the government? There are some very specific motivations that drive a public corporation [maximizing profit, avoiding take overs, etc], that would be missing from a Crown Corp. Public Corps tend to get bloated fast. Since they serve no single master they pander to all, in particular special interest grou
            • Check out the book "The Corporation" to see the history of companies owned/controlled by governments. (The author is very conservative, but the history is interesting.) http://www.amazon.com/Company-History-Revolutionary-Library-Chronicles/dp/0679642498 [amazon.com]

          • Re:How about deregulation instead? Grump warning. (Score:5, Interesting)

            by stinerman ( 812158 ) on Saturday May 31, 2008 @08:38PM (#23613999)

            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.
          • 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

      • 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.
    • 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

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fm6 ( 162816 )
      Not only lacking in technical details, but most of the non-technical details are wrong. A techie at Roku is the wrong person to ask about how Netflix chooses movies for instant watching. And it was obvious the interviewer hadn't read the description of the device on Netflix.com.

  • One box (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Enderandrew ( 866215 ) <enderandrewNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Saturday May 31, 2008 @07:41PM (#23613735) Homepage Journal
    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: (Score:1)

      by Kopiok ( 898028 )
      This box only allows you to watch "Watch Now" movies on your Netflix account. It's only useful for Netflix subscribers to get their 'free' downloads straight to their TV. With the Watch Now you don't usually get new releases. Mostly old and indie stuff, with some TV shows. I don't really think it's meant to replace your OnDemand service.

    • 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.

      • 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).

    • 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.

      Yeah, I'm not sure why I should purchase a car other than to get around. (the catalog depth is the whole point)

      Whether you need the whole Voltron series to be available to you on-demand is a separate issue, but you can get that with Netflix.

      Also, if the cable bills are anything like what I've seen in some towns, you can get a Netflix box
    • While it doesn't have On Demand, the current Tivos *replace* your cable box (i.e. they get the premium channels you pay for with no extra box, via cablecards).

      I have a few Tivos, and from what I've used of cable boxes, the interface is far far superior (and I think most people would agree too). It can even be cheaper, if you get a lifetime subscription on the Tivo (the subscription is tied to the box, but thus the resale value is higher, and geeky people can easily replace the hard drive, the thing that's

  • INSIGHTFUL +5 TO ARTICLE (Score:5, Funny)

    by SolidAltar ( 1268608 ) on Saturday May 31, 2008 @07:43PM (#23613743)
    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.
    • 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...

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by 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

      • 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: (Score:3, Informative)

        by 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
    • That's funny because my AppleTV is silent. Certainly there's no fan noise so I don't buy that explaination. When you're watching TV or something off of the device you can't hear it because of the TV sound. Even when everything is off it's silent unless you put your head up to it and then you can hear the hard drive a little bit.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Big Jason ( 1556 )
        It may be silent, but the damn thing gets hot. You could almost fry an egg on the one I have.

  • Of course the system runs an embedded Linux OS (Score:3, Insightful)

    by frovingslosh ( 582462 ) on Saturday May 31, 2008 @07:47PM (#23613777)
    So the obvious question is, where do I get the source code?
    • 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 (Score:5, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 31, 2008 @08:35PM (#23613987)

        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.

      • Unless they've altered any GPL'd code (Score:5, Interesting)

        by frovingslosh ( 582462 ) on Sunday June 01, 2008 @12:25AM (#23614897)
        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 (Score:5, Informative)

      by MojoStan ( 776183 ) on Sunday June 01, 2008 @01:03AM (#23615019)

      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].

      • Last I checked the FSF considered the US Mail a reasonable source distribution method, so there is nothing wrong with their answer. So long as they send you CD upon request they are in compliance. Still common courtesy dictates they should put it online.

  • The sad truth... (Score:5, Informative)

    by neokushan ( 932374 ) on Saturday May 31, 2008 @07:48PM (#23613791)
    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.

    • 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 (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jdb2 ( 800046 ) * on Saturday May 31, 2008 @07:50PM (#23613793) Journal
    "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

  • I have searched for an up to date listing of available downloads for this box, and what I have found (http://netflixwatchnow.blogspot.com/) is woefully out of date and not that impressive. I would love a service that does this, but it doesn't seem quite ready for prime time to me...

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by 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.)

  • Future capabilities (Score:5, Insightful)

    by proxima ( 165692 ) on Saturday May 31, 2008 @08:08PM (#23613875)
    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: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by 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

    • 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.
      • How is that? It's Microsoft's DRM. If they really wanted it available on OS X they could port it over.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by mounthood ( 993037 )
        Alternatives? How about flash, or H.264 over SSL? Why is there DRM at all, considering that they are sending the DVD's to people who can easily rip them if they want?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by yabos ( 719499 )
      In 20 years in the USA when the internet on this continent can handle it or in Japan today you can have streaming 720p.

    • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      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.

      Last time I pulled apart their streaming web page, they had 4 speed thresholds for what I was trying to watch: 700kbps, 1.1mbps, 1.7mbps, 2.2mbps.

      The 1.1mbps threshold resulted in a 964kbps 512x278 movie, WMV9, 64kbps WMA9.2 stereo. Quality of that stream was near the level of your typical xvid rip at similar resolution.

      The 700kbps threshold, on the other hand, is awful. At 320x140 and 439kbps, it's worse than standard def TV.

      My connection speed is not high enough to test the other levels, and I haven't fi

  • interesting for firefox & linux users (Score:5, Interesting)

    by JustNiz ( 692889 ) on Saturday May 31, 2008 @08:26PM (#23613955)
    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.

    • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      There's no reason you can't watch over Netflix streaming videos in Firefox. I use Firefox with the IETab plug-in to fool Netflix into thinking I'm running IE. Once I had this set up, I've been watching all my Netflix Watch Now selections in Firefox. There's a similar widget available for the Opera browser, but I haven't tested that one yet.

  • More lawsuits! We don't need a good reason, we don't even need evidence, but we can definitely expect lawsuits. /ban *.lawyer (reason: facilitating embarrassing activity)
  • After seeing this article, I hit Netflix to see if they changed it to allow something other than Windows boxes to stream movies and still get the same stupid page:

    Instant Watching System Compatibility
    Watching instantly on your computer

    Sorry, your computer's operating system is not compatible with watching instantly.

    You can watch instantly using your Netflix account from any computer meeting the system requirements given below. And, your computer is fully compatible with adding titles to the Instant Queue fo
    • This isn't a "Linux" box by any conventional wisdom. It uses a multimedia processor to do decoding, which means it has hardware unlike anything in your existing Linux machines. It also has device drivers specific to that hardware, which certainly isn't compiled into any Linux kernel you currently use. So no, GPL isn't going to spare you the $100 these guys are asking for. But for less than the cost of a Windows license, how could you complain?

  • Got mine yesterday - Mini review (Score:5, Interesting)

    by laing ( 303349 ) on Sunday June 01, 2008 @09:04AM (#23616793)
    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: (Score:1)

      by penalba ( 537191 )
      Same experience, same impression. We already had an underutilized Netflix account; this box makes the subscription worthwhile. Very good value and dead simple to configure and use.
  • I live in a mountainous rural area with telco supplied DSL. My family has enjoyed Netflix since its inception. For $100, we decided to check out this box and are delighted. Since we don't use IE, the netflix instant queue didn't work for us, and viewing on the computer just doesn't have the ambience of the family room. The UI and remote are textbook examples of good engineering - it's similar to a DVD controller, but much simpler, and allows a technophobe to enjoy the system without reading a manual. Th
  • One review I read said that it was currently just 480i. This seems surprising, if true, since a good DVD player will output 480p, and the bandwidth, for film at least, should not be any higher, since all that is required is to correctly re-interlace the 480i frames. Roku says that the unit can do HD, but it was unclear as to whether that means "HD as soon as Netflix gets around to adding HD content," or "HD maybe someday if typical ISP bandwidth increases." I was disappointed the article did not say how muc

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