An Early Review of Roku's Netflix-Streaming Appliance

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).

Re:How About No?

[wdhowellsr]

Because of idiots like you I can't view recent movies on my Roku. The days of hacking and pirating are over and as soon as we can convince the entertainment industry that you are in the minority and most people just want to watch any movie or tv show ever made at their convenience we will have our cake and eat it to. The setup for the unit was brain-dead simple and the quality of the video was better than most dvd players. I had immediate access to my queue and found the interface and remote very easy to use. Considering that they do not charge anything additional for total access to their instant view library, I find it hard to believe that one could complain. Netflix has nailed the distribution model. Now we need to get the a*(holes in the entertainment industry on board.

Re:

[Kopiok]

I belong to netflix and I rent heavily. I rip to my home NAS to queue things up which I'll watch later (at MY convenience). when I'm done, the movie may get kept or deleted, it depends on how I feel and how much spare storage I have.

The whole point of renting from NetFlix is that it is at your convenience. No late fees, so no pressure to watch the movie, and you queue your movies so you always get what you want. Want Undrworld before Harry Potter? Queue it first. Don't have time to watch Underworld? Just

Re:

[negRo_slim]

The whole point of renting from NetFlix is that it is at your convenience.

If by convenience you mean waiting 3 days for the mail to arrive, then I guess we don't agree on the definition of that word.

And don't even mention streaming, I demand a certain amount of quality from my media not to mention my computer has better things to do then function as a television.

Re:

[Kopiok]

Then it sounds like Netflix isn't for you. Your needs might be better served by an OnDemand service, or your local video store.

Re:

[slazzy]

If you remember to create a wish list ahead of time, and have the movies you want to see sitting there waiting for you ahead of time then it is convenient. For me, it's too expensive, I rent maybe 1 movie a month, and don't want to pay $15 for that 1 movie.

Re:

[Milican]

Sounds like you need the "1 at-a-time plan" where you can rent up to two DVDs a month... for $5...

JOhn

Re:

[The Ultimate Fartkno]

Welcome to Slashdot. If something is digitally based and easily pirated, then you have a right to it. Period. No moral or ethical gray area is allowed here. If your intellectual property is easily lifted then it's your problem, not ours. You can ask for money all you want, but it's not our responsibility to give it to you. Sure, we won't bother, y'know, doing without or just not having a copy of your work that we don't value enough to pay for, but that's because you're an evil, money-grubbing corporate over

Re:

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

"but they never get taken off the catalog." Actually, they ARE. I had some movies in my instant queue that, when I went to watch them, were no longer available for instant watching. I don't recall the titles, but I was pretty pissed.

Re:

[TheGratefulNet]

its still not on my terms.

I can order discs out of order, save them to disk and when I get all the parts, THEN I can view them.

many of the things I want (most, really) are not on the instant-view plan. maybe later but right now pickin' is pretty slim.

one tip is to force entries out of order. add a series as discs 2 1 3 instead of 1 2 3. that way the system 'knows' that you are ok with breaking up a series and it will send you next-avail instead of doing a 'blocking' move on you, stalling you unnecessaril

Re:

[Dare nMc]

whats the difference between saving a ripped movie for streaming later, and watching the stream live from netflix? (hint shipping or availability.) Netflix doesn't seam to care about rippers (I mean they seam to like them as customers) As long as the subscription is up kept, isn't that pretty much the same as if me and a few (hundred) neighbors have a large collection of dvd's and share with each other? Start making money from that library, then the story changes.
Except for the shipping time/charges a

Re:

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

The difference is that not every movie NetFlix has is available for instant watching.

Re:

[DMalic]

You honestly think if people like him didn't exist you'd have more content on your Roku? The media industry does not and has not ever made any concession they didn't have to. Not to encourage law-breaking, but piracy has forced their hand in offering better solutions to compete with it.

Re:

[Fail-deadly]

Do you really believe that piracy is the reason that recent movies are not available? The reason is simple: money. If recent movies were available for watching on the Roku box, then hard copies are going to sell less in stores. Companies make more off selling DVDs then they do letting Netflix "rent" them out with Watch Instantly.

Re:

[Lumpy]

The days of hacking and pirating are over and as soon as we can convince the entertainment industry that you are in the minority and most people just want to watch any movie or tv show ever made at their convenience we will have our cake and eat it to. The setup for the unit was brain-dead simple and the quality of the video was better than most dvd players.

I have had "movies on demand" in my home for 5 years now. I have over 1000 of MY movies ripped and ready on my Media center.

Also, what kind of drugs ar

Re:How About No?

[SpinyNorman]

I don't see the point.

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.

Re:How About No?

[Hijacked Public]

The point is, based on my conversations with people who do what the GP described, is that when someone mentions a movie title they can say "I have that movie".

I think that actual watching the movie part is completely secondary. Just the having of all of them is enough.

Re:

[DMalic]

There's always the people who leave a movie sitting in their house for months until they're ready to watch it.

Re:

[benwaggoner]

...a model which NetFlix perfectly supports!

There's no reason you can't have one of our four or whatever DVDs for months on end, without late fees. That's one of the main points of NetFlix I thought.

Re:

[DMalic]

Agreed. I was intending to establish very rational reasons for the "hoarding" behavior SpinyNorman mentioned (though quite illegal, and expensive to Netflix through mailing fees).

Re:

[TheRaven64]

There are a couple of reasons for ripping rented movies.

A service like NetFlix doesn't give you very fine-grained control over the order you get the disks in. Sometimes you might not feel in the mood to watch the film they do send you at the time. In this case, it would be tempting to send it back, get another one, and watch the one you had in a week or so when you do feel like it. This goes away with online streaming, since the movies are no longer a scarce resource for the provider, as DVDs are, and

Re:

[mgblst]

There is some sort of collection delusion that people start to fall under. It can be for anything, but I have met a few people who do this for movies. Because ripping movies if quite easy, though time consuming, they see it as a bonus. I have met people with 1000s of movies, more than they could ever watch, and even loads of really shit movies. These people have lost it.

I now I used to do it for games, in the age of secret FTP sites (alt-255). I was just getting so many crap games, I would never play, just

Re:

[Dare nMc]

but the only advantage of having them all to hand at the same time is if you want to watch them a second time.

Several others:
1) TV shows on DVD don't like to watch a whole season in the same week.
2) still takes some time from request to door, don't feal like a chick flick when it shows, you got the back list.
3) traveling, my eee pc can't play dvd's, too risky to lose them to carry with, besides uses 3* more power spinning

Re:

[zippthorne]

Indeed. I've got some friends like that. I call them "Collectors."

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:

[laddiebuck]

I don't pirate, and I'm probably a minority (hell, all but 2 films in my collection are British, so yeah I'm a minority), but I love to rewatch good scenes from old movies once in a while. I'll go through 2 hours' worth of classic scenes from 5-10 movies instead of one new one.

Re:

[blackest_k]

That is probably why netflix doesn't seem bothered by people who rip the movies, all you finish up with is a bunch of ripped dvd's that sit and gather dust for the next few years.

As a netflix customer you are already a good customer of the entertainment industry. Many people do not buy or rent movies on any kind of regular basis, $180 a year from you is probably way above the average spend on movies by joe public.

I wouldn't be surprised that you go out for a movie once in a while, after all watching movies

Re:

[TheRaven64]

I wouldn't be surprised that you go out for a movie once in a while, after all watching movies is one of your interests.

I subscribe to a service like NetFlix in the UK, and I haven't been to the Cinema for years. I bought a cheap projector and now I can get a similar experience in my living room (with better sound, since the local cinema only has stereo and sets the levels very badly). I can have friends over, pause whenever I want, and eat nice food while watching films instead of overpriced popcorn. The price of two people going to see a film at the local cinema is about the same as a month's subscription to this servi

Re:

[blackest_k]

Buying music obviously does make sense for the tracks that you know you enjoy, but then we only know a small fraction of what music is out there and being able to just click on a track and play it, would be convenient.

obviously if you really enjoy a particular track or album you can buy it at any time. in fact there is no reason you couldn't buy via the music service as a cd or mp3 download.

The real difference is you would be able to listen to anything any number of times without infringing copyright and an

Re:

[GWBasic]

I don't see the point

Netflix is dipping their toe into the water of internet-based video-on-demand. From a business sense, it makes sense to start with a simple system and apply the "lessons learned" when moving to high-bandwidth, and then HD systems. Things like multiple languages, surround sound, optional subtitles add complexity to an implementation and thus leave the possibility for bugs.

Furthermore, when does the system become "good enough" that most customers will use it more then 50% of the time? Most of the conten

Re:

[maxume]

To what end?

You say you are acquiring ~1.5 * 30 = 45 hours of video a month (on the low end). If you aren't consuming it now (which you don't give any information either way), when the heck are you going to consume it in the future? How many times do you need to watch each of the 360 movies that you claim to be acquiring per year? Once? Twice? Ten times?

Re:

[DMalic]

One guy abuses a service (one which the content producers actually get a cut of.) Therefore, restrictions on legal behavior are deserved.

Re:

[kz45]

"One guy abuses a service (one which the content producers actually get a cut of.) Therefore, restrictions on legal behavior are deserved."

Do you honestly think it's only ONE person here that is ripping netflix movies? You sound a little naive.

also, the only reason DRM exists is because of the the popularity of pirate sites..not the other way around.

Re:

[DMalic]

"One guy abuses a service (one which the content producers actually get a cut of.) Therefore, restrictions on legal behavior are deserved." Do you honestly think it's only ONE person here that is ripping netflix movies? You sound a little naive. also, the only reason DRM exists is because of the the popularity of pirate sites..not the other way around.

Netflix is very popular. A few of their customers are abusive, which means they don't bring in significant income after mailing costs. Few people have the hard drive space (and will) to reach even this level. You're using an insignificant group to justify insane policy. I have to wonder what your proposed response to massive, proven damage from copyright infringement is: an example would be commercial violation of the GPL. Death? re: your second point: Not at all. Given a song, I can think up many u

Re:

[kz45]

"I have to wonder what your proposed response to massive, proven damage from copyright infringement is: an example would be commercial violation of the GPL. Death?"

So protection of copyright is equal to death? The problem is that there really is no solution to fixing the copyright problem at the moment..beyond a better lock.

The only way to get companies to change their practices is to stop buying their products, which most people just aren't willing to do.

Pirate sites are almost a type of competition, but

Re:

[DMalic]

Agreed. Emusic, Magnatune, NIN are great. Radiohead's publicity stunt, not so much useful. My "death" remark could be better worded thus: If a few % of users causing minimal actual damage by abusing a service is license for widespread restriction and limitation backed by the hefty penalties (inc. jail) carried by the DMCA - where do you go from there when the offense is much weightier? It seems to be "your head for a loaf of bread" territory. Rereading, though, I catch that your original remark playe

Re:

[Technician]

And people wonder why content producers want DRM...


The producers are anal on protecting their content while ignoring what attracts customers. (Statute of limitations is run out) My biggest music buying days were while I was in the Military. I bought stuff, shared stuff, discovered new stuff not played on the radio. If you eliminated the shared stuff, so I didn't discover new stuff, I would have bought far less. We are seeing that now as they are getting pretty anal on sharing stuff. Personally as a re

Re:

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

They throttled me. I have a 3-at-a-time plan, rip all 3, and send them back the next day. Instead of sending all 3 of mine out, they send out two, wait a day, and send out the 3rd. It's not AWFUL, but it's not really that cool.

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. :D

Re:

[HockeyPuck]

I have a 3-at-a-time plan, rip all 3, and send them back the next day

and people wonder why companies are trying to implement draconian DRM....

As a side note, is it legal to borrow three books from your local library, photocopy all the pages and then return them?

Re:

[mweather]

As a side note, is it legal to borrow three books from your local library, photocopy all the pages and then return them?

Yep. You can copy whatever you like.

Re:

[HadouKen24]

Um... no, you can't. That's why it's called copyright law.

It is not legal to copy an entire book. There are some occasions when it might be admissible to copy an entire article or essay--that happens in academia all the time--but copying entire works like that simply isn't allowed under copyright law.

Unless you have permission, of course

Re:

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

You actually CAN copy whatever you like. It just might not be legal.

Re:

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

"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."

If you had read my entire post, maybe you wouldn't have made a silly comment.

And I do delete the movies when I've watched them once, so it's kinda like that old Divx thing with the expiring DVDs.

Re:

[kz45]

"if you had read my entire post, maybe you wouldn't have made a silly comment."

yeah, I read it. Because you can't get your way, you decide to break copyright law.

Excuses like this will not go away until companies give out all of their movies and content for free with no restrictions.

I remember when Napster first came out and the people that tried to legitimize it were saying that albums were too expensive and if they could purchase a CD on a per/track basis, there would be no need to download it for free.

How about: needs a regular Netflix account anyway

[triplej]

So, I have a Roku, and after the hardware cost, it doesn't cost me anything over and above my regular subscription. Roku means I can clear my queue for all the older movies they offer on instant view.

This has the capability of cutting my queue down by about a third. Only 100 or so movies to go!

RTFA ??? Huh

[zappepcs]

I tried to, read the review. Something struck me as curiously odd:

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:

[lazy_nihilist]

The problem is, I like to watch the videos I like at a stretch. It's very tempting to finish a whole series of Arrested Development or Curb your enthusiasm. It is very difficult to stop after watching a single episode. And people tend to develop a certain taste and will only watch movies/tv that cater to that niche, everything else would pass by without getting noticed much (May be software based suggestions like, "you might like these titles" helps here). So it makes perfect sense that everything you enjoy

Re:RTFA ??? Huh

[raving griff]

While there are tens of thousands of titles available in netflix's streaming service, only a handful of them are popular films. Personally, only 4 of the DVD's in my 72 movie queue are available to instantly stream. In my case, I could be done with all four movies in a week or two and be out of things to stream until I happen to come across another movie that I think I'd enjoy. The problem is that there is not a great selection of movies available for instant play, and of this limited selection, far fewer are popular titles.

Re:

[Spackler]

I am going to agree, and disagree.

When I ordered this thing, there were about 7 movies in my queue that were "Watch it now". Right now I have more than 50 in there. Now I will grant you, these are things I probably would never have put in my regular queue. Old TV like "Adam 12" and Emergency!. Lots of documentaries as well. I am just amazed with the thing. I went from paying over $130 for cable from Comcast to now paying $15 for basic cable and $17 for netflix. It will pay for switching over in a lit

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

The key phrase is "...you may really enjoy."

Ten thousand titles means a thousand children's movies, a thousand Rob Schneider comedies, a thousand 60's sitcom compilations, and at least 2,500 horrible thrillers starring Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman.

So of the ten thousand there may be a hundred you really want to see... And at even 3 a week you'll get through them pretty fast.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

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 highlight added by me. Most of the titles are crap, but I pr

Re:

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

But this device isn't a media pc. It does only one thing. It cannot play movies/tv shows/music you have on your computer.

Re:

[Jeff321]

The quality of what's available for instant viewing is not very good yet. I browsed the instant library on Netflix for a while and only came up with about 20 movies I wouldn't mind seeing. That said, I may still get this device since I already have a Netflix subscription and the $100 price seems reasonable.

Re:RTFA ??? Huh

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

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.

Bold highlights added by me. Is this supposed to be the answer for marathon movie watching couch potatoes?

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.

So what is the rez on this?

[the eric conspiracy]

Nice puff piece. It doesn't mention what the resolution is or the surround formats it supports (or not). Who is going to want to watch crummy resolution on a 42" screen?

Re:So what is the rez on this?

[daemonburrito]

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.

Advantages over computer - HDTV?

[Izabael_DaJinn]

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?

The review says we need to use a computer anyway to add things to the queue.

Are people just too dumb to buy a cable for their computer to output to their HDTV? I assume there are some hidden advantages I'm missing? I didn't see anything that says the resolution is higher with the box. Is it?

Re:

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

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:

[Kopiok]

Not everybody has a PC handy right by their movie-watching TV.

Re:Advantages over computer - HDTV?

[Robert1]

In the real world - i.e. not in your room in your parent's house - people don't have their computer sitting in the living room by the TV.

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.

Re:Advantages over computer - HDTV?

[Izabael_DaJinn]

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.

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.

Re:

[daemonburrito]

Netflix is forced to use drm. I try to keep a drm-free box. Also, IIRC, it is Windows-only.

So, to answer your questions: 1. No, unless you don't have/want a windows box with drm crap down to the metal. 2. See (1).

Re:

[Helmholtz Coil]

Yep, that's why I'm seriously thinking about picking it up for my wife-no Instant Viewing on Macs, Linux, or anything Not Windows. So in reference to a comment above-it doesn't matter how technically savvy she or I or the neighbors are if we don't have Windows machines.

I suppose it'd be different if I had a virtual Windows machine somewhere, but as I don't it seems to me that the startup costs for us to use Instant Viewing favor Roku.

Re:

[the eric conspiracy]

That is what is important to me since I have a 30mbit connection.

I am a little concerned about the selection. It sounds like a bunch of low quality old source material that wouldn't look that great on a HDTV even if they were run through a good video processor.

At the price though it might be worth experimenting with.

Re:

[smoker2]

If it can run well in a 4 mbps setting then it could be sent using DVB-T. Be just like satellite but cheaper.

Re:

[bsharitt]

Yeah, I was hoping for a bit more content. Right now I'm kind of torn between this and the AppleTV. Sure the AppleTV might theoretically cost more to rent, but I don't watch that many movies and I can stream the media from my PC, which would be a huge thing for me. Right now I'm leaning toward the AppleTV since buying this box would mean I'd still have to come up with something to stream the music and video from my PC.

Re:

[rthille]

That's one thing the NetFlix box is missing. Actually, the NetFlix box might have the ability, but the PC software certainly hasn't been announced. But there's nothing to stop the hardware from talking to a local 'queue' running on some PC or Mac in the house, serving up whatever video formats the hardware can play. It might involve transcoding your library, either on the fly or in advance, but it seems like that would be a strong selling point to be able to stream your 'legal' home videos or whatever in

Re:

[tgibbs]

I'd be willing to pay the price for the Apple box, but I don't like per-movie pricing, and restrictions that tell you how long you can wait before watching and that potentially cause you to lose your money if something comes up and you can't finish watching on time are simply unacceptable.

Re:

[maxume]

How close are they sitting to the screen?

This is a must if you subscribe to Netflix!

[SkipFreethrow]

I ordered one of these the first week they started shipping, and I'm not disappointed. The video quality is as good as your internet connection, unfortunately. If you subscribe to Netflix and enjoy "Watch Now" titles this is a must!

Subtitles?

[imag0]

I think that having subtitles in regular movies would be the deal breaker for me. While the review showed a foreign film with subtitles, does anyone know if "normal" films have subtitles as well?

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

Re:

[Kopiok]

If it's anything like the normal Netflix streaming, there would be no subs.

Re:

[zippthorne]

Clearly, He just didn't care for a while. And then it was too late.

I'm not sure if I would buy *those* plugs though. They look a little wonky.

This breakthrough product is the only one of its kind to deliver flat attenuation of sound for musicians. Flat attenuation enables the wearer to hear the music just as it was intended, with a decrease of up to 20 decibels of potentially damaging noise.

So.. is it flat? or is it up to 20 decibels? What's the frequency range over which it's "flat attenuateion"?

What

No subtitles; No menu features

[ahbi]

OK, first off I love Netflix Video On Demand feature. It was in fact one of the main reasons I setup my Media Center.
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.

Re:

[kklein]

Yeah, that's the dealbreaker for me as well, but my industrial band days have only left me incapable of having conversations with background noise (bars, etc.). For me its my wife, who is Japanese. Her English is decent, but I have to hit "pause" to catch her up a lot less if she has both auditory and visual linguistic input.

Here in Japan, talk shows and reality shows tend to subtitle all the funny/important comments for effect, and I, too, find that that often makes the difference between "Huh?" and "H

Re:

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

The MyNetFlix guy got a job offer from NetFlix because of the plugin, and they're allowing him to work on it in his free time. Not 'official' support, but there are people behind the scenes at NetFlix who want to see that plugin working.

A GUI That Actually Works?

[mrpacmanjel]

Judging by the review they seem to have discovered the 'Zen of GUI' - keep the interface as simple as you can - only include what is necessary to use the device.

Apple seem to understand this as well.

I think that software developers and GUI designers can learn some lessons here (me included).

What's the point

[actionbastard]

With broadband service providers like Comcast and Time-Warner preparing to impose usurious tiered pricing on users, 'All-you-can-eat' services like Netflix look like a bargain compared to something like this.

My review of the Roku...

[jafo]

I've had my box since Tuesday. Overall I'm very happy with it. It's inexpensive, and on my cable modem the quality is reasonable, though it will step down if I'm doing a big download.

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

Re:

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

From what I've read, it only has 32MB of storage, so if there's a hiccup in your connection, you're buffering.

Enjoy it while you can

[nurb432]

Once we go back to pay-per-byte internet, you might as well drive up to blockbuster, it will be cheaper.

Re:

[freedom_india]

Yup.
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

[Nom du Keyboard]

Comcast is all set to kill Roku.

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:

[Technician]

Comcast is all set to kill Roku.

The good news is Qwest is all set to kill Comcast. If you don't subscribe to the Comcast triple play package (TV, Telephone, Internet) and just get the Internet, they soak you about $60/month. Qwest is running DSL fiber in our area with prices close to $35, Comcast is toast as soon as Qwest can hook me up.

One has to understand...

[Quiet_Desperation]

...that this is a work in progress. I love mine, and for now it will let me catch up on shows I missed (I'm a SF fan who has yet to watch the new Dr. Who, and there is it available for streaming!) and there's a pile of classic old SF films available. I may watch Soylent Green next week. Love that film. For recent stuff I have my 2 DVDs out at a time. Getting this box doesn't stop your ability to get DVDs.

Netflix is working licensing issues, and the Roku team is free to allow other sources to stream to their

advantage over plugging laptop into TV?

[pruss]

Is there an advantage over just plugging one's laptop's TV-out into the TV, and plugging speakers into the laptop?

Re:

[Jeremy Erwin]

You mean besides ergonomics and convenience?

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?

[PhotoGuy]

Is there an advantage over just plugging one's laptop's TV-out into the TV, and plugging speakers into the laptop?

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!

Re:

[Renraku]

You can still use your laptop. The movie might be in 5.1 but most likely its going to come out as 2.1 or 2 from your laptop.

Also, if you're going to do that, just get something like a PS3 and stream the movie from a wireless-capable PC or fileserver type of setup..that way you can have your 5.1 cake, your laptop, and don't have to deal with cords.

Was what that supposed to be?

[Casandro]

What was that supposed to be?
First of all, there are no real $20 HDMI cables. If you see one for that price rest asured that the shop bought it for less than $5 and the company which sold it from the shop got it from China for far less than $1 a piece.

Then second, what did we learn? Barely nothing! We only learned that that device exists and works. He didn't even open it.

And what about AppleTV?

[owndao]

I'm sorry if I missed something but what about AppleTV: (most of this is straight off of their site) stand-alone unit works with widescreen, enhanced-definition, or high-definition TVs capable of:

1080p/i 60/50 Hz
720p 60/50Hz
576p 50Hz (PAL format)
480p 60Hzt;
connects to internet via wired or wireless network 802.11n draft; iTunes video library including YouTube, TV shows, music (no commercials); hookup HDMI to HDMI cable or
HDMI to DVI cable and analog stereo or optical digital audio or
Component video c