Comments on: Review: Roku Digital Video Player

By: Mike

Mike — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 19:33:49 +0000

Agreed.
Xbox still is better choice than this Roku.
And rokus remote looks SO ugly

By: Collin Allen

Collin Allen — Tue, 12 May 2009 01:37:50 +0000

Great review, and way to crack open the box at the end! It’s a shame that the Roku’s flash is hardwired (that 64 MB Samsung chip looks mighty likely), else this would be a hardware hacker’s dream set-top box for running any number of apps.

By: John O'Shaughnessy

John O'Shaughnessy — Tue, 12 May 2009 01:21:58 +0000

Catching on on TV Shows — yes, I can see that as a good use for something like this.

By: Brandon

Brandon — Tue, 12 May 2009 00:59:32 +0000

What TV did you have the Roku player hooked up to? I’ve used my player on a Samsung LN46A650 LCD (using HDMI) and have had really nice results for most of the movies I’ve watched.

By: Paul Stamatiou

Paul Stamatiou — Mon, 11 May 2009 18:51:02 +0000

Well I find the Roku ideal for simple things like watching entire seasons of TV shows back to back. For my HD itch I have the Vudu’s HDX (~1080) rentals and then my Netflix Blu-ray options with my PS3. ;-)

By: John O'Shaughnessy

John O'Shaughnessy — Mon, 11 May 2009 18:06:06 +0000

I’m surprised that the love of hi tech doesn’t equal the love of high fidelity. To watch any movie in this day of Blu-Ray with -less- than DVD quality and no 5.1 surround sound doesn’t appeal to me. Also – as one who really enjoys the ‘making of’ features so common on DVDs now, the streaming options just scratch the surface of what I’m looking for in movie entertainment. Someday the bandwidth will be there, but until the full DVD experience is available without the little silver disk — (or a ripped little silver disk), I’ll keep up with the Blockbuster Online envelopes.

By: Will Powell

Will Powell — Mon, 11 May 2009 17:12:55 +0000

Just thought I’d add a suggestion to checkout instantwatcher.com. It’s a nice alternative way to checkout Netflix content available for viewing.
http://instantwatcher.com/

Netflix has an RSS feed for additions to their “Queue To Watch Instantly” listings. It can be found here. That’s how I found out about KRULL!!!:
http://www.netflix.com/RSSFeeds?lnkctr=csbRSS

Amazon Video-On-Demand has some free stuff. You used to be able to browse to it on the Roku but they removed that functionality in the most recent firmware update (it had some PG-13+ content and lack of parental controls on the Roku probably contributed to its removal). Just checkout “free videos” at Amazon and add it to “Your Video Library” to get the content available on the Roku:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/video/ontv/start

By: Will Powell

Will Powell — Mon, 11 May 2009 16:51:40 +0000

Nice review. Simple and sweet – just like the Roku itself.

They’ve announced that they’ll have 10 more “channels” by the year’s end:
http://bit.ly/RRJkr

Checkout the screenshot on this early beta for the Amazon Video-on-Demand. Looks like they’re already working with YouTube:
http://bit.ly/396Udw

Recent interview with their VP of Consumer Products, Tim Twerdahl. He says that they want to be the “Hulu of TV”. I interpret that to mean they want to be the hardware device people use to access streaming content on their televisions from recent network shows (with or without hulu.com):
http://bit.ly/dko36

Great device. It’s in their best interest to add to its “channels” since they’re in the box business. They make a little money on the ads – which I hadn’t noticed until watching a youtube video of the CEO describing ads. There is a banner ad on the top-level menu of the Roku (as seen above, “Quantum of Solace”). Doesn’t really bother me that it’s there. It’s not intrusive.

They’ve stated that they’re developing a SDK for content providers. It’ll be interesting where this little device goes when that occurs.

They’ve got a pretty healthy community on the Roku forums. It can do a few geeky things, like accept commands via telnet (if you lose your remote). There are some hidden diagnostic menus, but for the most part those seem to be unnecessary if you don’t have connection problems.

Calmly awaiting the next firmware release and more content.

By: Paul Stamatiou

Paul Stamatiou — Mon, 11 May 2009 13:37:01 +0000

Agreed! Pretty happy about it. And you reminded me of something – compression artifacts in video isn’t nearly as much of an issue when being viewed on a CRT or other such SD display. Naturally, people using their Roku with an HDTV will be sticklers

By: Paul Stamatiou

Paul Stamatiou — Mon, 11 May 2009 13:13:35 +0000

As I mentioned above, Netflix’s non-HD titles don’t come close to DVD due to their WM9 compression. Just something that comes with their flash-only implementation of streaming. :-/

By: Peter Filias

Peter Filias — Mon, 11 May 2009 12:45:36 +0000

Does anyone know if this Roku player has plans to get upgrades to include things like the ability to stream from Hulu?

On a side note, I tried PlayOn with my PS3 the other day, and the video quality of both NetFlix and Hulu were pretty horrible on my 46″ LCD (I know, what did I expect)? I expected HULU to be pretty weak, but NetFlix shouldn’t have been as bad as it was. I mean, when I watch other DVDs, on my TV, they look fine. I’d hope that the NetFlix streaming would at least come CLOSE to DVD.

How does this Roku REALLY look?

By: Courtenay Bird

Courtenay Bird — Mon, 11 May 2009 07:29:58 +0000

Great review! I love my Roku, especially as someone who doesn’t have cable but has had a Netflix account for several years. I find that I utilize my Netflix account much more now. It’s a tiny device that does so much…. win-win.

By: Phil Brangers

Phil Brangers — Mon, 11 May 2009 06:31:22 +0000

For me to buy a set top box at this point, it will have to support hulu. The imac plugged into the tv does just fine for now.

By: Tim

Tim — Mon, 11 May 2009 04:42:06 +0000

I always get a laugh of how some of us always have to take apart the new gadget just so we can take a look!!

By: Charles Hepner

Charles Hepner — Mon, 11 May 2009 04:34:07 +0000

Using Netflix on an XBOX requires that you have an XBOX Live Gold account ~ US$50 if I remember right – in addition to the Netflix subscription. The Roku box doesn’t have that requirement.

By: Ravi

Ravi — Mon, 11 May 2009 03:51:32 +0000

Paul, I’m curious — instead of $100 for the Roku box that can only stream from Netflix and Amazon, why not spring for a $200 Xbox 360 Arcade (often much less with discounts/coupons) that has significantly more features and better resell value?

I rarely play games on my 360 anymore, but I love to stream videos/mp3s from computers around the house, among other things, which I don’t believe the Roku player supports. Also, the fact that I can play Live Arcade games and demos of full games when friends are over is a huge bonus. As for losing out on the Amazon store, I think the Xbox Live Marketplace has most of the same content.

Just curious if there was a significant reason other than the price that compelled you towards getting a Roku box?