Slashdot Mirror

Have you tried Roksbox yet? See also the link from the Roku forums.

It's a bit limited in terms of media formats relative to your average PC, but should handle well-formed MP4, MOV, M4V, or WMV files. So you may need to convert some of your existing video files to get everything working properly.

So is it actually for the Roku HD1000 (from 2003) or for the Roku player (current and shown in the photo in the linked article on DeviceGuru). The SDK for the new player isn't released AFAIK. I posted over at the Roku player forum:

http://forums.rokulabs.com/viewtopic.php?t=21962&start=0

Maybe the SDK is almost out? Maybe other people are excited about the addition of Amazon.com and potentially Mediafly but frankly, I could care less. Netflix integration is great but the library is limited. I'd like to watch my own content and if the SDK actually got released one day, maybe it would be possible to add integration with MythTV and other PVR products.

At the moment there is no evidence of openness that I can find.

you either didn't look very hard or don't have much in the way of researching skills.

http://www.roku.com/community/gpl_nfp.php

http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=2932

http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/30/1645200&from=rss

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10050649-93.html

http://hackaday.com/2008/07/02/netflix-player-source-code-released/

http://forums.rokulabs.com/viewtopic.php?t=17046&highlight=&sid=1bea026fdae6ddaace484e70273f2d0d

I'm not saying much has become of it, but Roku has already released all GPL code and is hosting forums for their users where they allow talk about hacking it at least. They publicly state their intentions to allow any content provider to use their box to distribute content, and mention the release of a software development kit to help people do that.

I don't know if you are claiming there is no evidence of "open" as in FOSS or "open" as in allowing other companies to use the platform, but there seems to be plenty of evidence of both.

Did a bit more poking about. On the Roku Forums, one of their people says something about the internals: http://forums.rokulabs.com/viewtopic.php?t=16685 Doesn't look wildly friendly offhand. Definitely supports linux, and 256megs of RAM, apparently; but looks like the SoC was designed with lockdown in mind. Still definitely worth a look; but I think that there might be a bit too much input from the boys from big content.

May I point you to the Roku Photobridge forums, where a bunch of abandoned users hang out.

Oh, the Roku Photobridge was a great machine back in 2005. It's main purpose was to view pictures from you digital camera at HD resolutions and to play MP3's, but it didn't take long for people to realize that everything you needed to upconvert DVD-quality movies (stored on your network) to HD was there. Or even to play HD video pulled from your TiVo or MythTV. Almost.

They promised a better video player... But never delivered...

They promised a faster connection for HD... But never delivered...

They promised to open up the firmware... But never delivered...

They promised an update to make subtitles and DTS possible (they weren't even going to do it, just stop the accidental prevention of these things by the third-party developers)... They never delivered.

People waited years for these features, which were always "just around the corner".

Basically, once the SoundBridge took off, they just completely abandoned their small but faithful user group. The group wasn't even asking for much, just the source code so they could figure out how to make their own updates and how to interface with the hardware themselves.

But, I got tired of the lack of DTS support, the sound stuttering which got progressively worse, etc. My DirecTV DVR and PS3 now cover all the features that it did and do it much better.

I would be very hesitant to buy things from Roku with the track record they have established. If the "Netflix player" doesn't take off, you might be the next owner of an abandoned product.

Look into the Roku Soundbridge. Great little device. And it has a fully documented network control protocol, so you can write your own utilities to control it (and even write to its display). It took me all of 5 minutes to have my existing callerid daemon write to it, for example.

Sounds great, has a nice interface, and takes literally minutes to set up (mine grabbed my neighbor's wifi before I even had a chance to configure it. DOH!).

There is the Soundbridge Radio by Roku: http://www.rokulabs.com./ I don't own one, but I have the M500, M1000, and M2000, and they're good devices.

I upgraded to iTunes 7 (which runs on my PowerMac). Then I noticed that rhythmbox (the default GNOME music player) running on my laptop would no longer recognize my shared iTunes Library. It was doing so just fine before with iTunes 6. And it's not just rhythmbox: closed source software is having problems with this as well. And not just with DAAP sharing, either.

So I downgraded to iTunes 6 immediately. Apple penalizes you for doing so: iTunes 6 cannot read iTunes 7 shares (but iTunes 7 can read iTunes 6 shares). Talk about a forced upgrade. It seems that the change to DAAP was fairly trivial and avoidable, which brings up the question of whether they did it with the sole intention of breaking compatibility with the other software out there that reads the v6 DAAP protocol.

It's just a music player, but now I'm getting a little taste of what Richard Stallman means when he tells you to refrain from using closed source software. Even when you think a closed source vendor has good intentions, there's always a chance that they'll turn on you and slap you with an upgrade that breaks compatibility with your other software.

If you share your libraries across your network, you could be in for a nasty surprise.
If you're only sharing with an older version of iTunes on another computer presumably all you need to do is update that iTunes to V.7 and you should be OK.

But if you're like me and using an appliance like Roku's Soundbridge then you should hold off for a bit.

From http://www.rokulabs.com/support/:

Attention iTunes Users!
With the release of iTunes 7.0 today (9/12/2006), Apple has changed some of the underlying technology that allows the SoundBridge to communicate directly with iTunes. We hope to have an iTunes 7.0- compatible release of the SoundBridge software soon; however, at this time all SoundBridges are incompatible with the music sharing feature of iTunes 7.0. We recommend that SoundBridge owners wait for a SoundBridge update before upgrade to iTunes 7.0. Users wishing to upgrade to iTunes 7.0 (or who have already upgraded) can install the free Firefly media server to share their libraries with the SoundBridge. Firefly is available here.

If you share your libraries across your network, you could be in for a nasty surprise.
If you're only sharing with an older version of iTunes on another computer presumably all you need to do is update that iTunes to V.7 and you should be OK.

But if you're like me and using an appliance like Roku's Soundbridge then you should hold off for a bit.

From http://www.rokulabs.com/support/:

Attention iTunes Users!
With the release of iTunes 7.0 today (9/12/2006), Apple has changed some of the underlying technology that allows the SoundBridge to communicate directly with iTunes. We hope to have an iTunes 7.0- compatible release of the SoundBridge software soon; however, at this time all SoundBridges are incompatible with the music sharing feature of iTunes 7.0. We recommend that SoundBridge owners wait for a SoundBridge update before upgrade to iTunes 7.0. Users wishing to upgrade to iTunes 7.0 (or who have already upgraded) can install the free Firefly media server to share their libraries with the SoundBridge. Firefly is available here.

Have you heard of any of these? Probably not. They're not exactly advertised on buses.

http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=438&sec=0
http://www.digitrexusa.com/PFS.php
http://www.digion.com/en/pf/pro/dx_main.htm
http://www.rokulabs.com/

While none of these guys are really Microsoft, they all support Microsoft's PlaysForSure standard. The basic difference between these and iTV is iTV works (only) with iTunes. And Roku is audio-only (and less expensive), but follows the same concept.

And, of course, there is also XBox 360+PC.

Currently?

Well, there's the WiFi factor, which I think will be very cool. I don't care so much about being able to buy music on my music player, but being able to use an iPod and Airport Express without having to lug a computer around is a nice idea. I assume that Roku and Slim Devices will support this.

Another interesting thing as part of the WiFi realm is Internet Radio or IPTV.

For music and radio streams, the Roku Soundbridge rocks and looks great. No WPA yet though...

To be fair, the DRM on iTunes songs isn't even in the same league as the DRM on the Sony CD in question, let alone the same ballpark - at least it only affects the affected song, and doesn't open the entire PC up to compromise.

I completely agree with you - but itunes was not the only music service mentioned. From the EFF's site: CONNECT Music, f.y.e., iTunes, or Wal-Mart.

Whilst you might be prepared to trust Apple's DRM (and to be fair, I don't see much wrong with its terms either), read this thread before trusting Wal-mart's. (I don't think I'd have to work hard to convince most people here that putting faith in Sony's DRM is a bad idea as well.)

The ultimate trouble with drm - any drm, is that it restricts your right to do what you want to do with your music. It's like giving a company the keys to your CD cabinet & trusting them to unlock it when you ask them.

There are non-Apple products that do what you want -- check the Roku WiFi Radio at http://www.rokulabs.com/

Screw that. Even if a new service pops up, if it has any level of DRM I know all I need to know about it. So no, it's not unreasonable to me that this person commented on Apple's service even if they haven't used it.

-S

Subscription-based music is the way to go. This, combined with the Windows "Plays for Sure" initiative will ultimately give MS the upper hand over Apple in the music arena, unless Apple comes out with a subscription option.

I have a subscription to Yahoo Music Unlimited and I've found it is definitely worth the $60/year. Right now I've got 744 songs in my collection, which if purchased at iTunes would cost more than 12 years of subscription fees (assuming the price doesn't go up). I can license 3 computers to access my subscription, so I've got it set up on my home computer, my work computer, and my laptop. The service keeps them in sync so if I add music at home, it gets downloaded at work next time I start the service. Since I download the music to my computer, if the network goes down I can still play music.

If I want to burn CDs I can buy tracks for $0.79. But I haven't needed to do that. I have a Creative Zen Micro to carry around. What's really nice is the Roku SoundBridge is compatible with the service. I've got that hooked into the home theater system (and our wireless network) and I can access my complete music collection (even ripped music) using a remote control.

Ok, I realize this sounds like a commercial for the service. It's not...but I'm very happy with it and think that $60/year is a steal. I used to search the assorted P2P networks but my time has value too and it just wasn't worth it to search for and download music, only to find that I've picked up a bunch of bad tracks (P2P is still great for porn though).

So based on my experience with Yahoo Music Unlimited I think that despite its name Urge will be successful and combined with MS's marketing power may turn out to be an iTunes...well, not killer but maybe wounder.

After seeing a Squeezebox player owned by one of my friends, I decided to research streaming music player HW. For 1/2 the price of the Squeezebox I decided to purchase a Roku Soundbridge M500(this model is LED display based, but there's a m1000 that's the same thing as the Squeezebox for $179.000 - I just went the cheaper router).

I was also considering cheaper route of buying an Airport Express since I'm a Mac user too, but decided from Roku's product info that it'd be a better choice because it had the remote and display of the song playing + Internet Radio(w/o needing your computers on), unlike the Airport Express.

I got my http://www.rokulabs.com/ Roku a week ago for $100 off of e-Bay and it has been awesome. The only caveat to my experience is that my router was not the best one for working with the Roku, but as a geek I was able to telnet into the sucker and use the posted workarounds on Rokus helpful forums and get things working. The Roku is better because it supports native iTunes sharing so my music was automatically available after I got the Roku setup, including my 35 playlists for different settings. All 3 machines in my household: my 15"Powerbook Mac, my wife's Dell Laptop, and my eMachine desktop were able to share their tunes to the Roku within minutes. The Roku also supports Slimserver and Windows Media connectivity and Music Match Jukebox.

Overall, the native Mac OSX and iTunes support is what sold me. You can even use the mac to go to a webpage and control your Roku or even telnet into the device to edit the preset Internet Radio stations, or just import a playlist from iTunes of radio stations. If you're a Mac OSX use, ditch the Squeeze and get a Roku.

There is the Roku HD-1000, aka Photobridge http://www.rokulabs.com/products/photobridge/index .php It runs Linux and there is some support for users to write their own software. However, the video output is analog only, there is no firewire support, turning it "off" only turns off the outputs so it is still burning electricity and keeping itself toasty warm, and there are quality/reliability issues. Oddly, I haven't found any similar products. Anyone know of any?

Things that are missing from existing IP-enabled devices:

1. Small (fits on a small bedside table), but with large numbers (legible in the middle of the night).
2. A proper color display for bedside use (e.g. not blue).
3. A dimmable display.
4. Large, distinct (by touch) buttons for control when your eyes are closed.

Things that are missing from alarm clocks:

1. NTP time synchronization. Not everybody can get WWVB.
2. Audio streaming. I get terrible radio reception, and I hate waking up to commercials.
3. Configurable UI. If it's a real embedded device, you can tweak the buttons' behavior if you think the UI is dumb. (I don't care if this is difficult, as long as it's possible.)
4. Configurable behavior. If it doesn't have the feature you need (like those in the parent), you can add it.

Other niceties:

1. Battery back-up. Yes, there are still some clocks that don't have it. Of course, streaming would be difficult with no power, so it should have a piezo buzzer as a backup.
2. Power over Ethernet. Fewer cords, less risk of killing yourself when you knock over your glass of water at 3 in the morning. Probably cheaper than going wireless.

Or, for about half that, you can get a Roku SoundBridge, and you also end up with a much more attractive device. It also works in Squeezebox mode if you must, though doesn't offer all its features in that mode.

Thanks. The Ruku M500 or M1000 http://www.rokulabs.com/products/soundbridge/index .php look like what I wanted.

*Want*, it can even act as a frontend for MythTV

The Roku PhotoBridge ( http://rokulabs.com/products/photobridge/index.php ) has a 300MHz MIPS processor, high-definition video output, and digital audio out, all for under $300. Plus Linux is already preloaded, it couldn't be easier. Just plug it in and log on. There is even an SDK and active developer forums at http://rokulabs.com/forums/

The Roku PhotoBridge ( http://rokulabs.com/products/photobridge/index.php ) has a 300MHz MIPS processor, high-definition video output, and digital audio out, all for under $300. Plus Linux is already preloaded, it couldn't be easier. Just plug it in and log on. There is even an SDK and active developer forums at http://rokulabs.com/forums/

The Roku Photobridge does indeed make a nice Myth front end, by all accounts - http://www.rokulabs.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=245 8

... and are willing to do some hacking, I've always thought that the Roku Photobridge and Prismiq Media Player would make nice little MythTV front ends due to their hackability, wireless support, hardware decoders and digital outs.

Don't know much about the Roku (except that they're pretty open with developer support), but as administrator for a project that does open source for the Prismiq it should be doable to port mythfrontend to the box. Particularly since Prismiq released the source.

(plus, you can probably get one dirt cheap on eBay).

It solves some problems of the AirPort Express (no display, no ability to control the host computer).

Has anyone here used it?

(And to answer the question of why get this instead of an actal computer--some people have home theaters or stereos and want something that integrate with that, instead of having another computer.

But we're going to get one of these for the home stereo:

Roku Soundbridge. Thank the gods it works with my router.

Convetional radio sucks. Especially the local stations. Moreso now that ClearChannel has a cookie-cutter KISS-FM here.

The wife likes listening to the 80s channel and I like listening to jazz and traditional irish folk/pop. The latter of which have no market or stations here in Austin, TX. YOU try to give culture to this place. It doesn't work for the most part.

It is easier to just buy a PhotoBridge (Linux-based) for about $300

http://rokulabs.com/products/photobridge

Then set up a PC in another room with a large disk drive and HDTV tuner card.

Details here:

http://frequal.com/pmn/TopComponents.html

Perhaps some vendor like El Gato will even make a FireWire PVR/tuner solution WITH an integrated 3.5" drive bay, in the same type of case as Mac mini.

Actually, there are already some very good articles up on how to make your Mac mini into an HDTV PVR. Basically, you need an HDTV tuner with a firewire output. This can be had for about $5 a month from your cable company, or you can buy one for OTA (over the air) HDTV broadcasts here.

The only thing that prevents the Mac mini from direct HDTV playback is that the processor speed is too slow (requires a G5 for that). If you want to add the final missing piece to your Mac mini enabled HDTV PVR setup, simply add a Roku Photobridge HD digital media player and you are in business.

I should note that the Mac mini can playback SD programming with no problem; it's only the HD programming that requires a little extra oomph... The cool thing about this is that currently, no Windows PC can touch the direct firewire recording capabilities of the Mac. DVHStool was originally written as a proof of concept to show how easy it was to manipulate digital video with the Mac, but it also shows how far behind Windows has become on Firewire. Let's not forget people, Apple invented IEEE1394, or Firewire, as it is more commonly known.

Just to be clear, while the squeezebox ($279 w/ WiFi) is cheaper than the SoundBridge M2000, both the SoundBridge M1000 ($249 w/WiFi) and M500 ($199 w/WiFi) are cheaper than the squeezebox. The squeezebox has a display similar to the M1000, so that's probably the best comparison.

disclaimer: I work for Roku.

• I selected Roku Soundbridges. I like the interface, and the display. They can access the network using either 10/100 wired ethernet, or 802.11b wireless and provide analog and digital outputs to feed either powered speakers or your stereo. I have two hanging off the same server setup described above, and they work great.
  
• I can also "mount" the music shared in the manner described above with iTunes. I've only tested this w/ the winderz version, as there are no Macs in the house modern enuf to run iTunes.
  

• The slimserver software, and a software version of their client are available free from their web page. Try before you buy, or buy one squeezebox and use the software version on laptops elsewhere.
  
• Roku _might_ implement synchronized play in the future. I see no reason why they could not.
  
• Roku supports "tuning" internet radio stations. I plan to set up a stream, fed by another piece of software looking at the same set of files so that I have my own internet radio station in the house. I've used jwz's gronk, which is a web-based jukebox package for this purpose before with success, but will also consider grind this time around. I do not know if I will achieve synchronization this way or not, but I'm hoping.
  
• Gronk and Grind do not use ID3 tags, so when I originally ripped a lot of my music for Gronk, I didn't care about the ID3s. All of the rest of this software DOES care, so I have a bit of a mess on my hands.
  
• Gronk is written in Perl, so it's hackable. This comes in handy tweaking things like sort order, whether to include "the' in the band name, etc. JWZ also provides a demo version to play with on the site below.
  
• Another way to get the synchronized music, and to serve over wireless, although not the way you originally asked, is to set up an FM transmitter. I have not yet done this for this project, but my prior Gronk installation supported one of those micropowered fm transmitters intended for use with mp3 players in cars just fine.
  

• 
  Linksys NSLU-2
  Unslung firmware for the NSLU-2
  Roku Soundbridge
  Squeezebox and Slimserver
  mt-daapd on Sourceforge
  JWZ's Gronk
  Grind
  A review of a REAL FM transmitter
  

I have one of the M2000 units - I use it for music all of the time. One of the recent features that I use a TON is the ability to play streaming radio without having a computer on at all. VERY nice.

Beyond that, it provides web access to control it, and will directly work with iTunes.

I highly recommend it.

Note: The M2000's display is _HUGE_, with nice large text. (Font sizes are selectable)

There are only two real minuses that I've noted in the 3 months I've owned it:

1. No physical buttons - you have to use the remote to control it. Not a big deal, but sometimes I'd like to just press power on the unit itself.

2. When listening to internet radio the track names are not displayed. I know that this is a feature that they are planning to add to future firmware (it's upgradeable - just select the option from the menu and it does it automatically)

Roku Labs has a neat solution.

One reason for removing the DRM is so you can use devices like this and this. iTunes is already in an encoded format that these devices can play, its just the DRM that is preventing it.

spiralscratch,

We haven't modified the SlimServer software, we're merely a client for it. No GPL concerns enter into it.

It should be noted that SlimServer is just one of MANY servers we support including iTunes (directly, using licensed DAAP from Apple) and many UPnP-AV Servers (including Windows Media Connect with support for DRM'd WMA files).

So, if you're considering the Squeezebox, you should do yourself a favor and consider the SoundBridge since it can do what the Squeezebox does and MUCH MUCH more, and look better doing it (IMNSHO). Oh and do it for less money.

For those of you that are NSLU2 fans, Twonkyvision has a build of their UPnP Server for it and there's an open source DAAP server available for it. Cool stuff.

Patrick
Sr Software Engineer, Roku
Visit the Roku Forums

Tom's Networking just did a review that covers this subject, including how to serve tunage to it over a Linux server (they mention the hacked NSLU2 project, but it sounds like any Linux box could do the job).

Or, heck, skip the network and just use CompactFlash.

Some consumer devices, such as the Roku Soundbridge, do actually have volume control for their digital audio output. Whether you consider these computers is a judgement call.

However, as you suggest there are issues with specially encoded audio. The Soundbridge normally expects to be handling plain stereo PCM, in which case it can manipulate the digital stream as it passes through. If you want to stream something like DTS or AC3 through it, you have to set the volume to 100% and it will then pass the data through without trying to interpret it.

Right, which is why Airport Express isn't all that interesting - it's basically a fancy wireless speaker for your powerbook. The other big problem with Airport Express is that you can only play to one of them at a time. So if you have one AE in your kitchen, another in your living room and one in your bedroom, you can only play a song on one of them at a time. Something like the Roku SoundBridge/a would be a lot more useful, except that it can't play protected AAC files (and it's about twice the price of the Airport Express).

I really wish Apple would license their FairPlay DRM scheme to other manufacturers. I can understand them not wanting to license it to Real, or to other portable mp3 player manufacturers, but they should license it to companies who make in-home music players. Off the top of my head, Tivo (with the Home Media Option), RokuLabs, and SlimDevices (the SqueezeBox) come to mind. Unfortunately, Apple considers the iTunes Music Store only as a way to sell more iPods.

I would go with the Roku HD1000. The Roku seems to have a lot more features and a better design.

I've been looking at the Roku HD1000 and the Play@TV NMP-4000.

Basically, I'm looking at archiving my 1,800+ cd on to hard drive and storing them in a box (well, lots of boxes) some where and not having to go fetch the one I want to play. Pictures on the TV would be nice, but I want the TV to display the artist/album list. Playing video would be nice, but not necessary.

I'm also not interested in wireless, just wired (I ran cat5e to every room in the house :-).

The HD1000 actually supports HiDef TV at 720p and 1080i. Supposed to be quite nice for showing off your tv. Not so sure how it works with Audio stuff. Linux kernel, developer SDK, looks cool :-) Doesn't look like it's got a lot of umph, however (see the referenced about creating a swap file on a CF card - yuk).

The Play@TV NMP-4000, while having a crappy name, looks like it supports the audio stuff better. It's highest resolution is S-Video out, but that's OK.

Both support digital audio out, which is cool.
I certianly would like a comparison site on these, but haven't found any.

Or if either company wants some free advertising, send me a demo unit and I'll write something up!

I really see this as being a great product for sharing the audio on your laptop and playing it on a friend's stereo. But this device doesn't even come close to what a slimp3 or a Roku Soundbridge can do.

One thing missing from this device is a real optical out. I'm sorry but going analog mini jack -> digi optical doesn't make any sense.

Has anyone compared it to the rokulabs soundbridge?

The one thing that i'm missing on the Apple device is that my stereo can not easily display track info, which the soundbridge or squeezebox can, and the ability to go netx-previous without having to walk to your laptop

One such device already exists and runs Linux. See Roku Labs HD1000.

The problem definitely is in the wording.

Awkward does not describe an operating system, it describes a user-interface. If he said: "but because of its awkward Linux-based user interface and sluggish response" I would feel better - but only slightly so. An improperly designed UI would make the best operating system appear to be a pig.

Whether it was Linux, Windows CE, or some QNX based system is irrelevant because the user interface is at issue.

The other issues he has with lockups *IS* an OS, hardware, or driver issue. He never seemed to contact Roku to see what the possible issues were, so who knows what the problem was. Perhaps he got some bad hardware? Roku has a user forum, and from that they are discussing, it seems there are a few problems yet to solve, and development is still occurring fast and furious.

I hope this apparent lack of quality won't also be apparent in Roku's Soundbridge product, I've been pretty excited about that one. It looks like a good [non ugly] alternative to the Slim Devices stuff. The pricing is a little jacked though, the only difference between the 2 models is a bigger display and they want $250 for that.

• Rio Karma is probably the most popular OGG portable.
• Roku Soundbridge is a great home player that supports both OGG and Itunes DRMed AAC.

The Gateway product is weak at best..

It requires proprietary streaming server software, which is only available for Windows. That server software has many restrictions on what it will allow to be sent to the player. For example, it would not allow me to stream my home movies exported to DVD format (or the native Mini-DV, or any other export I tried). It won't import any video with a rate that is > 3Mbps. So, you can basically only do poor quality internet downloaded thumbnail videos.

The MP3 streaming was okay, but not great. The GUI needs a lot of help. It also requires you to use the streaming server, so any exising song/playlist management you have is useless.

The JPEG playback was okay, but could be better. It only supported resolution up to 480p, no HD display. It did not allow MP3 playback during the slideshow - only silence. Of course, you had to import your images into the crappy server software.

A more interesting product is the Roku HD streaming device. http://www.rokulabs.com/ Linux based, open architecture, developers kit & API's, access content via samba (works with Windows, Linux, MacOS), JPEG display at HDTV resolutions, MP3 playback. They had a beta release that supported streaming of HDTV captures.. I'm not sure if that is released yet, or if they support DVD VOBs yet.

Over at El Gato they have a similar product that does work with OSX. El Gato Eye Home. There are numerous similar products for music only as well. Some even support streaming radio stations. My favorite sounding is the Roku Labs one although I hasten to add I don't own one. But the iTunes integration for both PCs and Macs sounds very intriguing.