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$100 Roku Netflix Player Targets Apple TV
Binge notes CNet coverage of the Netflix Player by Roku, which it calls "bare-bones." Less than 10% of Netfilx's catalog is available for the Instant Viewing option. Three more Netflix players are said to be due for release by the end of the year. The Roku is "...the first product that allows subscribers to have movies and TV shows from the service's Instant Viewing feature (aka 'Watch Now') to be streamed directly to their TV screen... With the release of the Netflix Player, subscribers need only have a wired or wireless broadband connection to access the entire Instant Viewing catalog through their TV."
I certainly hope for more out of these type devices in the future, but I can certainly say I'm interested. If nothing else it's a cheap piece of hardware that (hopefully!) just works and adds a benefit to my subscription. Plus without the FIOS TV options and lackluster cable options I've loved Netflix or e-hits ever since I started using those types of services. I'm also glad to see that some people at least are trying to move forward with ideas like this.
How about because if you already pay for netflix, this service is entirely free.
meaning i can watch any of the "Watch it Now" movies (and TV shows) they offer simply by using this device.
And the sheer number (and its been increasing rather dramatically lately) of titles available simply dwarfs the offerings from any on demand service available.
Can you watch Dexter Season 1? Tripping the Rift Season 1, Heroes Season 1 and 2, A Fairly large number of Anime titles, a fairly large number of older movies from the 80's and 90's?
you may not want to, but some people do, and now they can without t he need to have a cable or even a satellite connection in their home.
I actually use my Vista MC with a netflix plug-in to do this all the time.
I just looked over the info at Roku's site and I think I'm finally prepared to say... This is the one we've all been waiting for.
While Roku's refreshingly good industrial and UI design looks like it should help, though, here's the real reason this is going to be huge:
I don't think I can overstate the importance of having a single monthly payment to rent a good number of movies and TV shows versus the failed model of "buying" movies that will never leave your set-top box or even the yet unproven model of renting them at $4 a pop with the remote. This is why Netflix beat Blockbuster and it's why they'll beat Apple TV.
This is the thing that will kill the DVD and cable at the same time.
What it comes down to, for now, is Netflix's significantly preferable all-you-can-eat model versus Apple TV's significantly greater selection. But the Netflix selection is only getting bigger.
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
1) Roll out an on-demand video service so crippled by DRM restrictions that it can work in only ONE browser (IE), and on only ONE platform (Windows) - and those only if you have the tip-top absolute latest releases and updates.
/tsg/
2) Find that half your customers can't (or won't) use your service as a result.
3) License others to make special-purpose hardware just to get around the restrictions in (1) and take a big cut of that.
4) Profit!!!!!
No onboard disk cache, an absolute max bitrate of 2Mb/s, and max resolution of 480p make this box basically the worst streaming solution for early adopters. Netflix needs to resolve some more basic issue with their service before they try and make a serious run at hardware streaming end points. For instance their service autodetects your bandwidth and selects what it feels is an appropriate bitrate for your viewing w/o giving you any option cache a larger portion of the video in advance and allow a higher overall bitrate/quality. Who is the target audience for this? People with a hankering for poor quality SD movies from a large back catalog whom also own a set with HDMI inputs and a highspeed data connection? Seriously guys, try a bit harder on the RD side next time.
-*The above statement is printed entirely on recycled electrons*-
I wonder if they could bittorrent using other peoples downloads as seeds?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I'm hoping it's just licensing issues that's causing them to not be able to offer the "many more titles".
And backing up a copy of the movie would be irrelevant with this service, as you could watch it at any time, as many times as you want.
That is, if they continue to stay in business (and they likely will).
Here's a review with a pictures of the back of the unit.
Slightly disreputable, albeit gregarious
Roku had a really cool HD Media Player box, which was Linux based and extensible. If this thing is derived from that same platform (with hardware accelerated HD MPEG2 playback) this is a huge bargain.
If it is a closed box, which only does Netflix, it is not so interesting.
I'm a mac guy too and I am somewhat ticked off by this announcment. For a year or so now they have had a web page saying they are "working hard" to get netflix ondemand service for their mac customers but Apple is preventing them.
How could apple possibly be standing in there way. If they can implement it on a PC or if Amazon NBC and SCIfi channel can get Flash streaming to work why do they have to ask for Apple's permission?
Bah. It was this box they were developing. They had zero interest in making onDemand available to their apple customers.
I hate liars.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Streaming is just not a good way for delivering something that needs to be continuous. Movies are in need of more cache than this box offers. Making it cheap by neglecting necessary parts for the task at hand is a formula for failure. Pass for now.
See, I have the Apple TV, and I've loved it since day one. I double love it since the "2.0" major firmware updates and feature additions. But the wife, you see, has had netflix for years. And since they added the streaming movie feature, she watches maybe 4 or 5 flix that way a month. Thing is though, the selection pool is by and large old B movies nobody would've watched on purpose if they weren't really in the mood for something cheesy.
So basically, the Apple TV and the Roku are rather complementary in my opinion. The Roku is the source for cheap totally random movie watching and the Apple TV gives me my higher end rentable new releases, my podcasts and music directly from my media housing computer, and lots of other nice aspects. So yeah, I don't see this really being any kind of direct competition unless you have absolutely no taste or preference of your movies, then I guess the cheapest crap in the barrel would please you as much as the top of it.
I read the script, and I think it would help my character's motivation if he was on fire. -Bender
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.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
How about... because you dont want to give a single dollar more to Comcast for their abysmal handling of their own internet traffic, and traffic shaping of selective protocols?
How long until they start traffic-shaping the Netflix streams? Sounds to me like large amounts of data.