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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.
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'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).
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.
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...