Inside the Tech of the Roku Netflix Player

MojoKid writes "A little over a week ago Netflix unveiled the Netflix Player, developed by the team at Roku, a set-top box for watching on-demand movies and TV. This interview with Tim Twerdahl, the VP of Consumer Products for Roku, goes into some detail about the guts of the box and the future of the set-top box. Of course the system runs an embedded Linux OS, but interestingly also runs on a Nexperia (Philips) media processor."

Comments

INSIGHTFUL +5 TO ARTICLE

[SolidAltar]

Roku: Third, we've heard feedback from home theater purists who said that they don't want to hear fan noise.
HotHardware: Is that right?
Tim: Yep. Quite a few people don't want to hear the hum of a fan in the background while watching TV.

Re:incredibly insightful!

[Technician]

Wow, that was one of the most in-depth interviews I've ever read. They go really into the details of what makes it run and how the system works. Well worth the read!

The only part missing is the part about the service is at the mercy of the delivery ISP. If you think bandwidth shaping is bad for torrents, see what the Cable TV providers do when this competes with the cable company's own offering. I have enough Buffering..... playing. buffering...........playing...buffering....... to know this service will be at the mercy of the bandwidth providers. When it takes 6 hours to deliver a 2 hour movie, it won't be popular for many. Some will be lucky and actualy get enough bandwidth, but the number 1 complaint will be related to low resolution as a solution to interuptions to buffer content.

Too much of the contry has better bandwidth provided by Fedex, UPS, and Blockbuster. This will only get worse with high def content.

Re:Of course the system runs an embedded Linux OS

[Anonymous Coward]

TFA states they use a custom built Linux but that doesn't mean they've altered any source code. Custom built can mean they've changed a few config files or rolled their own "distro" (for lack of a better term).

That's nice, but the GPL says if YOU distribute binaries then YOU have to offer source to the recipients. Saying "you can get it the same place we did" doesn't satisfy the requirements.

Re:Of course the system runs an embedded Linux OS

[MojoStan]

Subject: Of course the system runs an embedded Linux OS

So the obvious question is, where do I get the source code?

Matt Lee of the Free Software Foundation asked essentially the same question on the day Roku's Netflix Player was launched (May 20). One Roku guy answered (on May 20): "Our GPL Source has not been posted yet, but it will be in the next small number of days." Another Roku guy answered: "We will post the source code just as soon as humanly possible. As you can imagine things are pretty busy around here..." (Don't read the whole forum thread. Your brain will shrink.)

AFAIK, the source code hasn't been posted yet. When it does get posted, "Netflix Player" will probably get its own tab here.