An Early Review of Roku's Netflix-Streaming Appliance

Robert Green writes "Following and complementing the Netflix instant streaming video service for the PC, Roku has produced a Set-Top Box offering instant streaming of Netflix video to your home television set. Set to compete with Apple TV (major announcement pending), it began shipping last week and here is one of the first reviews." As has been discussed before, the device is fairly limited, but inexpensive (around $100).

Comments

So what is the rez on this?

[the eric conspiracy]

Nice puff piece. It doesn't mention what the resolution is or the surround formats it supports (or not). Who is going to want to watch crummy resolution on a 42" screen?

Re:So what is the rez on this?

[bsharitt]

Yeah, I was hoping for a bit more content. Right now I'm kind of torn between this and the AppleTV. Sure the AppleTV might theoretically cost more to rent, but I don't watch that many movies and I can stream the media from my PC, which would be a huge thing for me. Right now I'm leaning toward the AppleTV since buying this box would mean I'd still have to come up with something to stream the music and video from my PC.

Re:RTFA ??? Huh

[Anonymous Coward]

The big drawback right now is video selection. While there are over ten thousand titles available, it's possible to get through everything you may really enjoy in just a couple of months. I really think they (netflix) need to step up the licensing and video transfer to make this service great. I have to imagine that it will happen sometime in the near future as the instant video on PC has always felt like somewhat of a beta test program to me.

Bold highlight added by me. Most of the titles are crap, but I presume very cheap to license. What's not crap is various enough that it is a rare person who will like all of it. I was only able to find about 15 titles that I hadn't seen and looked like they would be worth my time. In contrast, my DVD queue rarely has less than 50 movies on it, and I watch more movies than most people.

The real problem here is in the summary. $100 for what is essentially a dumbed down PC is not 'inexpensive'. The only thing that makes it within reason is that even though far superior hardware is available for about the same price, without Windows, you can't watch this stuff without a Roku.

Re:How About No?

[SpinyNorman]

I don't see the point.

You're basically turning Netflix's 3-a-time plan into a N-a-time plan, but the only advantage of having them all to hand at the same time is if you want to watch them a second time. Either you've got a huge appetite for re-runs, or you are wasting your time ripping and filling drives with movies that you'll only ever rewatch a tiny fraction of.

Re:How About No?

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

They throttled me. I have a 3-at-a-time plan, rip all 3, and send them back the next day. Instead of sending all 3 of mine out, they send out two, wait a day, and send out the 3rd. It's not AWFUL, but it's not really that cool.

If I could stream ANY movie that they had (not just their terrible selection of B and C grade movies and some TV shows), I wouldn't do this, since I usually watch the movies I ripped while I wait for my next 3 to come in.

I guess that's what BitTorrent is for. :D

advantage over plugging laptop into TV?

[pruss]

Is there an advantage over just plugging one's laptop's TV-out into the TV, and plugging speakers into the laptop?

Re:Enjoy it while you can

[freedom_india]

Yup.
The product is too good: But AT&T, verizon and COmcast will kill it.
Netflix has been the one company which has fiercely focussed on customers instead of quarterly profits and pleasing the wallstreet flip-crowd.
I was a customer for 2 long years, and once am back in US, i plan to resume it.
I was looking forward to Roku, but...now i guess Netflix is going to hit because the blood-sucking vampires at Comcast/Verizon/AT&T think that reducing service is better than providing better service at higher cost.