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Roku Box Adds HD, Grows Beyond Netflix
DeviceGuru writes "Roku has announced two free updates to its Internet-enabled Netflix movie-streaming set-top box. The initial update adds advanced compression capable of streaming HD video over average consumer broadband connections, while the second (expected during the first quarter of 2009) will add A/V streaming from sources other than Netflix (e.g. YouTube, Hulu, Comedy Central, MSNBC, etc.). Roku faces growing competition from other providers of Internet-based video-on-demand STBs, such as Blockbuster's STB, Syabas's Popcorn Hour (aka NMT), AppleTV, and others. Roku hasn't said anything specific, but perhaps it'll partner with Boxee, which already provides a popular AppleTV hack."
... but seriously when is porn going to get into the streaming scene? (insert joke)
We figured out a long time ago that it's easier to elect seven judges than to elect 132 legislators.
Someone just needs to build a nice small XBMC replacement. Something the size of Popcorn or Apple TV. Donate some engineers / money to the XBMC guys to get it to work with your chipset. Maybe some 1080p hardware decoding.
My XBOX is starting to show its age, but XBMC hands down beats every single one of those players hands down.
Just add the ability to talk to a Mythbackend and output HD at 1080p and I'll get two!
Anyone have any idea when/if....
*HD* Netlfix will come to PC's (Windows, Linux, MAC) ?
Official netflix integration into Vista MCE (unofficial exists) ?
Official or unofficial integration of Hulu in Media Center?
Hopefully one of the "additional providers of HD content" will also provide streams with Closed Captioning (or subtitles). My biggest disappointment with Roku/Netflix is no Closed Caption.
As an AppleTV I must say I really admire Roku. They seem to understand hardware and software in a way few manufacturers do. They work really hard on compatibility with so many formats and products, its really great. I love my AppleTV as well, and it does some things better, but to get the openess of Roku it must be seriously hacked. Roku is the one pushing this segment forward.
The article says
I'm pretty sure this would be a licensing issue, not at technical issue about streaming formats.
It's one thing to have to sit at your computer, or faff about with a media PC to watch content. But I imagine the networks would be very scared of a simple, cheap, no subscription, plug-in box. I'd be (pleasantly) surprised if they let Roku get to that content.
Once Hulu comes to my Tivo (I hate having a million boxes for different things), I'd reconsider why I even pay for even the cheapest tier cable.
If anyone wonders what the Comcast 250G caps are about, they have nothing to do with bandwidth contention and everything to do with them realising soon they will loose half (more?) of their business when cable TV dies.
I've been spending the past few weeks enjoying the HD streaming they recently enabled on TiVos. It's great to be able to go just watch any movie in my instant queue, all using the TiVo interface. There are nice little touches like TV series show up as a folder with one "recording" per episode instead.
It works very well, and I can get full quality (or sometimes one mark under, according to the little display) on my 6 Mb DSL line.
So far I've watched Meet the Robinsons, King of Kong, and a couple of other things. The quality is superior to DVD, I believe.
The only problem I have with it is the idea of a "instant queue". That seems rather unnecessary to me. I'd rather just have my instant queue mirror my main queue, just without the non-streamable movies. I'm sure it's useful for some people, but for me it's just a (minor) complication.
Having the additional options would be great for Roku users. Right now I have access to Amazon Unbox, YouTube, and Netflix through my TiVo. I'd LOVE to get Hulu access or something like that.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Have you seen an AppleTV running Boxee?
The problem with that setup is all the frakkin' daggits. I hate daggits.
Your just jealous because you can't output HDMI and lack my awesome style. Call me when you can stream media over wireless G or buy DRM music off iTunes. Geez the never of some media devices!
I would love to use one of these services, but my DSL connection is too flakey. The video loses sync within a minute or two, and rebuffers too often to be watchable.
Any progress on being able to record these streams--or at least set a much larger buffer (like half the show)?
While all of this seems to be great, there's one problem nobody really wants to talk about: the imposition of monthy download capacity limits by Internet Service Providers.
Indeed, even Comcast's 250 GB per month is woefully inadequate to accommodate streaming HD video over a device like Roku or Apple TV if you watch a lot of movies streamed to your device. And many ISP's are talking much smaller monthly download limits, too. The result: either you can't download as many movies and TV shows you really want, or, the media service providers will need to compromise picture quality for their HD downloads, which means the downloaded video won't be anywhere as good as what you get from a Blu-ray disc, and probably worse than the picture quality of an ATSC 720p/1080i broadcast.
Until the USA starts its conversion to IPv6 and tremendously increases its Internet bandwidth capacity (which will lift the limits imposed by ISP's), the very idea of downloaded HD movies will end up being a non-starter.
I think it might go the other way. It's one thing for a few geeks with home-brewed media center PCs to start streaming lots of movies and run up huge bandwidth totals.
It's a totally different thing for "Interweb" users with a cable modem and a single PC they use for online banking, when they get something like AppleTV or Roku and can start watching lots of stuff that way.
That is, once this starts to go mainstream, when average home internet users can start using these devices, there'll be a lot more pressure for ISPs to NOT impose those bandwidth caps.
At least, that's how I'm hoping it goes.
I wonder though about that other AppleTV mod that added functionality only if the thumb drive was attached was affected by the 2.3 update; disconnect the USB drive and the AppleTV is back to normal. If only I could remember what mod that was...
Ah, apparently I needed to search GeekBrief.TV with "Apple TV" instead of "AppleTV" to find reference to aTV Flash. It too was affected and they also have an update that works with Apple TV 2.3.
The software can be easily removed at any time, and will NOT void your warranty.
Key Features:
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
That is, once this starts to go mainstream, when average home internet users can start using these devices, there'll be a lot more pressure for ISPs to NOT impose those bandwidth caps.
Actually, that's all the MORE reason for ISP's to put in download caps--with the current economic conditions, nobody is willing to put in the investment to tremendously expand the bandwidth necessary to accommodate large-scale video streaming.
Besides, with the prices of Blu-ray players and discs now dropping rapidly, why bother with a solution that could tie up your broadband connection for long periods of time and the picture quality still can't compare to a real 1080p-resolution Blu-ray disc?
In true Build-It-And-They will come if we just get something like MRSS going where a "Feed" is known as a "Channel" and can link to other Channels, as well as slideshows (Channel full of png links), movies (some freeish codec), tv shows (a series would just be a Channel full of consecutive episoses) and music (an albumn would just be a Channel of consecutive songs) with nice png thumbnail support, the ability to add links to "buy plastic disc edition" and the whole thing very easy to mashup and deep link (Jimbo's saturday night sci-fi feed - a Channel containing links to other host's offerings) and then just let it grow into its own sprawling Media-WWW two things will happen:
1. Any old set top box, or pc/mac piece of software will be able to be written to let you surf it, inc XBMC native support
2. Once it becomes a major source of quality content (Star Trek New Adventures, etc.) the media cartels will jump on board, and overcome the lack of DRM by embedding ads in the media directly safe in the knowledge that Joe Sixpack will watch their content using his STB remote from the sofa rather than track down a non-advert-embedded edition and mess about torrenting it
Essentially the Media-WWW will be just like Web 1.0 - links all over the place, but video and audio instead of text and the odd gif
If you don't risk failure you don't risk success.
Besides, with the prices of Blu-ray players and discs now dropping rapidly, why bother with a solution that could tie up your broadband connection for long periods of time and the picture quality still can't compare to a real 1080p-resolution Blu-ray disc?
With modern codecs, excellent video quality can be had for 2-3 Mbps for a 720p video. The 1080p is about 2.25x more pixels, but since codecs scale well, you could probably do an excellent quality for 4-5 Mbps. Even 3Mbps could probably do well for the majority of video at 1080p.
Frankly, at 4Mbps for 1080p, you're probably not going to be able to tell the difference between that and Blu-Ray.
I may be biased, because I live in an area where the local cable company provides 20Mbps service. So 2/3/4Mbps streams don't phase me at all.
Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
...have been added to the article on DeviceGuru.com. Check 'em out.
While download speeds isn't an issue, the issue I mentioned here is download capacity limits. Essentially, you're limited to 250 GB or less a month, which may put a kibosh on downloading HD movies given that one movie at 720p resolution will probably take about 12-15 GB of downloads.
ISP's are imposing download capacity limits not only because of fear of the current network infrastructure being overwhelmed, but also to discourage continuous downloading from torrent sites (torrent sites often carry illegally copied material).
I think the balancing act here, and the point of the OP, is that suddenly ISP complaints about a "few bad players [cough pirates cough] sucking up all the bandwidth," starts to really lose its authority. Then it becomes a balance between the loss of a PR whipping boy (file sharers) and the need to control costs. I think the first casualty in this battle will be the ISP's ability to continue to sell "unlimited" capacity. They will be forced into a little more truth in advertising. Then they will have to price-out various cap levels. Heavy streamers will pay more, you standard 40yo streaming netflix only who keeps their cable/sat will pay the same, and grandma will be allowed to pay less for email. In essence it will turn into the cell phone minutes model where you pay for what you think you need and just a little more because the penalty per/GB for going over will be excessive.
At least that is where I see this going when you're average non-file sharer starts hitting the current caps for doing something "normal" like watching a bunch of netflix. Because no one is going to listen to this bullshit about file sharers at that point. Now, what they might start listening to again is conversations about a tiered internet with netflix being lionized.
If you can't be good, be good at it!