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Roku Box Adds HD, Grows Beyond Netflix

Posted by kdawson on from the watch-anything-anywhere dept.

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."

4 of 95 comments (clear)

  1. Re:XBMC by SoapBoxRants · · Score: 2, Informative

    Have you seen an AppleTV running Boxee? With the exception of Netflix capabilities (which they are working on adding)...it basically is XBMC with a much better interface.

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    It is a mistake to think you can solve any problem with just potatoes.
  2. Re:Maybe I'm just not aware of it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Look up FyreTV. Unfortunately, they just ended the free beta period. It's $10 for 100 minutes of streaming per month and the hardware is free.

  3. Re:"Presumably" Hulu by exhilaration · · Score: 3, Informative

    I don't see any licensing issues as long as Roku doesn't try to block commercials. After all, it's just another web client, relegated to a niche audience.

  4. Re:I love Roku by LodCrappo · · Score: 2, Informative

    At the moment there is no evidence of openness that I can find.

    you either didn't look very hard or don't have much in the way of researching skills.

    http://www.roku.com/community/gpl_nfp.php

    http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=2932

    http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/30/1645200&from=rss

    http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10050649-93.html

    http://hackaday.com/2008/07/02/netflix-player-source-code-released/

    http://forums.rokulabs.com/viewtopic.php?t=17046&highlight=&sid=1bea026fdae6ddaace484e70273f2d0d

    I'm not saying much has become of it, but Roku has already released all GPL code and is hosting forums for their users where they allow talk about hacking it at least. They publicly state their intentions to allow any content provider to use their box to distribute content, and mention the release of a software development kit to help people do that.

    I don't know if you are claiming there is no evidence of "open" as in FOSS or "open" as in allowing other companies to use the platform, but there seems to be plenty of evidence of both.

         

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    -Lod