Roku Set-Top Box Gets A/V Aggregation Service

DeviceGuru writes "Mediafly's A/V podcast aggregation service will be added to Roku's $100 digital video player set-top box this fall, the companies report. This puts the companies on a path to compete directly with Hulu.com. According to Mediafly, its service will provide free access to 'tens of thousands of audio and video podcasts' from NBC, CNN, ESPN, Comedy Central, and other sources. Roku VP Jim Funk notes that Mediafly is using a new Roku Developer Kit to ease the task of developing its add-on for the Roku box. Surely the cable companies are reading the writing on the wall!"

Comments

Just a feature not a killer

[jalvear]

Yes I'm sure cable companies are worried about a provider like Roku that needs a broadband connection which just added support for podcasts that no one listens to. Nice feature but hardly a cable killer.

Cable companies arn't afraid of this.

[nloop]

Grandpa doesn't use the internet for the internet, he's not going to use it for his TV! This is going to fall into the realm of torrents and text messages, generational.

That and their content is pretty lame.

Snowballing Hopefully.

[TonyDanzaBot2000]

I dunno if the roku player will actually play towards eliminating the cable television industry but hopefully this device and others services of its ilk will force some changes to the draconian 4 tier system. I refrain from subscribing to cable tv simply because I don't want to support 90% of the programming I'd be purchasing. If I could choose an a la carte type plan that allowed me to buy the channels I actually watch instead of paying for lifetime, MTV, and Fox News; I'd happily pay for it. Until then Hulu can keep me pretty entertained, network news is free, and watching sports gives me an excuse to go to the pub.

Re:I would hardly call that Hulu competition.

[ironwill96]

I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned the PlayOn software that i've been using for the past year. It only cost me $30 and as long as you already own some sort of game console (360 and PS3 are supported now, Wii support coming soon) it is a better solution than the Roku box.

You run the PlayOn software on your machine and it transcodes internet streams into a format your console can recognize as a media server over your home network. I can watch things from Hulu, CBS, ESPN, Netflix, Youtube, and Amazon VOD. I can also watch movies or listen to music stored on my computer's hard drive itself. This lets me easily watch Hulu on my 50" HDTV instead of at my computer monitor.

The last few updates have vastly improved the reliability of the streams and you have the ability to pause, fast forward and rewind streams. The ads on Hulu are still included and PlayOn pretends to be a browser so I think that is why Hulu hasn't gone after them yet to stop the streaming. Hulu only does 1 ad per commercial break though (so far) so it isn't very annoying at all.