JP
Netflix are pretty much synonymous with mail-delivery films in the US, and the company is now trying to do the same for internet-streamed media. The Netflix Player by Roku is the first piece of hardware promising to bring download movies to your TV, and going by the launch-day reviews it sounds like they’ve got a winner on their hands. $99.99 gets you a compact set-top box that, when linked to your online Netflix account, lets you play from the company’s 10,000 strong catalogue of titles, automatically selecting the highest resolution your broadband can support.
The Player itself has HDMI, component and composite connections, together with stereo audio, optical and ethernet ports. Pairing with your existing Netflix account is straightforward and you can use either a hard-wired or wireless network hookup. There’s no high-definition yet (though it’s supported once the streams are there), and you can’t browse or select titles on the Player itself – you have to pick them via your online account before they show up on the box – but playback quality is good despite it only buffering chapter images and around four minutes of footage.
Netflix are charging $8.95/mo for unlimited access to movies, which happily undercuts both Amazon Unboxed and Apple TV if you’re a keen viewer. The key issue every review flags up is the absence of new releases available for streaming; that, hopefully, will change as the service picks up momentum and the studios see it as A Good Thing. Best of all, there’s talk of it being integrated into new TVs, which means one less (bland) box in your living room. More details here.
Crunchgear review
PC Mag video review
Wired review
Gizmodo review
CNET review
4 Responses to “Netflix Player by Roku launched: reviews overwhelmingly positive”
Jacob May 20, 2008
I’ve streamed a few movies from Netflix through their Internet Explorer client, and even though I have 1.5 Mbps DSL from Qwest, I still get the lowest “Basic” quality which seems pretty trashy if you ask me. I don’t understand why the Netflix quality so so bad when I can watch content from Hulu.com that seems much higher quality. I would only spend $100 on a device if it guaranteed me the full quality content.
-1Steve May 21, 2008
Streaming HD, or any considerable resolution = MASSIVE Bandwidth consumption, so it’s really only worth it if you’ve got a 10Mbps or higher connection. They should’ve put in a buffer so you could tell it what movie to get, and your preferred quality, and then it would start putting some of it into memory instead of solely streaming it. Streaming digital content is the future, but unfortunately (most) broadband internet services still have catching up to do.
NeutralChris Davies May 21, 2008
Netflix seem to think slower connections will suffice; according to Gizmodo’s review:
“Movies stream in at different VC-1 bitrates of 500kbps, 1Mbps, 1.6Mbps and 2.2Mbps, depending on connection speed. Quality is not great, even at 2.2 Mbps, but I’m happy enough considering viewing is instantaneous”
Problem is, a bigger buffer would’ve added more money and more delay, which most basic users won’t be willing to pay or willing to wait for. According to Netflix Roku are the first of a number of manufacturers bringing out these sort of boxes, so maybe we’ll see one better able to cope with lower bandwidth soon.
NeutralJt smith October 1, 2008
a great deal for $100 I can instantly watch a movie, the key is instant availability of some 12,000 titles, some come in a faster stream than others so quality varies, regardless, I’m already paying for NetFlix, now I also have what my wife refers to as” the “free pay per view movies”
Neutral