Roku Add 1080p HD To XR Streamers With 2.9 Firmware Update

Roku has pushed out the latest firmware update for its Netflix streamers, with 2.9-b1509 bringing 1080p HD support to the older Roku XR STBs and various other Hulu optimizations that affect all models. Hulu streams should now start playing quicker, and be more resilient to higher-latency networks.

The new 2.9 firmware will automatically install on your Roku box at some point over the next few days, but you can also manually trigger the update from the Settings page.

- Enabled 1080P support for XR units.

- Hulu application optimizations for quicker trick play navigation and start of playback.

- Hulu application optimization for improved playback performance on networks with higher latencies.

- Fixed a bug that could result in a crash if an app tried to load an image that was too large (greater than 1280x720).

- Fixed playback of poorly interleaved video streams which resulted in rebuffers around the 25 minute mark in Roku Newscaster programs.

- Fixed a remaining case of playback at the incorrect aspect ratio.

- Changed option menu action name from "change order" to "change position" for re-arranging channels.

- Fixed a bug in channel re-ordering related to presence of screen savers.

- Modified channel store "go to channel" behavior to launch the selected channel instead of only focusing the icon on the Home screen.

- Added screensaver preview and set options to the channel store springboard.

- Fixed a subtle audio playback issue in UFC streaming.

[via Zatz Not Funny]