[mythtv-users] Netflix's new Roku product.

Mark Knecht markknecht at gmail.com
Sun Jun 1 00:42:39 UTC 2008


On Fri, May 23, 2008 at 9:38 AM, Todd Ignasiak <todd.ignasiak at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, May 20, 2008 at 4:06 PM, Marc Barrett <mnealbarrett at cox.net> wrote:
>> Netflix has a new set-top product, apparently designed by a company
>> called Roku.  It is designed to be used with their subscription service,
>> and in most ways resembled the AppleTV.  It doesn't have HD, but
>> there are rumors that this is limited through software for now;
>> apparently, they are not ready to deliver HD content, so they have
>> disabled it or now, and will enable HD later when they are ready.  It
>> is less expensive than the AppleTV, though, at about $100 compared
>> to about $230 for the AppleTV.
>
> Roku has a user forum, where this device is being discussed:
> http://forums.roku.com/viewtopic.php?t=16685
>
> In that forum, a Roku employee mentioned the chip that is used.  It
> supports HD MPEG2 and H.264.  The chip's site also mentions Linux
> support:    http://www.nxp.com/#/aip/aip=[aip=416]|pp=[t=aip,i=416]
>
> So, if the firmware could be completely replaced on the Roku box,
> there might be some interesting potential..

My Roku box arrived today. For simplicity I just grabbed the composite
and digital audio cables from my DVD and plugged them into the player.
After about 5 minutes of setup - mostly just waiting for the box to
download some updates and restart, and then after entering an
activation code on the Netflix site - presumably to identify this box
with my account, the machine was up and running with no problems so
far.

My son is screaming that the network is lagging for his game - tough
S#$%, right? ;-) Too bad I say.

Some strangeness with the audio. Of all things it seems that 'Les
Paul: Chasing Sound' is coming through in mono. Center channel only.
Some other movie I started has at least the front 3 audio channels.
Not sure about rear yet.

Video quality looks good. Far better than my PVR-150/250 cards but it
is using composite so I'd expect it had better look good. So far it
seems comparable to my standard DVD. We don't have HD DVD here yet.

One head's up about the way it operates. It requires that you do your
browsing for movies mainly online at the Netflix site and add them to
your Instant Queue. Once they's in your queue they show up on the
player pretty much instantly.

Stupid me for not ordering the composite/optical cables from them.
Thought I had extras. That will cost me.

Cheers,
Mark


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