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

Mark Knecht markknecht at gmail.com
Wed May 21 01:03:45 UTC 2008


On Tue, May 20, 2008 at 4:37 PM, Scott D. Davilla <davilla at 4pi.com> wrote:
<SNIP>
>
> Reading the reviews, only 10 percent of the catalog is available for
> streaming and that does not include any current DVD releases.

That's all technically true but there's 'current' releases vs 'new'
releases. There are pleanty of current that suit me. I watch about 5x
as many hours of NetFlix streaming as I do our Myth boxes. The NetFlix
Watch Instantly library is great for picking up documentary releases
as well as foreign releases - both things my family won't allow in
terms of DVD delivery but obviously makes no difference to them if I'm
watching here in my office.

> It only
> has 64MB of ram with no other temp storage so pure streaming. Their
> software will detect your bandwidth and you need better than 2Mb for
> 480p. Only 480p is supported right now. HD content is promised
> (there's that word again) for when Netflix moves to HD content and
> Roku provides the firmware update.

I will only compare my AMD64 machine running Myth vs Watch Instantly
using our PCR-150/250 back end. No comparison in picture quality -
Watch Instantly's quality crushes ivtv/Myth recordings off of analog
cable. It's a very different beast as it takes 20-30 seconds to jump
around where Myth can do it almost instantly, but for watching
streaming media front to back as in movies without commercials it's
far, far better. We've gone so far here as to stop recording movies
almost completely with Myth and just take what we can get from Watch
Instantly. Additionally since the move to 0.21 Myth stutters a lot
whereas the same hardware works flawlessly with Watch Instantly.

>
> And forget about streaming your content -- not possible.
>
> My bet is that once Netflix starts to see the costs related to
> on-demand streaming they will have to rethink their pricing
> structure. They will sell many boxes but I'm staying away. Burned too
> many times with Roku.

I am personally guessing you have it backwards. NetFlix used to limit
the number of hours we could use Watch Instantly and made it
unlimited. I suspect that not having to keep DVD media and not paying
for envelopes and postage is probably cheaper than sending me the DVD.
I guess we'll only know over time but for huge amounts of so-so media
- documentaries, TV shows and to some extent things not everyone wants
to watch it's a great service and has enhanced our DVD watching as we
only get new releases for the most part as DVD's now.

Just my views,
Mark


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