Tag: roku

Roku XDS $10 off at BJ’s Warehouse

Roku’s top streaming video player, the XDS, is ten bucks off at BJ’s Warehouse stores until May 1st. The package includes a 6-ft. HDMI cable.

If you aren’t into iTunes, and you’re a Netflix user, Roku is the best streaming video player to get. I say that having also used a Wii, Xbox 360, and Sony Blu-ray player for Netflix Watch Instantly. The Wii interface is fun but it doesn’t do HD, the Xbox starts up really fast but it only does Netflix, and the less said about the Sony the better, because it’s a mess by comparison, which makes me wonder about their Blu-Ray player with Google TV.

My wish list for Roku channels includes Slacker and Amazon’s Cloud Player, but the offerings are otherwise excellent. One of my players is on Wifi (802.11g), the other is wired, and they perform identically. Standard definition Netflix videos are encoded at 1.5 Mbps, which shouldn’t be a problem on most broadband connections.

Apple-cation

This quote had me spitting up my tea.

“Apple is a very canny company that doesn’t necessarily originate ideas, but its core strength is in the implementation,” said Little. “This what is what Apple is about: it may one day be a first mover, but in most cases it’s a second mover where it has implemented things across a platform and ecosystem in a much, much better way than others do it.”

It’s from this article on the Huffington Post, which has more second-guessing about Amazon’s Cloud Player service. So it’s come to this, huh? Apple is now like Microsoft — an imitator, but an excellent implementer? I don’t think Apple’s at that point yet, with the iPhone and iPad being innovative, market-leading products (I own neither). However, in a couple of recent examples, Apple has been a follower. Apple took Roku’s lead with a small, diskless streaming video player, and Amazon is offering a service that Apple doesn’t. This quote in the article also seems off-the-mark to me.

“I’m not convinced that there is a huge consumer need” being filled by the offering, said Carl Howe, director of consumer research at the Yankee Group. “I have yet to see this as a big deal for consumers. It goes back to whether consumers are looking for a cloud-based music streaming service for music they already own. Do consumers really want to pay more for music they already own?”

The first five gig on Amazon Cloud Drive are free and available for uploading whatever music files you already have — the catch being they need to be MP3’s. (Correction: AAC is also supported.) For $20/year you can get 20 GB of online music streaming. Maybe that’s not enough for an entire music library, but it’s plenty for what you’re currently into hearing. Once Amazon offers Cloud Drive access on other platforms, especially the Logitech Squeezbox Radio and Roku player, it will be servicing my consumer need very well.

IPTV STB Wars

Having committed myself to Roku as my IPTV hardware of choice, it’s interesting to watch the thrashing that’s going on with the other players in this market. From my viewpoint, I see Apple TV as being an on-target hit, and Google TV as being a misfire. Look at the remote on this Sony Blu-ray with Google TV!

My feeling is that the whole point of having IPTV is to get away from computer keyboards, sit back, and relax. Who ever feels relaxed when sitting at their laptop or desktop? Or, for that matter, when they’re texting on a phone?

For $400, this Sony unit seems to be a bargain compared to Logitech’s Revue for $300, with its much larger keyboard, but without a Blu-ray player. My Logitech Squeezebox Radio is an excellent product, and having seen for myself Sony’s comparatively poor implementation of Netflix streaming, I wonder how its performance will compare to the Logitech Revue? But it’s an academic question for me, because of my two Roku units. Michael Hiltzik at the Los Angeles Times is also a Roku fan, and he has some insight into what Roku CEO Anthony Wood is thinking these days.

Roku expands offerings

Anybody in the U.S. who uses Netflix but doesn’t have a Netflix player for connection to a TV is really missing out. There are now a lot of Netflix-compatible devices. The one that I use, and love, is the Roku player.

Netflix seems to be on top of the movie game, and I think the industry has no choice but to deal with Reed Hastings and his vision of the future, the way Steve Jobs forced the music industry out of digital indecision. But I’m not on iTunes, in part because there are so many other options for music, especially for casual listening.

Roku offers services besides Netflix, and last night I took an update that enabled a bunch of additional channels. The one that caught my eye — actually, my ear — is the Pandora music service. A year ago I started using TheRadio.com, and it’s good, but I have to give the nod to Pandora, now that it’s on the Roku player. I want to hear everything that Elvis Costello has done that I don’t own, and Pandora makes that possible. I assume Costello gets money in the process, so everybody wins.

Another new Roku option is Revision3, with videos about tech topics. Looks promising. One of Revision3’s channels is Film Riot, where a guy named Ryan, who has some of Leonard Maltin’s mannerisms, teaches videography. Ryan’s latest entry features Popeye, which I liked, and I was impressed that he got into some history by talking about a technical innovation invented by Max Fleischer nearly a century ago.

Mediafly, sort of a news aggregator, is the only other Roku channel I wanted to try. Mediafly is rather rough around the edges, and not only is it slow to come up, there seems to be a bug that causes occasional lockups. Sometimes these are local to Mediafly, but sometimes they affect everything else on the player, and a restart is needed.