Thursday, May 29, 2008
Want An Easy Way to Play Your Netflix Content on Your TV? Try Netflix Player by Roku!
Posted by Tim Williamson in "Digital Home Hardware & Accessories" @ 01:00 PM
"If you're a Netflix subscriber you may have noticed that in the last year or so the company has rolled out a Watch Now option that lets you instantly watch some of the movies and TV shows in the Netflix library on your Windows PC with a broadband connection. More recently, in upgrading its digital offerings, Netflix has taken things a step further by separating out the Instant Queue from your DVD Queue. While the all-you-can-eat streaming video option is a nice perk for users (it's available to any subscriber on the $8.95 per month plan or better), the real dream for many people is that instead of watching movies on your PC's monitor, you cut out the computer completely and go right to your TV. Well, with the Netflix Player by Roku ($100) that has become a reality."
CNET reviews the NetFlix Player (made by Roku) and gives it a solid 7.7. This little box connects to your TV and the net (via wired or WiFi) and allows you to play your Netflix "Watch Now" streaming content directly on your TV (without having your PC turned on). It only streams video at 480i, but is capable of higher resolutions, although, for now available bandwidth is a limiting factor here. One cool thing is you can start a movie on your PC, then automagically resume the same movie from the same spot on your Netflix Player on your TV. One thing I didn't like is that you can't add new "Watch Now" content to the queue directly from the player, you have to do this from your PC. I guess this isn't too bad as long as you fill up your queue beforehand. What do you Netflix users out there think about this thing? How about non-Netflix users, would this be a reason to make a jump to their service?
CNET reviews the NetFlix Player (made by Roku) and gives it a solid 7.7. This little box connects to your TV and the net (via wired or WiFi) and allows you to play your Netflix "Watch Now" streaming content directly on your TV (without having your PC turned on). It only streams video at 480i, but is capable of higher resolutions, although, for now available bandwidth is a limiting factor here. One cool thing is you can start a movie on your PC, then automagically resume the same movie from the same spot on your Netflix Player on your TV. One thing I didn't like is that you can't add new "Watch Now" content to the queue directly from the player, you have to do this from your PC. I guess this isn't too bad as long as you fill up your queue beforehand. What do you Netflix users out there think about this thing? How about non-Netflix users, would this be a reason to make a jump to their service?
