Roku Netflix Player Set-top Box Review

Roku Netflix Player Introduction

When rumors of a Netflix set-top box started surfacing around the Internet, my ears perked up. The thought of bringing Netflix' Watch Now technology to my home theater made me nearly salivate. After all, current "free" on-demand offerings from cableTV are extremely limited, showing up as channel-specific, public domain, and/or Black & White classic fare. Satellite TV's flavor of on-demand is nearly nonexistent and its crippled functionality currently gives it a steep uphill climb before it can even begin to mature.

Upon hearing Roku announce immediate availability of its new set-top Netflix Player I immediately ordered one. There's been much criticism and skepticism about the player and its usefulness to enthusiasts. What I'll attempt to do is break it down technically, demonstrate the interface, examine the playback quality, and then summarize what different types of users might think of this new technology.

The Roku Netflix Player doesn't actually store movies within the set-top unit itself - at least not in their entirety. Rather, it caches enough to enable playback of the film, uninterrupted via streaming download. There are several advantages to this. First, it maintains the status of the box so that Netflix isn't paying royalties on full downloads which then need to be concerned with HDCP or other copy protection. With the Roku box the other significant advantage is that selected films will playback almost immediately. Thirty seconds was the average time I measured for new downloads. Compare that to the length of time it would be to download an entire DVD movie, which could be in excess of 3 GB.