Items tagged with Roku
When it comes to making it "big," hardly anything says "big" quite like making it onto Best Buy shelves. That's easily the most recognizable name when it comes to selling electronics, and now, Roku is making that leap. The company has already made a large splash in the online scene, with their players being some of the most highly-regarded ones to stream Netflix and other online content to televisions. Starting now, your local Best Buy store is a good place to shop for the Roku you've been dreaming about, with the Roku XD being available for $79.99. It's the same 1080p box you've known, with integrated 802.11n Wi-Fi, Instant Replay and Netflix streaming. There's also a good chance that you'll...
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Free flowing bandwidth; it's an enabler. There was a time when no one had cable modems or DSL lines. Remember that? Alright, fair enough, neither do we. Regardless, having a 10Mb+ data connection to your domicile is a thing of beauty, because there's obviously so much you can do with it. The question becomes not so much what the cable or telecom companies tell you, or sell to you, with respect to what you can do with it, but rather what a little imagination, and some optimized hardware and software can do with it. And that's exactly the premise by which service platforms like Roku, Apple TV, Google TV and Boxee were born, though Boxee was a bit of a pioneer in the space with the introduction...
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Free flowing bandwidth; it's an enabler. There was a time when no one had cable modems or DSL lines. Remember that? Alright, fair enough, neither do we. Regardless, having a 10Mb+ data connection to your domicile is a thing of beauty, because there's obviously so much you can do with it. The question becomes not so much what the cable or telecom companies tell you, or sell to you, with respect to what you can do with it, but rather what a little imagination, and some optimized hardware and software can do with it. And that's exactly the premise by which service platforms like Roku, Apple TV, Google TV and Boxee were born, though Boxee was a bit of a pioneer...
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There's a lot of movie streaming going on. Right now, it's hard to even fathom how many kilobytes are flying across the world as digital multi-media is consumed, but Roku is giving us a small glimpse into just how much streaming goes on. More and more people are cutting their cable out and relying solely on streaming for in-home entertainment, and Roku's collection of streaming set-top boxes are poised to skyrocket in popularity as the shift continues. Roku just announced that their user base now matches the reach of a top 10 cable company, with over 130 million unique streaming channels now available. And on this very week, the company served their one billionth stream of content. Last year,...
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And just like that, paying for cable or satellite starts to look even less attractive. Hulu, which launched a Hulu Plus subscription service months back to bring users more and more content quicker to the air date, started that 'Plus' service at $9.99 per month. Not too bad considering what you get, but some people still thought it too high. Now, it's costing even less. In an unusual move for a company like this, they're actually lowering the subscription price to $7.99 per month. Yeah, lowering! While Microsoft hiked the price of their Xbox LIVE service this year, Hulu Plus is going down. Any device that can access and play back Hulu Plus will have access to the newly priced service, and any...
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Roku is certainly making a new for themselves these days. With media streamers and content distributors all jockeying for position in this crowded market place, Roku has managed to become a star player with their low-cost, high-value boxes. Their line of self-branded set-top units provide instant access to Netflix, Amazon Video on Demand, MLB.tv and a bunch of other sources. For many, this is the box to get if looking to replace the cable set-top with something more economical. But Roku has reached an interesting point. They have nearly saturated the market doing all that they can do. They need some marketing muscle, and they recently acquired that by partnering with Netgear. Netgear recently...
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The Apple TV just started shipping to consumers this week, and there's no way to battle that like adding support for Hulu Plus. That's what has happened with the Roku line of media streamers today, as the company has landed a deal that will make Hulu Plus available on all Roku players. The Hulu Plus channel will be available via subscription to all Roku customers later this fall. This means that Roku now gives access to Hulu Plus, Amazon Video on Demand, MLB.tv, and many more. And yes, Netflix is included too. This nearly makes the Roku line of boxes ready to take over as the entertainment box of choice for many, and if there were ever a great time to drop cable and switch to something less expensive,...
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For Roku fans, good just keeps getting better. Today, Roku made two huge announcements. One involves a new product; the other involves a price drop. Does it really get any better than that? The new guy is the XDS, which is launching alongside a new XD model, as they both now supports 1080p HD, 802.11N Wi-Fi and 'Instant Replay.' And about that price drop...Roku now has three streaming box models: the entry-level Roku HD at $59.99; the Roku XD with Wireless-N and 1080p, and the top-of-the-line Roku XDS, which adds dual-band wireless technology and extensive connectivity options for home entertainment systems. That's right, you can now get a Roku into your home for as little at $60. Each of these...
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A very interesting new report at the Wall Street Journal has thrown a huge assumption from 2009 in the face of itself. If you'll remember, many entertainment analysts said that consumers could be spending more time in front of the television (instead of at the box office) during 2009 as they struggled to curtail entertainment spending in the face of the recession. It all made sense--consumers looking to cut back would be likely to stay at home on a Friday night and watch something on ABC instead of shelling out $15 per ticket (in large cities, anyway) at the cinema. In fact, that's exactly what didn't happen. 2009 marked the first year since 2002 that U.S. consumers spent more money buying movie...
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It's not unusual these days to see products come and go without making too much fuss in the market place. The consumer electronics realm is a tough one to make waves in, and somehow Roku has managed to captivate the industry at large and build up a respectable user base. Shortly after unveiling the Roku HD-XR, the company is now flipping the switch and putting the pressure on the software end of things. Throughout the next two weeks, Roku will be rolling out a substantial software update to Roku SD, Roku HD and Roku HD-XR boxes, giving all existing owners free access to ten new content channels. Already, users are given access to Netflix and Amazon Video on Demand, but as soon as the update hits...
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The Roku movie streaming set-top box has been a real winner in the grand scheme of things. While units like Vudu have struggled to grab ahold in the consumer market, linking the Roku box to Netflix was a golden idea. There are millions of loyal Netflix users across the US, and with a cheap box giving them access to "Watch Instantly" content on their TV, it's a no-brainer for most.Today, the company is introducing two new devices that'll be available alongside the original Roku. The first is the Roku SD, which is a scaled down version of the original that includes 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, an Ethernet port, composite AV connectors and support for SD-quality Netflix streaming. The allure here is the $79.99...
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The Neflix Player by Roku was one of first devices available to allow Netflix users to watch streaming video from Netflix's growing library of TV and movie titles available via Netflix's Watch Instantly feature. But while other devices have since also recently gained this capability, such as the XBox 360, TiVo HD DVR, and Samsung BD-P2500/BD-P2550 players--including supporting the few HD titles that Netflix currently streams--the Roku device has only supported SD titles until now. Roku has just announced that with a firmware update that is available starting today, however, that the Neflix Player by Roku can now stream HD titles.The Netflix Player by Roku is a $99 video player that connects to...
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A little over a week ago, Netflix unveiled a set-top box for watching on-demand movies and TV. The content box -- dubbed the "Netflix Player" -- was developed by the ingenious team at Roku.We were curious about the box and how it came to be, so we chatted with Tim Twerdahl, the VP of Consumer Products for Roku. Tim told us a little about the guts of the box, the future of the set-top box, and what he's watching now. Here's what we found out...Hey Tim, what powers the Player?Tim: It's running on Linux and we're using an NXP core processor. I'm not really deep into the tech side of things, but the version of Linux it's running is not off-the-shelf.Is there a storage device in the player?Tim: ...
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