Monday, August 04, 2008

Roku -- Will It Rock Me?

I love my Netflix. I love the convenience and selection. If I had to gripe about one thing it'd be that I wish I could get movies faster from them (due to the USPS turnaround time). That said, I've watched a few things on their "Play Now" service and, yeah, it's okay but I really prefer watching things on my television and not my laptop. It's probably just because that's the way I'm used to watching things.

That may all change, soon, as I picked up the Roku Netflix Player last night. It's a device that's supposed to hook up to my TV and, via my wireless connection, download and play Netflix "Play Now" titles as fast as this little box can download them. That means I won't be "wasting" rentals on some of the lower tier films that are available on the on-demand service because, let's face it, many of the titles Netflix streams are second-rate. Or, at least, it seems that the titles highlighted in my queue that are available to see "instantly" are usually the crappier films. For example; in my top 25 at the moment the titles available to stream are Like Father, Like Son, Vice Versa, and Dead Like Me. Out of the 350 movies I want to watch, 50 of them are available instantly. Not bad. Not great but not bad.

I'll test it out and let folks know if it's a bust or boon.

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