Digital Diversion

A few weeks ago Roku announced that their video player would now support streaming of HD content.  The announcement didn’t come as a surprise to me since that HDMI output was destined to be put to good use at some point in time.  My inner-geek really loves how Roku designs their products (including the Soundbridge) for seamless upgradability.  In terms of implementation, the user is met with a “what’s new” announcement and presented with an option to update their display type for HD, a 10 second process requiring a reboot.  So how does it look?  Obviously the movies themselves will only look better if they are encoded in HD and if you have sufficient internet bandwidth in order to deliver them in their full HD glory.  For their part, Netflix added an HD category within their Watch Instantly library although the quantity of HD titles is presently light.  In terms of video quality, I found it to be noticeably better than their standard definition movies but I wasn’t able to find on either the Netflix nor the Roku sites what their HD video specs are.  The video player itself supports up to 720p but to my untrained eye, I don’t think that the video was at that quality level.  Nevertheless it is a great improvement and will only get better with time. 

If HD support isn’t enough for you, Roku also announced support for Amazon Video on Demand in “early 2009″ bringing Amazon’s catalog of over 40,000 movies and TV shows to the Roku video player.  I’ve tried the Amazon video on demand with my TiVo Series 2 DVR and had a poor enough experience that I would not try it again on that box.  I assume that the Series 2 box just didn’t have the horsepower to handle streamed video well but I am certain that the Roku video player (as well as the TiVo HD Series 3) is better optimized for video streaming.  While it remains to be seen how usability of the Amazon service will work on the Roku player, this update will provide Roku owners with more choices by providing single title rental and purchase options.  This is also a great move for Roku because it extends their customer base beyond only Netflix subscribers.  I can’t wait to see it in action.