Roku Netflix Player hands-on, first impressions
by Darren Murph 
posted May 21st 2008 at 11:22PM
Filed under: Other hardware, Set-top boxes, Internet
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
worldbfree4me @ May 22nd 2008 12:51AM
Once this puppy gets HD content, kiss Blu goodbye as a future leader in households across america. Oh the possibilities!
Nfinity @ May 22nd 2008 1:54AM
Are you crazy!!? :)
But but but digital downloads are a decade away. LOL!!!
This year SD content will go mainstream everywhere next year HD goes mainstream. No need for optical media at all.. Those who really can't get cable or don't have enough money to even get an HD TV will be plenty satisifed with regular DVDs and super-upscaling coming second half of 2009.
Of course, in none of this Blu-Ray has the future. Instead of letting HD DVD grow as a complete format almost 2 years ago we would've had everything ready by now and HD DVD would be already mass producing and replacing DVDs.
But there you go.. when you have greedy scumbags and corporate payoffs, now you ain't gonna have it at all.
why not the LS2LS7? @ May 22nd 2008 2:57AM
The BluRays I watch (like the one I watched today), use the most advanced codecs available and have bitrates of about 19mbits/sec.
How are you going to stream content of this quality when most people only have about 6mbits/sec of bandwidth?
gr689 @ May 22nd 2008 3:10AM
oh lord, HD-DVD was the one doing all the corporate payoffs dude, where ya been? HD-DVD almost did win, until people finally realized it was inferior to bluray, finally did the public realize a product was inferior and voted nay. Give me a break, would be replacing dvd.....that's a big joke.... by the time anything will replace dvd we will be well onto flash drive downloads for everything. DVD's are here to stay for a long time, deal......
Nfinity @ May 22nd 2008 3:31AM
LS2LS7.. it's working just fine on XBL and HD movies and shows look spectacular and I used it when my internet was about 4.5mbps. Worked fine, I just had to wait a bit longer for the download to cache (about 10-15 mins).
Now I have 25mbps (and I don't live in super rural area either) and it pretty much takes me like 2-3 mins before I watch the movie in HD. Between my Blu-Ray movies and HD DVD movies and XBL HD movies for example, I am yet to see a difference. There is some on some movies but it's completely negligible difference.
@gr689
I'd really love to smoke what you're smoking, to get away from reality. For real.
LOL at HD DVD the one paying through the nose..ha ha.. that's really a gem there. No doubt. Like HD DVD wasn't the superior and more finished format from the very beginning. The only advantage BR had was space and that we saw in quality meant absolutely ZERO.
You are either late into getting information or simply read nonsense that many people here on Engadget are talking about. Complete disconnect with reality.
No need to really speculate anything. We are seeing huge increase in digital download services and HD already being planned pretty soon. The world is not going to wait for Sony. We had a good cheap, mainstream friendly HD at 1080p. Sony screwed it up and pushed Blu-Ray garbage. It wont' take long until end of this year for people and companies to realize that digital is everywhere and a real business model with longevity, not optical media.
I do agree with you that DVD will be here to stay. By the time 80% of people even has HDTV, optical media and Blu-Ray will be in one of those articles in PC magazine about technologies that never took off.
andyg8180 @ May 22nd 2008 9:16AM
@gr689
HD-DVD inferior to Blu-Ray?? dude... are you serious?? stop reading engadget comment posts for your information... If you read specs, HD-DVD was basically a well produced and all-around product... Blu-Ray had extra space... thats it... big whoop... It's like saying, ohhh look at my big Mac Truck compared to your toyota prius... But guess what, prius can get 40+ miles to the gallon compared to your one mile per gallon... Blu ray beat HD-DVD, yet, its still not even a complete product... People still have to go out and look for the players with the new Profiles WHICH WERE SUPPOSED TO BE RELEASED ALREADY!!
If you look at the nielsen ratings, NO ONE IS BUYING BLU RAY!!! stupid ass... They are barely scratching the surface as compared to S-DVDs.... More people were buying blu/hd during the format war as compared to right now...
As for streaming, I'm already streaming from Hulu.com in 480P onto my plasma and it looks great... If netflix gets on the ball and moves to high-def, peace out physical media... I'm content with Dolby 5.1... as long as it looks sexy on the plasma, im very much content...
so, gr689, go read some more forum posts for your info and keep coming back with your half ass facts... I'm loving it... I love the "flash drive downloads" thing too lmao... Your mom is a flash drive download!!
andyg8180 @ May 22nd 2008 10:58AM
@Tony... now why did you have to bring out the "fanboy" term... go get a dictionary and come with something better... YOU are ignorant to believe size made a difference when there wasnt a blu-ray movie that filled up an HD-DVD...
also, i call BS because Transformers isnt even on blu-ray yet... so, ummm, what are you talking about...
Besides "size" tell me how blu-ray is superior? ummmm alrighty then... gotcha... have a nice day...
oh and did you forget that there was a bigger hd-dvd format in production that was pretty much the same size as a blu-ray? yeah, people forgot about that one... check the engadget articles, its out there...
oh, and the 480p term was a compliment to hulu.com... am i not allowed to give kudos to a good performance on engadget hd?
Leonardo DiCrapio @ May 23rd 2008 1:12PM
I'm a former HD DVD fanboy. I have pre-ordered a Pioneer BDP-05FD Blu-Ray player. I recently watch 28 Weeks later on Starz HD recorded to the hard drive of my Tivo Series 3 (the THX-certified box with the OLED front face/display) from Verizon FiosTV. Some of the night scenes were blotchy on my Panasonic TH-42PX60U. My set-up is pretty good; I am not going to settle for downloads that have inferior quality to what I have gotten from my FiOS/Tivo combo. I did watch the Descent with an Amazon UnBox credit I had; the scenes in the cave were poor many times.
why not the LS2LS7? @ May 23rd 2008 3:36AM
NFinity:
That stuff on XBLA is 720p. It has half the spatial resolution of BluRay or HD-DVD. And that's before you get into the greatly reduced data rate.
Hey, I watch OTA HD, and it's about 14mbits MPEG2, so of course the stuff on XBLA is tolerable. But the stuff on HD-DVD and BluRay looks a lot better.
Loban @ May 22nd 2008 9:47AM
Agreed, I thought it was common knowledge that HD-DVD was the superior format. I've never heard anyone actually say that Blu-ray is superior.
In the consumer market, lots of inferior technologies win over superior ones due to lots of things like marketing, familiarity, brand loyalty, etc. Just take a look at LCD vs. Plasma. LCD is probably going to be mostly responsible for the eventual death of plasma for no other reason than people can identify with it (because they know the acronym from their computer monitor). It's very familiar to them and they fall back on it even though plasma is the superior technology. They don't understand plasma, still believe in the old plasma myths that simply aren't true anymore, and would rather jump on the LCD bandwagon than take a risk with a superior technology in plasma.
Tony @ May 22nd 2008 10:11AM
You guys are a bit crazy...extra storage space means alot because it's already been proven that HD DVD didn't have enough, see Transformers HD DVD. I have both formats, it's just ignorant to say HD DVD is superior. Get over it. If you are content with 480p video then what are you doing on Engadget HD? Does not compute. Real High Def is 1080p and lossless audio, so get over your format fanboyism and embrace High Def!
TKurata @ May 22nd 2008 11:07AM
The Bluray I was watching the other day was peaking at 40mb/sec video and 6mb/sec audio...and it looked and sounded beautiful. For those of us who want the best AQ and PQ, the infrastructure simply isn't there yet to make this viable. I'll be the first to jump on board once it gets sorted out and I can have 50mb/sec bandwidth...for now though Bluray is the only way...
Nfinity @ May 22nd 2008 3:45PM
99% of people can't see the difference between 720p and 1080p from normal viewing distance at all and you see the difference between 20mb/sec vs 36mb/sec difference at 1080p. You must be superman or something. FOR REALZ :)
why not the LS2LS7? @ May 23rd 2008 3:38AM
Well, then go ahead and call me Kal-El, because I can tell the difference in both cases.
So why should I settle for what I can tell with my own eyes isn't as good?
jonathan @ May 22nd 2008 4:51PM
So now I can watch Seaquest DSV thru the Roku Netflix Player or on a VHS tape that I recorded the show onto in 1993? Sweet?!?
I think I'm going to stick with the VHS... it probably look's better.