Some time back someone had mentioned the Roku player from Netflix. I just received mine yesterday, installed it, and watched a few things. Works great. It would be nice if the newer movies were available, but c'et la vie.
The installation was a breeze. Total time from plugging everything in 'til you could watch a movie was 5-10 minutes. It took me longer than some because I used Wi-Fi for internet access, I had to add the Roku to the MAC filter list, type in my SSID on the Roku, and enter the WPA-PSK key. After that there was about 30 seconds for it to connect to the internet, connect with Netflix, download software update, and type in the activation code at the Netflix site. It takes about 20 seconds after you select a movie for it to start playing. I had no problems with drop out or poor quality, this is using Time Warner cable at 7mbps.
IMO, a very nice device. It will be interesting to see how Time Warner reacts to the increase in bandwidth. Comcast is being a real bear about it in some markets, so I've heard.
Quote: On Thursday, new Time Warner Cable Internet subscribers in Beaumont, Texas, will have monthly allowances for the amount of data they upload and download. Those who go over will be charged $1 per gigabyte... Tiers will range from $29.95 a month for... 768 kilobits per second and a 5-gigabyte monthly cap to $54.90 per month for... 15 megabits per second and a 40-gigabyte cap. Those prices cover the Internet portion of subscription bundles that include video or phone services. Both downloads and uploads will count toward the monthly cap.
Tiered pricing is not the same a Roku. Roku works WITH your internet service to download movies on demand for NO CHARGE except that which you pay for Netflix membership and internet service anyway.
problam is, only old movies are available on Roku now. Also quality is less than DVD resolution, about 480 lines or worse. Good idea but needs improvement
BurmaShave wrote: Tiered pricing is not the same a Roku. Roku works WITH your internet service to download movies on demand for NO CHARGE except that which you pay for Netflix membership and internet service anyway.
problam is, only old movies are available on Roku now. Also quality is less than DVD resolution, about 480 lines or worse. Good idea but needs improvement
The OP finished with this: "It will be interesting to see how Time Warner reacts to the increase in bandwidth. Comcast is being a real bear about it in some markets, so I've heard."
The "tiered pricing" in my post refers to Internet usage and addresses the question as to how Time Warner might react to downloading those movies.
Tiered pricing would indeed affect someone with a Roku since the price reflects how much data you download. The Roku streams video but that is considered the same as downloading by the ISP in most cases.
The video quality is same as most of the DVD's I've viewed: 480i. And indeed it does look as good. Not too bad all in all.
I personally don't think HD VOD is not going to be something readily available in the near future unless the ISP's are willing to drastically upgrade their lines and equipment, just too much bandwidth used.
it will be interesting to see where this high speed throttling goes, on the one hand they are restricting heavy users on the other hand they are drastically increases speeds, comcast says by 2010 they will offer 100 mps service in most of their service area. by the end of this year it will be in 20% of their service market, at speeds like that you can download a hd movie in less then a minute.
I am waiting for the netflix service to be offered through the xbox 360, since I already have one, thus saving the $100, several financial analysis are predicting it will come to the 360 first.
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fj12ryder wrote: Tiered pricing would indeed affect someone with a Roku since the price reflects how much data you download. The Roku streams video but that is considered the same as downloading by the ISP in most cases.
The video quality is same as most of the DVD's I've viewed: 480i. And indeed it does look as good. Not too bad all in all.
I personally don't think HD VOD is not going to be something readily available in the near future unless the ISP's are willing to drastically upgrade their lines and equipment, just too much bandwidth used.
tiered pricing isn't going to last long. think back to dial up days, or cell phones early day, everything was metered, and that didn't last long. I used to watch every cell minute, now I don't even come close to using my roll over minutes. Anywhere there is not a direct monopoly in place, their won't be tiered pricing, unless the tier is very liberal and doesn't affect most users, once it does, people will switch to dsl, also check the link I just posted the isp's are moving much faster then was though, comcast says it can have 100 mps service in 20% of its market by the end of this year. and they say in 100% by 2010. at a 100 mps, a hd video can download in less then a minute. things like the ps3 and the xbox 360 that already have downloads will see a huge boost. and things like this service will be fantastic.
There is a growing problem at the Network centers because of the increases in bandwidth being offered at the consumer end - they are running out of bandwidth and machine speed to keep up. With the faster speeds comes increased usage of high bandwidth services such as streaming video and the Internet backbone is simply not fast enough to keep up. Given that the ISPs margins have been drastically cut due to competition, they are seeking to be rewarded for the use of these services - so Netflix launches a streaming VOD service and the ISPs say, hey you are making money from streaming VOD using our bandwidth so we want some - as Netflix won't give it to them, they come after the consumer to pay for it through a bandwidth cap.
at the moment we still have competition and so it's hard for one company to introduce a cap without losing their customers to an ISP that has none - but as they get their act together we will, I am certain, see more and more ISPs with a monthly cap and then an additional charge for exceeding it.
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stevelv wrote: ..... Given that the ISPs margins have been drastically cut due to competition, they are seeking to be rewarded for the use of these services - so Netflix launches a streaming VOD service and the ISPs say, hey you are making money from streaming VOD using our bandwidth so we want some - as Netflix won't give it to them, they come after the consumer to pay for it through a bandwidth cap.......
the problem with their logic on this, is that if I run a telephone support service were people use the phone to call me to get their questions answered, I make money using their services, ie the phone line, so if they follow the logic, then they should be taking a cut of each sale I make, since I used their service in making it. they are a phone company and they provide the phone service, what I do with it is not something they should make a profit from, other then the money they make providing the phone line. I used to use dial up, but decided I wanted faster service so I got dsl, then I wanted faster service so I got a cable modem, Now they are saying we will sell you the faster service, but if you want to us it to make someone else money, then we want a cut of that also. If they want a cut of others profit, the cable modem service should be provided free, to incourage as much use as possible. and google, amazon, netflix could provide the revenue stream to the cable company.
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