Finally, the device I’ve been waiting for. I’ve happily been a Netflix subscriber for a little over five years now, the concept of driving to the Video Store to fight for the last copy of “The Great Outdoors” on movie night is now a distant memory to me. Instead, I build a queue of movies online, and within a business day the top three are in my mailbox waiting. Then Netflix took it a step further and launched Watch Instantly, filling the void on the few occasions where my planning was poor and I found myself on a Friday night without a new movie. On the surface, Watch Instantly was a great concept, I sit at my computer, launch Internet Explorer, and within a couple minutes, I’m watching a movie streamed over the Internet from the Netflix site. Therein lies my problem with the Watch Instantly service, it requires I be at my computer. When I watch a movie, I want to site in my living room, with the big screen TV, surround sound, and comfortable couch. I do not want to sit at my desk, with my little computer speakers, and watch a movie.
Apparently I wasn’t alone, and Netflix listened.
Right around the New Year, Netflix announced they had partnered with LG to integrate the Watch Instantly service into a set-top box that would connect directly to the TV and stream Netflix movies from the Internet, eliminating the need for a PC. In the same announcement, Netflix also indicated this partnership with LG was not exclusive, and to expect other hardware vendors to also integrate this functionality into devices.
On May 20th, 2008, another hardware partner was discovered, and Netflix and Roku launched the Netflix Player. Appealing to my impulsive side, I ordered one that day.
I received the Netflix Player about one week after ordering (I guess it was more popular than they expected). The folks over at HackingNetflix have a good video on the unboxing and setup:
I’ve been using the player for almost two weeks now, and my initial review is positive. The player is small, setup took all of ten minutes (including a firmware update and reboot), it’s wireless, the interface is fast and clean, and the player is silent, no fan whatsoever. The video connections on the back of the player range from Composite and S-Video to Component and HDMI, and for audio the player has analog RCA, Optical and HDMI. I have the player connected over HDMI to a 37″ Vizio LCD TV, and connected to the Internet via wireless G. Streaming movies to the player is fast, from selecting Play on a title to start of the video is about 20 seconds, which appears the player uses to cache some of the video for Fast Forward and Rewind operations. The buffer also appears to help with general playback, as I have yet to experience any video cutouts or digital blocking from network congestion. Much like the website, the Netflix Player also determines the quality of video by basic network tests at the start of each play. Most videos are about DVD quality, but it depends on the quality of the encoding, and age of the movie.
Now for my dislikes so far:
- No HD Content – I’ve been spoiled by renting HD DVDs and now Blu-Rays from the Netflix site, so it’s tough to go back to these standard definition movies. The good news is the Roku player is HD ready, meaning no need to upgrade hardware if Netflix decides to start offering HD titles in the future.
- Audio is limited to 2 Channel Stereo Sound – This goes along with the HD Video comment above, the player can handle up to 5.1 surround sound, when Netflix decides to start offering titles.
- No Queue Management through the player – this partially helps keep the interface as clean as it is, but it is still a paint to have to boot up a PC to add items to your Watch Instantly queue.
- Limited content on the Netflix site – The Netflix catalog has over 100,000 DVDs, yet only 10,000 items are available through the Watch Instantly service. While they are constantly adding new content, especially TV shows like “Heroes” and “The Office”, they really need to expand their selection.
Overall, this is a great product, and the perfect compliment to any Netflix Unlimited Rental account. To help with the content issue, it has also been announced that Roku will open this player up to other providers, in addition to Netflix. For $99, this box is a good deal. Buildout the Watch Instantly library and turn on the HD videos, and this box becomes a steal.
