Roku Archives - Page 19 of 25

Simple.TV – Television Without The Screen

Simple.TV is the retail DVR you wanted five years ago. And yet it’s still interesting enough to make my personal list of top product announcements coming out of CES 2012. Why? Because it’s a truly viable, inexpensive way to add digital video recording to your TV set-up without cable’s help. Maybe you remember the Replay … Read more

Roku Misses Sales Forecast, Blames Netflix

As part of Roku’s “Streaming Stick” outreach, their team offered up interviews with CEO Anthony Wood. While we chose to pass on the opportunity, our pals over at GigaOm were more aggressive with their coverage… and dug up a few interesting nuggets in speaking to Wood (who you might recall created the ReplayTV DVR). First, … Read more

The Roku iPhone Remote(s)

roku-iphone-remote

Based on recent traffic, it’s clear many of you received Roku streaming hardware for Christmas or Hanukkah (with interest in a YouTube Channel… and content somewhat more racy). So we thought we’d take this opportunity to point out Roku’s brand-spanking new iOS remote app.

First off, Roku’s official app is free and therefore immediately worth a look for iPhone and iPod Touch owners. But, beyond the cost, we’ve found the remote highly polished for a v1 release – featuring a more efficient and powerful Roku Store experience than our Roku boxes actually offer via their television interface. Further, the virtual remote provides the priceless ‘instant replay’ button that’s not actually found on most Roku physical remotes – such as the one included with the $50 Roku LT. Yet there are a few areas that could use some improvement.

As a long time user of the very nice DVPRemote ($1.99), a third party Roku app, the official app is in desperate need of a virtual keyboard to enter credentials and search for content on various channels. Additionally, while some may appreciate swiping over tapping… many do not. And I’d personally like to see navigation “buttons” offered in a future upgrade. Again, Roku could follow the lead of DVPRemote by offering just such an option. But, in the interim, we’ll continue to recommend DVPRemote. Especially to those looking to control their Roku from an iPad.

Everybody’s in the TV Guide Business

Everyone wants in on the EPG business. That’s one of the conclusions I took away from the SCTE Cable Tec-Expo event earlier this month. Even as CE manufacturers are pumping up the volume on connected devices with their own video interfaces, vendors in the cable TV world are pushing a range of solutions that tie the electronic program guide into larger content management systems for pay-TV operators. I talked about Rovi’s TotalGuide EPG a couple weeks back, and there’s Arris’ Moxi guide, but those two are far from the only players in this game. Here’s a sample of three other companies touting their own guide solutions.

Clearleap

Clearleap is perhaps better known in the world of Internet delivery than it is in the cable industry, but the company is rapidly carving out a niche among MSOs. Speaking with CTO John Carlucci at the SCTE event, I learned that Clearleap has a hosted, white-label guide on the market, and that it offers media services to help operators manage, encode and deliver video to connected devices. Clearleap’s solutions are strictly IP-based, but they’re already being used by Verizon for its VOD platform, and Carlucci says the company’s in trials with “four of the top five” operators for its media services. As for the guide specifically, Clearleap’s solution could be a compelling one for tier-2 and tier-3 operators. The service runs on a pay-as-you-go model, and Clearleap is rapidly adding advanced features. The company recently integrated with Great Lakes Data Systems (GLDS) to add options for a-la-carte transactions that are tied back to a subscriber’s monthly cable bill. (Think additional IP content purchases on top of the monthly subscription) Carlucci says social features are on the way. Orbitel, a small cableco out of Arizona, launched the Clearleap/GLDS solution in October to create a branded VOD experience on subscriber Roku boxes.

Motorola

Motorola showed up with a reference EPG back at the Cable Show in 2010, but that’s as far as the company had ventured into the guide world until this fall.

Remember September’s Prediction? Starz is Going HBO Route.

Back in September I heard from a source that Starz was not only pulling its content from Netflix, but also planning an app on the HBO Go model. Now we have confirmation from Starz President Chris Albrecht that a mobile app is on the roadmap for 2012. Not only that, but Albrecht said at an investor conference … Read more

Better Netflix Browsing on the Roku

Every Netflix fan knows the pain of trying to browse the Instant Streaming catalog, and I know I’m not alone in longing for a better UI. Fortunately, there’s an app for that. At least on the Roku. The Instant Watch Browser for Netflix, developed by TheEndless, debuted as a Roku channel back in June. It’s … Read more

WDTV Live Lands Hulu Plus

Digital media streamer WDTV Live Plus has been updated to offer Hulu Plus. Although Western Digital’s platform (review here) may not feature as many “channels” as Roku’s, they clearly offer a solid and growing lineup of online content including Netflix, YouTube, Pandora, and two video on demand services. Additionally, as I frequently mention, one of … Read more

The First Roku 2 Update Hits, As Do EPIX & AOL Channels

Just a few short days after retail availability the first Roku 2 update has hit. And it can’t come soon enough for those us experiencing some typical early release crashiness (as described here and here). From the version 4.1, build 1255 release notes:

• Improved playback support in Crackle
• Fixed an occasional crash on entry into Angry Birds
• Fixed an occasional crash during video playback

Roku firmware updates are automatic and most players will be updated over the next week. If you would like to get the latest firmware version immediately, please visit Settings > Software Update on your Roku 2 Streaming Player to manually trigger the update.

I suspect the Roku crew is already hard at work on their next update, as these sorts of issues are all too common in new products… and this is an entirely new hardware platform for them. But I’m hopeful we’ll see even more improved stability, reliability, and responsiveness within a couple of weeks.