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 February 1, 2009 Will Roku Rule the World?
But the most important feeling that fueled my addiction was one of discovery. A friend who knew I loved the music of John Coltrane asked me if I knew about Johnny Hartman, who sometimes sang with Trane. Another introduced me to Kraftwerk because he knew I loved Tangerine Dream. In a record store, as I browsed the Brazilian section, someone near me would ask if I knew about Milton Nascimento’s Clube da Esquina; I’d then turn them on to Jorge Ben’s Tropical. One discovery would lead to another, and while there were lots of lumps of coal, the occasional diamonds made the whole quest worthwhile. When movies were first released on VHS tape in 1976, a VCR cost about $5500 in today’s money, a blank VHS tape $75, a prerecorded movie just under $500. But despite the expense, the whole cycle of hunt, camaraderie, and discovery began all over again. The inconvenience of having to spend lots of money to feed my addiction never entered the equation. Why was I gazing at my shelves? Because I’ve had to install enough of them to house my 15,000 CDs, 2500 DVDs, and 1500 LPs. (I said it was an addiction.) My total investment is dizzying. Luckily, a career in writing about music and movies, along with a few stints as a radio announcer, meant that some of those shelves were filled for free. Still, there’s a lot of sheer mass there . . . . . . and especially when I compare all those shelves full of discs to the Roku Digital Video Player ($99 USD), which is the size of a paperback book. This little box exists to do one thing and do it well: securely transmit protected digits to your house in ways that keep Hollywood film producers convinced that they’ve avoided the pirating of their intellectual property. The folks at Netflix, the Internet DVD-rental business, were the first to see a way to use the Roku to their advantage. After buying their DVDs and Blu-ray Discs, Netflix’s main cost of doing business is postage and handling. With the Roku, they can hook us on the instant gratification of being able to choose from among 12,000 titles and have them transmitted with, at most, a 30-second delay. And every time we watch something on the Roku, we’re not watching one of their shiny discs, on which Netflix pays the postage both ways. For the viewer, it’s a pretty spectacular idea. You pay $99 for the Roku itself; then, as long as you’re a Netflix subscriber, you have free, unlimited access to any movie listed under the "Watch Instantly" tab on the Netflix website. And that list grows longer daily.
I began with a nature documentary, Dogs that Changed the World. The picture resolution was somewhere between that of a good VHS tape and an SD DVD, but this was originally a TV show. I then tried a film in HD, Pan’s Labyrinth. HD streaming is still relatively new to Netflix; to get an HD film to stream without glitches, they go no higher than 720p resolution, and even then, they compress the signal by reducing the bits. On our 100" screen the picture was soft, and the compression played hell with the shadow detail in the film’s many dark scenes. Overall, SD DVD signals looked like a good-quality VHS through the Roku, while HD signals looked like decent SD DVD. This seemed a serious design flaw. I contacted Anthony Borba, Roku’s product manager, and asked him about the picture quality. "Netflix does the encoding," he said. "Right now, Netflix’s HD streams are in 720p, and they do two versions: 2.6Mbps and 3.8Mbps. We play these streams now. If higher-definition streams become available, we will support those as well." On smaller screens -- under 50", say -- the Netflix-Roku images should look just fine. The important point for potential buyers of a Roku is that the content providers will be choosing the resolution and bit depth; your ability to get the very best image quality will depend on your bandwidth and their largesse. As for the Roku, it’s ready for whatever anyone wants to throw at it. Currently, only a few recent blockbusters are listed on Netflix’s "Watch Instantly" list. Otherwise, Netflix is sticking with older and/or more obscure movies. Still, nothing beats being able to watch, on the spur of the moment, an old episode of Spooks, a foreign film such as The Orphanage, or the members of Pink Floyd reminiscing about making Dark Side of the Moon. I wouldn’t use one of the three rental slots of my mail-order Netflix subscription for any of those, but if I had the time and inclination, I’d love to see all of them. That’s the beauty of having a huge library from which everything is instantly available: You can follow your fancy. With a Roku and a Netflix subscription, you can use the former for viewing on a whim, the latter for the big blockbusters on Blu-ray.
I’m afraid the Roku is another nail in the coffin of the spinning silver disc, a continuation of the shift in how we use media that began with MP3 compressed audio files, which allowed users to share music via the Internet. Like the original music sharers, Roku’s content providers are struggling with how much data compression is acceptable to their customers. Roku’s quality is bound by bandwidth limitations and those who provide the content. The Roku Digital Video Player needs 4Mbps of bandwidth to play Netflix’s highly compressed 720p signals. My math isn’t so good, but it seems to me that a 1080p signal will require just under 10Mbps, unless Netflix compresses the signal even more (bad idea, since it already looks like it's 4 to 8 bit depth now). Amazon.com will be using the popular h.264 codec at 1.2Mbps, which should be equivalent to SD DVD resolution, albeit somewhat compressed. Does that mean they can stream a 1080p signal via the Internet at 3Mbps? I don’t know. No one’s tried it yet, as far as I know. Meanwhile, bandwidth gets cheaper by the day. I buy 7Mbps of it from Road Runner, but for just $10/month more they’ll sell me 22Mbps. That would be all the bandwidth I’d need for HD all over the house. The question is, will the media providers step up to the plate?
No matter what happens, the little Roku player should be able to handle it, which is why its potential seems almost unlimited at $99 -- less than the cost of four movies on Blu-ray. Roku is the company that brought us the high-quality SoundBridge audio player, so there’s no reason their little player couldn’t start handling audio via the Internet as well. With a big bounce in bandwidth, I could foresee a service like Rhapsody moving from MP3 up to CD quality. A few sturdy souls already offer SACD-quality sound over the ’Net; lack of bandwidth is the only reason they couldn’t be streaming it on demand. This would be a perfect fit for a record label such as Naxos or Telarc International, and once the dam has sprung a leak, I can see the major labels quickly following suit. And the Roku would already be there. The idea of having all your electronic media at your beck and call 24/7 is intoxicating. With anything you could think of available via an Ethernet hookup, why have a collection at home? See why I’m worried about my shelves? But if all that happens, we lose something as well. Is trading the hunt, the discovery, and the camaraderie for unlimited access a Faustian pact with the Devil? I live in Austin, Texas, a huge music and film town, but the local shops that sell both are dying faster than anyone ever dreamed possible. Just as in the print industry, consumers now prefer their visual and audio media today via the ’Net rather than mañana on disc. Two-day delivery from Netflix suddenly seems an eternity. The potential of the hunt and new discoveries may be expanding dramatically, but the camaraderie is being reduced to a blog or a chat. In any case, many folks are already choosing immediacy and convenience, and the Roku is here today. For $99. . . . Wes Marshall Roku Digital Video Player Roku Website: www.roku.com
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Getting the Roku up and running was
incredibly simple: Create a connection for it to your home network (wired or wireless),
run the Roku’s HDMI cable to your receiver or processor (the Roku’s jam-packed
rear panel also includes every other type of connection), go through a quick activation
cycle on your computer, set your display characteristics (HD or SD, 4:3 or 16:9), and
you’re done. The Roku then takes you to the items under the Instant column of
"Your Queue" on the Netflix site. Pick a title, hit Select on the website, wait
a few seconds, and you’re on.
Roku doesn’t have an exclusive arrangement with Netflix’s "Watch
Instantly" list. A few Blu-ray players, the Xbox, and several models of TV set come
with the service already installed. So Roku hasn’t rested on their accomplishment.
They’ve already cut a deal with Amazon.com to bring in, for rent or purchase, 40,000
movies and TV shows -- including blockbusters on the same day they’re released on
disc in stores. And, as Roku’s Anthony Borba told me, "More content providers
are on the way."
