I have been a Netflix subscriber for some time now. I have the plan where I get 3 DVDs at a time, unlimited DVDs a month and unlimited Instant Play. I love the DVDs by mail but I was not taking advantage of the Instant Play. For those of you who don’t know Instant Play is a service Netflix offers that allows you to stream movies over the Internet instantly to your computer or a device that supports this service.
I could easily sit in my chair and watch the movies on our Macbook. The problem is what if I wanted to watch a movie with my family or friends? We couldn’t all huddle around the Macbook’s 15″ display. I wanted the movies streamed to the living room tv. Before some of you get ahead of me I know very well I could use a computer to stream these movies to my tv and I happen to have a late model dell that would do it well. But, I do not have a new tv with a PC/RGB input. Our tv is a 27″ CRT with composite and component inputs. We have bought our first house this year and have had our first child so more important things need to be purchased before a $500 televison.
However, I wanted to take advantage of the streaming movies so I put the Roku XR in my amazon.com wish-list. A $129.00 device that can save you money on entertainment is a justifiable purchase to us. More so than a $500 tv.
The Roku XR is small and has component, composite, s-video and HDMI outputs. So when we finally get that glorious HD TV the Roku will be ready for it. The XR has 802.11n networking so when the day comes that I can upgrade the trusty Linksys WRT54G to an N-router of some sort it will be ready for that as well. I have an 8Mb download speed from my Internet Service Provider so the movies are of quality resolution and play smoothly. I like the additional channels that are available through the device such as Revision3 and Twit. I am sure the few channels they have are just the beginning of what is to come.
I give the device two thumbs up. It works, gets the job done, low power consumption (6 watts) and it’s small form factor is a big plus. Need a Netflix device? Check out the Roku.
