Real World Video Compression

I knew Netflix had plans to come out with a box of some sort, though last time I checked, it was built into a DVD player. Well I have a DVD player and don’t need a new one, so I wasn’t interested.

BUT, I totally bought the Roku this morning before I even finished reading this article.

Granted, I’m a gadget nut and all about things that play video, so this was practically a no brainer. Add to it Lisa’s obsession with our Netflix queue and we have an instant hit, even before it has arrived!

And I have to say, I disagree with the NewTeeVee gang on hardware costing money. I’m actually ok buying the hardware, especially if the content is more or less free. Now its not truly free, as I’m paying for the NF service already, but considering my house is 80% mac based, we don’t use the Instant watch service EVER (I literally watch one movie while on the road on my PC laptop). So a $100 box that enables functionality i’m basically wasting seems totally fair to me. And I like the fact the box is HD future proofed (smart, NF, smart). Now when they have HD streaming options, i’ll be already to watch, no painful upgrades.

It remains to be seen if the streaming speed and quality of the video actually allow me to use this box, so look for another look at this in the near future one i actually have my hands ion it. But, as a concept, I both love it and bought it.