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Roku HD Player | 
 enlarge | Brand: Roku
Category: CE
Buy New: $99.99
New (3) Used (3) Refurbished (1) from $87.49
Rating:  550 reviews
Media: Electronics
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 5 x 5 x 1.8
MPN: N1100
Model: N1100
UPC: 829610847023
EAN: 0829610847023
ASIN: B001PIBE8I
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Features:
| • | Start watching movies on your TV in seconds using your high-speed Internet connection | | • | Instantly plays the entire Netflix Instant Watch library with your Netflix membership - no additional subscription required, viewing is unlimited | | • | Instantly plays over 45,000 movies and shows from Amazon Video On Demand | | • | Built-in wireless (Wi-Fi) and wired internet connectivity | | • | Plays High Definition as well as DVD-quality video; works with any TV |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
With Wi-Fi and High Definition playback capability built-in, Roku HD Player is the easiest way to stream top-quality instant movies and shows directly to your TV - over 50,000 and counting, from Netflix, Amazon Video On Demand, and more. The best-selling HD Player has everything you need to start enjoying endless entertainment from the comfort of your couch. No wonder it's Netflix members' top rated streaming player.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 550
 Amazing product and brilliant bang-for-your-buck March 3, 2009
D. J. Hampton
464 out of 474 found this review helpful
I purchased this in January, 2009 to add some additional value to my Netflix subscription. It has far surpassed my expectations, and has proven to be one of the best $100 I have spent in a long time. This is true especially in a down economy.
Here are the pluses, and the minuses, I have seen in the product after 2 months of daily use
Pluses:
1) Huge money saver: Having this box has allowed me to drop from 3 disks unlimited to 1 disk unlimited as well as drop cable entirely. The addition of Amazon on Demand is an even bigger value in that newly released movies will also be in abundant supply.
2) Ease of Set-up and use: I am a die hard apple fan because of their ease of use, and the set-up process was the easiest I have ever experienced. In less than 4 minutes I was watching a Netflix stream on my Sony HD TV. Also, the user interface is as straightforward as possible. A lot of thought went into it, and it shows. Bravo for one of the simplest interfaces I have ever utilized.
3) Clarity of picture: Unsrupassed and almost full HD. Often forget we are streaming over the internet.
4) It just works as advertised!
5) Customer Service: Video was skipping and contacted the customer service. You would never believe that a real live person answered the phone within 5 minutes on a Sunday night. Turns out it was a nework problem (see below). Amazing customer service!
Minuses:
1) The quality of your picture is tied to your internet speed. This has only been an issue once. My Charter Cable modem service averages above 4 meg downstream, but every once in a while the network performance drops. A call to charter fixed it. This is in no way an issue with the device, just something to be aware of. Check with your service provider on your speed before buying.
2) Direct Ethernet connection recommended for best picture: This is a limitation of my wireless network, but you may also have a similar set-up. My laptop has a G wireless card, and when it gets online the whole network slows down, and wireless video quality suffered. Solved it by using a direct ethernet connection, and recommend for everyone who is able to. Much more stable and very limited intereference.
That is my review to date. If you have Netflix and want to get Amazon on Demand there are few things that will be a pleasure to use and that will provide as much bang for your limited dollars. Thank you Roku, Netflix, and Amazon for such a wonderful product.
My best-spent entertainment dollar ever! February 6, 2009
Musashi (New York, NY USA)
147 out of 155 found this review helpful
I was already a rent-by-mail convert -- switching between Blockbuster and Netflix for a couple of years. For an extra $99, this box has already piped in hundreds of hours of tv shows and movies, filling in the wait times between disks. The Netflix instant movie selection started out not great, but recently they have rotated in some big films like the Lord of the Rings trilogy, pop hits like Superbad, the original "Grindhouse" double feature package, as well as lots of older and more obscure releases for adventurous cineastes like me, with NO extra charge to a regular Netflix membership. The addition of Amazon streams will soon make a good thing even better, and more providers should be coming into the mix soon (Netflix has mentioned adding an HBO-on-demand service soon). I've had the player since its introduction in summer 2008, and I've gotten enough milrage out of it that if it blew up today, I'd have gotten way more than my money's worth. I've heard a fair number of technical complaints from other owners, but mine hasn't even had a single glitch since purchase. With the exception of occasional problems at the Netflix servers, and rare errors in Netflix video encodes (for instance, they sometimes accidentally put the director's commentary track onto a video intead of the theatrical soundtrack, but I think they've tightened up the quality control recently in this respect), it JUST WORKS! In these economic times, there's a lotta bang for the buck in this tiny box!
Kill the cable February 26, 2009
Nomad (Portland OR USA)
115 out of 121 found this review helpful
This little box rocks. I have killed of all but my local channels on cable. This may have been the best $99. I have spent in years. My sons and I use it everyday. At first I was concerned about content, but there are like 12000 things to choose from...We have watched season 1,2 and in the process of season 3 of Heroes. You have no idea how cool it is to see shows like this with no commercials. Tons of movies to choose from. I really like the fact that the company has more than delivered on what they promised. I bought the box to add to my Netflix and now I can get amazon video on demand as well, and it didn't cost anything for the upgrade. How often has that happened...I am getting a ton more than I paid for. LOVE IT.
Great For Netflix - only! April 27, 2009
Basic Extinct (Midwest)
32 out of 34 found this review helpful
My Rating is based on the ROKU and NetFlix only. Amazon on Demand is
ridiculously expensive per title.
This unit and Netflix streaming is 5 plus stars!! If you have high speed internet (> 1.5 mbps download), then get at least the 1 DVD at a time subscription (which includes free any time streaming) and this device, then throw out HBO and Showtime. It's only $8 per month and you'll have access to all the latest DVD releases through the mail, and with this device, you'll be able to instantly watch over 12,000 movies and tv series. I use to think that Netflix was cost prohibitive but now it only takes 2 days from the time I mail out a DVD till I get my next one. At $8 dollars and instant streaming with with ROKU, you can watch alot of movies and tv series in a month!
A big plus is that the unit has wireless capability built in and the unit was a breeze to set up.
For Amazon On Demand my rating is a negative 1 star! The cost for the movies, tv shows, ect. are ridiculous! For instance, a movie that you will only be able to play back on this device at the location it is at, runs $5 for most titles. One and a half movies per month through Amazon costs as much as a full month subscription price to Netflix.
I compared the cost of streaming tv shows and found that most of the titles that were even fairly popular ran at least $2 per episode. That equates to the retail price of most series when you actually buy the DVD's. For unpopular series, the cost was $1 per episode. These are series that you find in your Walmart bargain [...]. Keep in mind that an episode that runs on network tv is only about 20 minutes in duration.
If you can stream Amazon, you can stream Netflix. BOTTOM LINE: Buy this unit for Netflix - NOT for Amazon On Demand!!
Good quality, excellent value March 4, 2009
Justin A. Parr (Dallas)
36 out of 39 found this review helpful
I bought mine when it first came out as a Netflix viewer, and receiving the update to access Amazon VOD just adds a ton value to my initial purchase.
Despite its diminutive size, the Roku player is well made, and the remote is nice and simple, yet fully-functional.
With both WiFi and "wired" Ethernet access, there is a lot of flexibility for connecting to the internet.
I have a relatively slow connection at 1.5 meg down, 384k up, and the Roku performs adequately, even with a Wii, two PCs, and a laptop all sharing that same internet connection.
Each time you begin streaming a movie, it assesses the available bandwidth while beginning the stream, and determines the quality accordingly. The quality is rated from 1 to 4 (4 is best), and I usually get a "4" even with other active streams (e.g. someone else in the house watching Youtube) running concurrently. Occasionally, I will get "2" during peak usage hours, when the ISP itself slows down.
As with all WiFi gear, if you intend to use the Roku player wirelessly, make sure your cordless phone does not share the same footprint (2.4GHz) or is DECT compliant.
The only down side I have found is that the box could benefit from a little bit more of a buffer -- 30 seconds is all it has -- in order to smooth out streaming and bandwidth issues that can arise, as well as to provide smoother rewind / review functionality. It would be nice to have a 30 minute buffer so that you can get up and do something, leave the box paused, and not have to worry about re-streaming or re-buffering. When you DO have to re-stream or re-buffer, it only takes a few seconds, but this can be annoying if you are trying to rewind to catch what someone said a few minutes ago (etc...). This is an area where I feel the PC-based Netflix player beats the Roku, but not by much.
Having access to my Netflix account was the primary reason I bought this device almost a year ago -- it's nice not to have to Tivo CSI and some of the other CBS shows that are usually available as a stream the next day. Unlike Amazon VOD, the Netflix queue has to be managed primarily through the web, with minimal queue management functionality on the device itself: Select, play, remove, rate is all you get in terms of queue management for Netflix.
I highly recommend this product.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 550
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