Would you be willing to pay a one time charge of $99.99 to view over 10,000 movies and TV Shows at anytime instantly? Well thanks to a partnership between Roku and Netflix, the entire Netflix “instant view” collection is now available to stream directly to your TV.

The Roku box is just a little bigger than 5 cd cases staked on top of each other. While netflix only offers stereo audio and SD support, the box is equipped with HDMI, Optical Audio, and component video. Netflix has confirmed that it will upgrade the unit via a software upgrade in the near future to support HD and multi channel surround audio. They have not specified the exact specs of the upgrade, but they confirmed it is on the way, and current units will be fully upgradable!

The menu looks pretty basic and easy to navigate. I personally have not had a chance to play with the interface just yet so I have quoted the Gizmodo review:

The box itself doesn’t have menus. No, instead, you use Netflix’s brilliant website to load up your queue. You just use the remote to scan through your instant viewing queue (now separate from the disc queue) select a movie and play. It starts streaming. (Remember, there’s no download/purchase program here and the device has no HDD, just 64MB of buffer.) The box is completely quiet, again, due to its fanless design. Movies stream in at different VC-1 bitrates of 500kbps, 1Mbps, 1.6Mbps and 2.2Mbps, depending on connection speed. Quality is not great, even at 2.2 Mbps, but I’m happy enough considering viewing is instantaneous. Note: Unlike Apple TV, scrolling between cover art is not done in an animated way. HDMI res is 480p, while all the other outputs are 480i. Fast forwarding is handled by key-framing movie content every 10 seconds, so you can FF to parts of the movie that haven’t been downloaded yet, at three speeds. Once you hit play, the movie buffers for a few seconds and resumes. Speaking of resuming, the player itself does remember where you left off last in a movie and will continue playing from that point. One nice touch: You can score movies from the movie detail page. One bad thing: You can’t search the Netflix website specifically for instant titles.

Netflix’s instantly available cataloge is huge. It consist of over 10,000 titles which is much more than any other competitor on the market. It doesn’t really have any new releases like the Apple TV, but what it does have is a huge collection of TV shows like The Office, 30 Rock, and House all for free! I am sure Netflix is working to get the rights for new releases, but as of right now you will just have to put up with a messily 10,000 cateloge movies and TV Shows! hehe

I believe it will start out like any standalone video player, it will start slow, but will improve quickly. You just have to remember that if you are a current subscriber, there is no additional monthly cost to use this service. I am defiantly going to check it out. I will post a video review and unboxing once I get my hands on the unit.

Links

Wired (7/10)
Cnet (7.7/10)
Gizmodo Review

Video Review

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that Netflix has noted that it will play video from other sources in the near future. I would love to see a good video podcast player for a TV!