Roku Day 2
I didn't have a lot of time to play around with it last night but I did get it attached via HDMI to the HDTV at home.
I hate to say it, but the picture is almost better on a composite connection. Once you jump up to the digital purity of the HDMI cable you see a lot more of the compression jaggies.
OK, given this doesn't hold true for ALL of the content, some of the poorly compressed TV episodes were actually quite rough. Case in point "THE TICK". I was really sad to see how badly compressed these episodes have been handled. I don't know if this was on the part of Netflix or the original DVD release, but I was not impressed by the rough quality of the playback at the highest level of streaming.
Of note about the levels of streaming:
Sometimes Netflix play it now technology will "misread" your line quality as low if there is a momentary drop in network speed. If this does happen and the quality indicator drops, it is simple to return to the homescreen and start playback at high quality again.
My roommate watched Seraphim Falls last night and remarked that the Roku box redeemed itself with the playback on that movie. The video quality was very good and audio crisp as well (the movie was another matter altogether though ahhaha... I still need to see it myself though).
It is an incredibly simple matter to browse the Watch It Now films and queue them in Netflix, but the Roku box leaves a lot to be desired in organization of your queue. I now have almost 100 films queued and all of those are in a single long Cover list in the order that I have added them. There are configuration screens on the device, but nowhere can you find and organization or genre system. I know this will fall to Netflix to install a backend database for the Roku device to read and I would love to have witnessed the boardroom conversations leading up to the Roku box release because even though it is a rock solid product, there are features missing. Conspicuously missing considering the amount of potential it appears to have.
EDIT
Nina reminded me that I'd forgotten to go into a couple of other details so here is what I'd sent to her:
The FFWD screen pops up (when you press the FWD or REV button) and you can see frames above scroll by as you move forward. It's a bit like chapters in a DVD but on a much finer level. (and it does move fast if you hold the button down)
Also I forgot to mention that pressing DOWN on the dpad brings up the synopsis and rating interface of the movie you are on. That way you can add stars, read info or remove it from your queue all together. Pretty handy.
I hate to say it, but the picture is almost better on a composite connection. Once you jump up to the digital purity of the HDMI cable you see a lot more of the compression jaggies.
OK, given this doesn't hold true for ALL of the content, some of the poorly compressed TV episodes were actually quite rough. Case in point "THE TICK". I was really sad to see how badly compressed these episodes have been handled. I don't know if this was on the part of Netflix or the original DVD release, but I was not impressed by the rough quality of the playback at the highest level of streaming.
Of note about the levels of streaming:
Sometimes Netflix play it now technology will "misread" your line quality as low if there is a momentary drop in network speed. If this does happen and the quality indicator drops, it is simple to return to the homescreen and start playback at high quality again.
My roommate watched Seraphim Falls last night and remarked that the Roku box redeemed itself with the playback on that movie. The video quality was very good and audio crisp as well (the movie was another matter altogether though ahhaha... I still need to see it myself though).
It is an incredibly simple matter to browse the Watch It Now films and queue them in Netflix, but the Roku box leaves a lot to be desired in organization of your queue. I now have almost 100 films queued and all of those are in a single long Cover list in the order that I have added them. There are configuration screens on the device, but nowhere can you find and organization or genre system. I know this will fall to Netflix to install a backend database for the Roku device to read and I would love to have witnessed the boardroom conversations leading up to the Roku box release because even though it is a rock solid product, there are features missing. Conspicuously missing considering the amount of potential it appears to have.
EDIT
Nina reminded me that I'd forgotten to go into a couple of other details so here is what I'd sent to her:
The FFWD screen pops up (when you press the FWD or REV button) and you can see frames above scroll by as you move forward. It's a bit like chapters in a DVD but on a much finer level. (and it does move fast if you hold the button down)
Also I forgot to mention that pressing DOWN on the dpad brings up the synopsis and rating interface of the movie you are on. That way you can add stars, read info or remove it from your queue all together. Pretty handy.