Printed from  Roku intros $100 Netflix rival to Apple TV
updated 07:05 am EDT, Tue May 20, 2008  Roku Netflix Player
Roku on Tuesday is seeking to up-end the traditional approach to
media hubs with the Netflix Player. The small, five-inch-square
hub sheds the local storage common to many media hubs and is
designed solely to hook into Netflix' Watch Instantly feature:
customers of nearly all of the video rental company's
subscription plans can stream an unlimited number of movies from
the Internet while still receiving DVD movie rentals in the
mail, including for movies that aren't yet available in
streaming form. The company's existing business gives it more
than 10,000 movies online, or roughly ten times the size of
Apple's iTunes rental catalog.  Setup for the Roku box is said
to be simple with either Ethernet or Wi-Fi for the PC connection
and a walk-through process that eliminates most of the
guesswork. The interface itself is also simplified compared to
the PC-based website, the company says. Viewers c