Roku flips switch, enables Amazon on Demand

I love the little Roku Netflix box, which apparently needs to be called by its rightful name, the Roku Digital Video Player, because it does Amazon on Demand now as well:

ROKU NOW OFFERS ACCESS TO AMAZON VIDEO ON DEMAND
Digital Video Player Instantly Connects Consumers To Over 40,000 New Titles

Roku, Inc., maker of the popular Roku digital video player, today announced that customers can now watch movies and TV shows from Amazon Video On Demand. With Amazon Video On Demand, Roku customers can for the first time purchase or rent new release movies the same day they are released on DVD and watch commercial-free TV shows the day after they air– all from Amazon’s extensive selection of more than 40,000 movie and TV titles.

”We are excited to give our customers access to Amazon's massive catalogue of top movies and TV shows – including many new releases”, said Anthony Wood, Roku CEO and Founder.  “The launch of Amazon Video On Demand on Roku demonstrates our commitment to creating an open platform that instantly delivers the entertainment consumers want directly to their TVs.”

The compact Roku player connects directly to any TV and uses a broadband Internet connection to deliver DVD-quality video instantly.  Roku customers can now choose from Amazon’s enormous selection without paying subscription fees, waiting for downloads, or running out to the video store.

“The $99 Roku player provides our customers with tremendous value and a compelling entertainment experience,” said Roy Price, director of Amazon Video On Demand. “Consumers are looking for inexpensive and hassle-free ways to watch their favorite movies and TV shows, and the Roku player meets that need head-on.”

How It Works:
- Connect the Roku player to your TV and your broadband Internet connection (Wi-Fi is built in for ease of set-up)
- Browse Amazon Video On Demand’s extensive selection right on your TV
- Rent or purchase and instantly watch any of more than 40,000 choices, including top new releases and the latest TV shows

Over the course of the next week, current Roku customers will receive a free and automatic software update giving them access to the Amazon Video on Demand service.  All Roku player customers will continue to have access to Netflix Instant Watching with unlimited access to more than 12,000 movies and TV episodes for a low monthly fee.

The Roku digital video player is available for purchase exclusively at Roku.com and Amazon.com.

Good stuff. Will test this week if I can find a spare moment.

Related: Oddly, if you visit the Roku Web site now, it's all about this player. It's other products have been depreciated quite a bit on the site.

Discuss this Article 3

subzerohitman721
on Mar 3, 2009
I am fascinated by the Roku box and service, however its going to have to up the movie and Tv possibilities before I invest in something like that. However, expanding to Amazon on Demand is definitely a step in the right direction.
WebGuy3000
on Mar 3, 2009
It's worth mentioning that Tivo has recently added Netflix streaming to its boxes. So now, with a Tivo, you can buy/rent from Amazon and stream from Netflix in addition to everything else that the Tivo offers. I had looked with interest at the Roku and AppleTV, etc. but not I can't see why I'd need anything other than the Tivo, which I already have (and couldn't live without).
daveinla
on Mar 3, 2009
Hey Paul and others, have you ever tried Boxee ??? That is an amazing piece of software. It turns your Mac or PC in a full fledged content streaming box, with sources like ABC and CBS TV shows portal, Joost, Netflix, Apple trailers and all the famous video podcasts you can think of sorted by category. There used to be Hulu but these jerks in major Studios decided it was not a good strategy to offer legal content streaming with ads to these guys who usually rely on Bitorrent downloads for their series... So now these guys (incuding me) will return to the good ol' bittorrent way to get good quality videos w/o ads every 5 minutes ! It recognizes automatically what videos you have on you HD and sorts them out automatically, adds the jacket and synopsis+movie ratings+trailer on the fly. It's also a social media player so you rate what you like and your friends know what you liked, and you get recommendations. The only pb is that it relies on silverlight of course for Netflix streaming and the quality of the video is not great in regards to the bandwidth used. Try a movie rental on iTunes store that uses similar bandwidth and you're struck by the difference ! Plus silverlight on Mac stutter on anything below a Core2duo 2 Ghz... lame. The Netflix blog is full of complaints of users regarding the poor quality of the video on most computers. The performance is good on my Macmini Core2 2Ghz on a non HD plasma TV. That's the future of home video delivery and many companies are interested in developing a relatively inexpensive Boxee Box using for example the ion platform. For now Boxee on Macmini is amazing. BTW it works on AppleTV too but power is a bit limited for Netflix only.

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