Netflix Roku Movie Box Mini-Review

Sometime correspondent Lillian Parker got some time with the new Netflix set-top box. I think she likes it...

Finally, an on demand movies option for those of us that don't have a PC and don't want to dish out $300 on an Apple TV box. I have just witnessed the start up of one new Netflix Player (Roku, $99) and it gets two thumbs up from me! Set-up took like 5 minutes maybe (and four of those were figuring out how to open the remote to get those batteries in -- there's a definite trick to it...) If you have an HDMI input, it is literally ONE plug in and then answer like three questions on screen with the remote. You set up your "Instant Queue" on netflix.com, and then the box gets info from there. So sit down in front of your TV and scroll through! Once it has streamed (a few minutes) you can skip around within the movie and it's really a lot like watching a DVD. A lot of Netflix movies have the option to "Play Now" and the numbers are definitely growing. And similar to the awesome Netflix variety, there are tons of docs, old TV shows, and concert videos. Any movie buff should have this!! If you want one, though, get in line now -- there is a waitlist of a couple weeks, but they do FedEx it!

Lots of companies have tried this before (and TiVo just recently announced a deal to stream Disney movies) but it never caught fire. Could 2008 be the year the e-book reader (Amazon's Kindle) and set-top rentals started going mainstream?

MORE ON THE NETFLIX BOX: CinemaTech on Roku
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UPDATE: William Speruzzi got one