Roku Netflix box

I’ve been a Netflix subscriber for most of this year now and it’s a great service. But what’s turned it into an awesome service is that box in the picture over there. That’s the Roku Netflix player and it rules so much. It lets me stream 10,000 or so TV and movie titles over the internet and onto my TV. Not new releases so much, but plenty of really great old stuff. All that’s required is that I keep my Netflix account. The quality of the movies is just as good as DVD and looks great on my 26″ LCD. I’ve heard that they’re going to start offering HD content soon, but I don’t even care. I’m happy with it the way it is.

This thing makes me even happier than I ditched 100% of my DVD collection last year. And I’m sure the service is going to just keep getting better, especially once Blockbuster releases their own TV box later this year and they have to keep up with the competition.

I’m surprised stuff like this isn’t bringing the cable TV rates down. I haven’t had anything more than the basic network cable for the past year, which I never watch. I only keep it because of the promotional thing I’m on with Comcast makes it cheaper to have cable with my phone and internet than to not have cable at all. Last week the promotional thing ran out, so I called them once again to cancel my cable TV and they set me up with another promotional thing so it’s cheaper to keep my cable. They desperately want me to have cable TV. Speaking of cable TV, look at these girls. I want to punch them both.

My Netflix queue is down to 15 movies now. It’s been consistently over 100 movies ever since I had it, as I’ve been copying just about everything that’s come in. But I’m almost finished with building my collection. After that I’ll be moving to the $8.99 plan on Netflix, which will make my Roku box even more awesome because it’ll be crazy-cheap. Wonder how many months until my personal digital movie collection is rendered completely useless because the Roku box will stream everything Netflix has.

6 comments

  • roku is the japanese word for 6

  • OK I really intrigued by this idea of ditching CDs & DVDs. You see I move around a lot and I want all my stuff to fit into 100 boxes or less. Yet I like to be entertained. How do I make this happen?

  • Dana – CDs are pretty simple. Just rip them all into your computer and sell them. Hopefully you’ve got an Ipod to play them, but if not then your computer is great for listening around the house.

    About DVDs – do you really need to own all your favorite DVDs? Renting DVDs is going to keep getting cheaper with things like the Red Box rentals at McDonalds. And pretty much every movie is going to end up on “On Demand” services very soon. Owning DVDs or Blu-ray will be completely obsolete in just a few years. Best to get rid of those as soon as possible while you can still make money on them.

    And if you don’t mind breaking copyright laws, rip your DVDs into your computer first. If you’ve got an Ipod, you can rip them into a format that will play your movies on it. Or just watch them on the computer.

  • Woo Hoo! I do have an ipod. Yay me! Is there any other way to store them aside from my computer? I kinda worried about it being struck by lightning. I like to have things backed up.

    There are a few movies I watch over and over but I’m not too concerned with copyright laws. Dude I’m paying like 10 bucks to watch a movie. Hollywood is gettin’ theirs. I love NetFlix. I’d be lost without it.

  • Target sells many sizes of external backup hard drives, sometimes for way under $100. Pretty much any size they have should be able to store a large sized music collection. Just copy all your files onto the backup occasionally and put it in a safe place. I have all my important data synchronizing with a couple other computers on my home network.

    Also, if you’ve got a large Ipod that can store all of your music at once, that’s another backup source. There are programs out there that can copy music from an Ipod in case your hard drive were to ever crash.

    If you’re on Netflix, you can kind of see how pointless owning DVDs is. And their service is only going to get better. I can’t believe I used to blow $20 on DVDs just to build up my massive DVD collection. Some of them I would only watch one time. What a waste that was.

  • Hey thanks. Seriously man I can’t believe how pointless my existence once was… no that i have this arsenal of information i will soon be free from the chains of my self-imposed DVD/CD prison. (Which takes the form of a few HEAVY boxes I have to lug around with each move.) :)

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