Roku hd1000 streaming media player

There are so many possibilities with the HD and we hope that developers take advantage to the open-source operating system. We would like to see more advanced features and audio format compatibility in the future as well as support for Apple iTunes play lists. We are unsure as to what laws and guidelines Roku Labs needs to follow when it comes to playing video content, but we would like to see a stronger presence in this feature as well.

With the digital media receiver market still in its infancy, each company in the industry has their own idea of what the form factor, included features, and design of such devices should be. Roku is unique in that the company has two different devices to offer. One offering is their SoundBridge, which is a tubular-shaped home theater component that only plays digital audio.

The other is the subject of this review, the HD which supports the playback of digital audio, video, and images and can connect digitally to your stereo and high-definition TV. Roku also adds flash storage and wired or wireless network compatibility allowing you to play digital content via flash memory cards or your network.

The Roku HD is a pretty sophisticated media receiver in that it has similar hardware architecture to many basic computers or game consoles. The operating system is an open media platform that uses the Linux kernel and advanced Roku media APIs. There is no fan or hard drive in the HD so it operates completely silently. We have seen digital media players that look similar to SoHo routers and others that are a little bit bigger and designed to sit on top of your television.

The Roku HD is the first digital media receiver we have seen that actually looks like it belongs in a rack with the rest of your home theater components. Measuring inches wide and 1. Small plastic feet are located in each corner and provide significant room for airflow between your home theater components. The front panel of the HD features the navigational controls and flash memory readers.

The HD can play back digital media stored on the flash memory slots, and can even execute custom applications designed to work on the Roku platform. As with other networked digital media players we have seen, there is no display on the front panel itself, meaning that even for music, you must use a TV or monitor to navigate through and select music to play. You can either control the Roku HD by using the controls on the front panel or by using the small remote control included with the media receiver.

The small remote control only has a few buttons on it designed for navigating the menu system, but that is all you really need. Some applications require the input of numbers and letters, and the HD provides an easy to use on-screen keyboard for that. Located on the back of the Roku HD are all the audio and video inputs and outputs you will need to get the media receiver to work with your other components.

There are VGA, S-Video and component outputs located here that should work with just about any medium-to-high-end television on the market. For home automation enthusiasts, there is even an RS port so you can integrate the HD with the rest of your setup.

There are two options for connecting the media player to your computer network: you can either hard wire it using the Ethernet port on the back or you can use an aftermarket The HD features both analog and digial connections to your video and audio devices.

One very cool feature which we have yet to see on other digital media receivers is the ability to use the Roku HD as a pass-through to your other home theater components. This is great for those that might not have enough connections in their home theater receiver for every component they own.

For example, by plugging your home DVD player into the HD and then plugging the HD into your home theater receiver, you only need to utilize the single audio and video inputs on your receiver versus two for each component. On the media side, the Roku HD can only play a limited amount of file types, but the company says they will soon be adding more supported formats to the device. Visual quality is where the HD really stands out.

What is unique to the device is its ability to display high resolution JPEG pictures back in high-definition resolutions, up to i if your television or monitor can support it. You can choose to show the pictures individually, or you can setup the HD to play back the pictures in a slideshow format. This is perfect for those that want to show off pictures of the family vacations, or those that simply want something decorative displayed while having dinner guests over.

This is the type of signal typically broadcast over the air by a local digital television station and the format that many PC-based TV tuner cards capture video in.

These streams may be either standard-definition or high definition, and may include multi-channel audio Dolby Digital 5. We found the Roku HD to be easy to setup on some televisions and difficult on others. The Roku media player immediately goes to a i setting the lowest HDTV setting and then you must use the setup menu to change the resolution to a higher settings.

These work great with audio tracks, but there are a few limitations that we ran into. When watching streaming video media, there was no way for us to fast-forward or rewind the video clips. We could skip chapters forward or backwards, but in most cases this was too coarse a step with our media files minutes per chapter. The last set of buttons are for rotating an image and zooming in and out, which allows the operator to choose a region of interest within the image and see more detail.

What's great about this feature is that the user can rotate pictures that are not properly oriented with a simple button push. Unfortunately, it only rotates clockwise, so you might have to push it three times to get your picture oriented correctly.

Finally, the Info button is used to get information about the image being displayed description, resolution, etc. Pronto remote users will be happy to hear that Roku provides the needed CCF file to support this unit See www.

Unlike any other consumer product we've seen, the HD opens the doors to developers who can design and create custom applications for the unit. System resources include the display interface, network link, memory card access, MP3, MPEG, windowing system, graphics library, and other media engines.

Roku even includes a Software Development Kit SDK for users who want to start development of these applications right away. As a result, the user does not need to install any server software to access all of the networked media such as photos, music, and MPEG2 Transport streams.

The user can access programs, display images and listen to music with a few simple button pushes. Streaming video requires launching the StreamPlayer application that is available from the Roku website. As each memory card is plugged into the front panel of the HD, an icon appears on the screen so that the user may look at the content. If you plan to use the new XD format, a low-cost adapter will be needed.

For example, if you install a Memory Stick and select it, the screen will show you what items are available on the memory resource. The system will also scan the resource for available files, especially in the case of a PC with a large hard drive. In some cases this can take a considerable amount of time. The image quality is just amazing with the HD as any photo with decent resolution looks far better than any other media player we've see thus far.

Users can insert their camera's memory card and get an instant viewing of the contents without having to worry about downloading them into a PC. The Rotate and Zoom functions also come in very handy when viewing the pictures. Pressing the info button reveals data about the picture. All of our files were encoded at the higher k rate for maximum sound quality. As mentioned, the HD took some time to scan the entire disc for music content. Once this was complete, the files were available on the user interface.

The subdirectories are also displayed for reference on the screen. Streaming Video We had our file server set up to provide the HD with both images as well as high definition transport streams. Roku requires the 1. We currently have version 1. After all, what good is all this if you can't watch high definition video as well. We were skeptical based on other reviews we read about the unit's ability to stream high definition video. We started by downloading StreamPlayer version 0.

The zipped file contains a PDF file that explains how to use the software and a file called StreamPlayer. We used a CompactFlash card to load the software for the test. Inserting the card into the HD instantly showed up on the user interface. Executing the program was easy and soon we were asked to select a file. However, our media files are partitioned into 15 minute blocks that result in files approximately 4GB each. We had no problems playing our files and the video never dropped out on us.

The picture was absolutely beautiful and no different than our HTPC video quality. We also had the coaxial digital output connected to our Parasound processor and everything worked fine.

Some have complained about not being able to stream video over the HD, but I can assure you that our set up worked perfectly. These streams can be either standard-definition or high-definition, and in many cases include Dolby Digital 5.

Utility Programs There are a couple of utilities applications that we downloaded from the Roku website that came in handy while using the HD user interface. A Copy application will allow the user to copy any file from one location to another.