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"Some time ago, NetFlix modified their pricing plans to allow unlimited streaming of their database of movies and TV series. This was the final nail on the coffin for my Hasting's video store membership. My life is filled with a wife, two kids, and a job that keeps me busy for about eighteen hours a day.\u00A0 Understandably, I occasionally forget to take a movie back, and as a result have a revolving line of credit with the video rental place where I little by little pay off a balance that hovers around $50 in fines.\nMoving to NetFlix was a dream come true, paying a monthly fee to watch as few or as many videos as I wanted.\u00A0 That I could turn on the laptop and watch a wide assortment of movies at a moment's impulse (and not have to worry that AT&amp;T would catch me downloading, as I do with BitTorrent) was an added bonus.\nOf course, you're probably aware of the set-top box, the Roku NetFlix Player, that offers NetFlix customers the ability to watch on-demand movies from their TV set, instead of being tethered to their computers for the experience.\u00A0 The most amazing part about this is the price of the device.\u00A0 The device retails for $99, and adds no monthly fees to your NetFlix bill.\nI've spoken at length in the past about my disdain for the general state of the home PVR market, and how all the devices that accept podcast content all have some sort of deep aversion to allowing playlists to be automatically generated (that \"veg-factor\" I spoke of last month). If the common wisdom is correct, Roku may be changing that dream into a reality (depending on how their plan is executed).\n\n\n\nThe word is now that Roku is going to start supporting other services aside from NetFlix on the set-top box.\u00A0 The common consensus seems to be that YouTube is going to be the next service to deploy to the Roku's device.\u00A0 Given the device's uber-simplicity (and lack of a keyboard), the only possible way to make YouTube work in a way that wouldn't ultimately be the most annoying video viewing experience ever would be to synchronize your subscriptions to the device and put them in a playlist.\nIf I were creating a set-top box, I would have preferred to have made it on a more open architecture, or at least support open standards.\u00A0 As is often the case, nobody asked me before rolling out their product, and despite this, the NetFlix player has been immensely popular - they can't keep them in stock.\nThis is being described elsewhere as a \"trojan horse\" to get Internet-only content into folks' living rooms, and if Roku watches their step and executes properly, we might see this transition take place before our very eyes"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2008/07/02/roku-youtube/>