Roku takes Amazon Video On Demand into private beta

We knew good and well that Roku's movie set-top-box would be supporting Amazon Video On Demand in the not-too-terribly-distant future, and apparently the private beta has begun. Over at the Roku forums, an official has made clear that demand was exceptional and the pool of private beta testers has now been chosen. Sadly, there's no mention of when Roku plans on sharing the love with the public at large, but Dave Zatz has appropriately pointed out that YouTube could be following close behind. Still, we have to concur that the most pressing question has yet to be answered: will this Amazon VOD be offered up in glorious high-def? Pretty please?

[Via ZatzNotFunny]

[zomg0t @ Feb 6th 2009 7:35AM]

Sometimes I hate that Engadget is so popular...

[Tom @ Feb 6th 2009 8:11AM]

I really wish Samsung would start broadening it's partnerships with content providers for its BD-P2500 Netflix-capable blu-ray player. I picked on up over Christmas for just $229 thanks to a deal I found on www.techdealdigger.com. I love the Netflix streaming, but would really like it if I could stream Pandora and Hulu.

[GadgetGeek @ Feb 6th 2009 8:14AM]

Screw that.... when they cut a deal with hulu.com to show their content, i might think of buying into the idea...

[Dude @ Feb 6th 2009 9:28AM]

Screw Hulu. Just give me the channels directly. You get better quality at NBC.com than Hulu.

[Cargojack @ Feb 6th 2009 6:18PM]

GadgetGeek is Ko-Rect!!! When they do HULU.com and Fancast.com, it will be something major.

[Keith Mancuso @ Feb 6th 2009 9:57AM]

I am a beta tester and I can tell you from the little bit i've played with the service it looks great. The videos are not in HD but the quality seems better then the netflix videos.

Also unlike the netflix feature, you can browse the entire library from you're couch, and purchase anything without ever using a computer.

The one grip so far is that streaming seems quite a bit slower then netflix, videos still start up pretty fast but they take a few minutes to get started while netflix films usually took less than a minute.

[midiwall @ Feb 6th 2009 10:31AM]

hmmm... you mean you WERE a beta tester...

"Because this is a closed forum and you will have accepted the Amazon Video On Demand Beta Program Terms and Conditions, we ask that any information posted here not be discussed or posted on the other Roku forums or on any blogs, messageboards, tech websites, etc."

[rcrh @ Feb 6th 2009 11:07AM]

I don't know how they think they can stream HD quality on this box when it has such a small cache. Netflix HD has been a big disappointment. I would bet I'm having less then 50% success in hitting HD quality. And, that is with their terrible aac audio.

Oh well, more content is a step in the right direction. I really hope Samsung & LG follow suit with their netflix enable bluray players.

[ZeroCorpse @ Feb 6th 2009 12:08PM]

Get a decent ISP and you won't have those problems. I'm on 6 mbps DSL, and I love the HD quality. No drop-outs, no stalls, looks great on my HDTV.

If you're on cable ISP, they're bottlenecking you or you're sharing your bandwidth with everyone in the neighborhood. That is where a lot of the problem lies. The cable company has it in their interest to make Netflix viewing as poor as possible for their high speed Internet subscribers.

[rcrh @ Feb 6th 2009 4:48PM]

ZeroCorpse;

you're probably right. I've definitely drank cable-company coolaid. They are my cable, phone & ISP. I'm not even sure if the telco has a line to my house.

But, the inherent finger pointing between netflix server performance & ISP throttling is another problem. And, it's also a problem that would go away if there was a hard drive in this thing. My appleTV never stutters and I never have a file change its quality. Apple's crappy HD is ALWAYS the same.

[seth.fulton @ Feb 7th 2009 2:13PM]

I've been using the Roku via Time Warner Cable connection in San
Diego. Have not had a single problem with rebuffering or watching HD
content. Speakeasy Speedtest reports 8.5mps downstream.

The box was also working fine in Phoenix on a Cox Cable connection. A downstream speedtest on that connection would also usually run over 8mps, some tests/days it runs over 17mps!

I feel bad for all the people having streaming problems and lucky that it hasn't been an issue for me.