After spending over $900 on a highly optimized, finely tuned, hardly functional home media pc, I read about this little baby.  The Roku is basically a tiny home media pc without the home pc part.  It lets you directly watch your instant Netflix queue, Amazon video on demand, and more.  To put it simply, this little box is what the internet video revolution is waiting for.

Priced at $99 from Roku.com the Roku Digital Video Player (DVP) packs a heafty punch supporting either wired lan or wireless G including WPA and WPA2 support.  It also has outputs for s-video, component, composite and even HDMI.  If you are looking for a way to bring your internet video stream to your TV, this little box will allow you to do so for about the cost of the processor in that custom-build home media PC.

Unfortunately, the Roku only supports 720p and stereo output, which is pretty much all you can find online anyway, but what a way to bring the movies to your TV without the crazy hassle of a media pc.  Be prepared to buy the video cables as well, since they don’t come standard.  Also, you still need to spend the money to get a Netflix account if you don’t already have one.  Priced at about $9 / month is worth it to get some serious online titles.  You still get your 1 dvd at-a-time, and can use this guy to watch other stuff while you are waiting for the snail mail to deliver your latest hit.  Oh, and make sure to head over to the PaulTech Network to take a look at their review.  We would like to thank them for the heads-up and a nice pic to go with the story.

There is rumor that a newer version that will support wireless-n is on the way, but my guess is that the price point may be a bit higher.  We won’t know for sure until some tech blurb catches a leak from the company, but we’ll keep our eyes and ears open.

Overall, I would say that the Roku is a decent step forward for becoming a completely analog-free society.  How many more things can we shove down the internets tubes?  Let’s just keep pushing the envelope and find out!