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New Roku XR will add 802.11n Wi-Fi upgrade to cheap media streamer

By Sean Portnoy | October 22, 2009, 6:20pm PDT

Summary

It may not be the ultimate media streaming solution, but for $99.99 the Roku Digital Video Player already does quite a bit, including offering Netflix and Amazon Video On Demand and Major League Baseball games. Unlike many of its competitors, Roku even offers built-in Wi-Fi to go along with its wired Ethernet port.
Unfortunately, that wireless [...]

Topics

IEEE 802.11n, Roku Inc., Wireless LANs, Wi-Fi, Video On Demand (VoD), Wireless And Mobility, Personal Technology, Home Entertainment, Sean Portnoy

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Sean Portnoy

Biography

Sean Portnoy

Sean Portnoy
Sean Portnoy started his tech writing career at ZDNet nearly a decade ago. He then spent several years as an editor at Computer Shopper magazine, most recently serving as online executive editor. He received a B.A. from Brown University and an M.A. from the University of Southern California.
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It may not be the ultimate media streaming solution, but for $99.99 the Roku Digital Video Player already does quite a bit, including offering Netflix and Amazon Video On Demand and Major League Baseball games. Unlike many of its competitors, Roku even offers built-in Wi-Fi to go along with its wired Ethernet port.

Unfortunately, that wireless connection is 802.11b/g, which isn’t ideal for video streaming. Apparently, Roku will be addressing that limitation with its new XR player, which will come with 802.11n Wi-Fi for far greater throughput rates. It also adds a USB port, so you can connect an external hard drive or thumb drive with video files for streaming to your HDTV. One thing that isn’t clear is if the XR will support 1080p HD, which the original Roku doesn’t currently handle.

We also don’t know what the price of the new device will be, though if these are the extent of the upgrades, Roku should probably keep the same pricing. When the XR will become available is not known as well, though with more of these streaming player hitting the marketplace all the time, the sooner the better.

[Via Engadget HD]

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Sean Portnoy is a freelance technology journalist.

Disclosure

Sean Portnoy

Sean Portnoy is a freelance technology journalist; currently, all work that Sean does is on a contractural basis. Sean has also written corporate communications documents for CA.

Sean does not accept gifts from companies he covers. All hardware products he writes about are purchased with his own funds or are review units covered under formal loan agreements and are returned after the review is complete.

Biography

Sean Portnoy

Sean Portnoy started his tech writing career at ZDNet nearly a decade ago. He then spent several years as an editor at Computer Shopper magazine, most recently serving as online executive editor. He received a B.A. from Brown University and an M.A. from the University of Southern California.

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  • Stability and antenna more important than 802.11n
    Video streams are 4.5 Mbps at best. Even
    802.11b can handle it so long as you have a
    very stable stream with no radio interference.
    In come cases, 802.11b is more resilient
    against interference because each pulse of data
    occupies a longer transmission period and put
    out more energy per bit transfered. That's why
    wireless ISPs choose to go with 802.11b.

    I've seen smart antenna based solutions on
    802.11b or 802.11g that even work next to a
    microwave oven that's turned on.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    georgeou
    10/22/2009 10:02 PM

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