Bullet In fact, some of the

Bullet

In fact, some of the content Steve Jobs showcased in the launch is no longer even available for rental. Clearly the studios still have all the control regarding what content the y will make available for licensing to the Apple TV. While Rokus interface make not be as polished as the Apple TV, the Roku makes up for it with all the great content thats available. Roku has channels for Netflix, Amazon Video On Demand, , UFC, Pandora, Flickr, Facebook Photos and Roku has just announced support for Hulu Plus coming later this year. Roku has more than 75 content channels and expects to have nearly 100 by the end of the year. Roku has an open SDK and as a result, has a lot of content partners working to bring more channels to Roku devices. Compare that to the Apple TV which today, has no SDK and doesnt run any apps on the box. Some are speculating that the Apple TV will run apps in the future since internally it has 8GB of Flash storage, but none of that is happening today. One of the big features of the Apple TV that many think could be a game-changer is Airplay. The technology allows a user to start watching a video on an iPhone, iPod or iPad and the n move that content over to the Apple TV in realtime. While Airplay looks promising, it wont be released until November and the re are still a lot of unanswered questions about how well it will work. For instance, you can move content from iOS devices to Apple TV, but you cant move content from Apple TV back to iOS devices. Also, one has to wonder how well video streaming will work when you start watching a video encoded for a mobile device, but the n want to transfer it back to a large screen. The re is also the question of how DRM is going to work with Airplay and my guess is that only content in the H. 264 4 format is going to work, which likely means only FairPlay will be supported. Airplay looks like interesting technology, especially for streaming music, but for video, the re are a lot of unanswered questions. So before all the Apple fanboys take over the comments section saying just how groundbreaking Airplay is, well have to wait and see how well it really works once its available in the market. While Ive seen a couple of reviews saying that the quality of Netflix streaming looked better on the Apple TV when compared with o the r devices, personally, I dont see it. Testing both the Apple TV and the Roku XDS on a 50 Vizio plasma TV and a 42 Samsung LCD TV, it was hard to notice any difference in quality. I felt like Netflix streaming started up just a but faster on the Roku, but really could not tell. The video quality on both devices seemed to be identical to me. Whats not identical on the devices is the Netflix application. The Netflix app is much better on Roku than it is on Apple TV. On the Apple TV, you have to choose the program before you get a description of the movie but Roku gives you description of the program on the first screen. The re are a lot of little differences in the Netflix experience where Roku has the edge which should be expected since the y have been refining the Netflix interface for the ir device over the past few years. Ive read a lot of reviews of the new Apple TV and many have described it as a solidly built device or said it feels really solid. While the Apple TV is well built and feels like a heavy hockey puck, that really has nothing whatsoever to do with how Apple TV performs as a streaming device. O the rs have said that Apple TV is best for those who value design yet for a streaming device, performance has to outweigh design. Not to mention, the new Roku XDS models are very slick, really small and in my opinion, very well designed the mselves. You can have the nicest, most solid looking device on the market but if it cant access the content you want, at the quality you want, the n the design does not matter. To me, Apple TV is really nothing more than a crippled iPod that you hook up to your TV. It depends on iTunes running on ano the r device to feed content to it and Apples sole purpose with the device is to get you to rent more content. Some have suggested that the Apple TV will provide more value since the hacker community is already jailbreaking the Apple TV, but I would ask why some users always have to jailbreak Apple Products to make the m work according to the ir needs? While some want to suggest you buy a Boxee or Google TV instead, Apple TV and Roku arent trying to be a DVR-esque media hub. Boxee and Google TV are really going after a different kind of user and the ir products are 4-6x more expensive than the cheapest Roku box, which starts at only So if you are interested in a Apple TV or Roku, dont be put off by people who say you should wait until Google TV is out in the market. Google TV looks to be really cool and also has support for Netflix, but the device will cost close to 300 and serves a different purpose in the market.