Roku Update Deployed, 1080p for XR

Dec 13 2010

Looks like the good folks at Roku aren’t phoning it in this holiday season as they’ve pushed a modest update to their media streamer lineup ($60 and up). Highlights include the promised 1080p support for prior generation XR units and a variety of Hulu Plus optimizations for everyone. The complete 2.9-b1509 changelog can be found on their forum, or you can just run with my excerpt:

Enabled 1080P support for XR units.
Hulu application optimizations for quicker trick play navigation and start of playback.
Fixed playback of poorly interleaved video streams which resulted in rebuffers around the 25 minute mark in Roku Newscaster programs.
Fixed a remaining case of playback at the incorrect aspect ratio.
Fixed a subtle audio playback issue in UFC streaming.

6 Responses for "Roku Update Deployed, 1080p for XR"

Morac December 13th, 2010 at 11:22 pm 1
Got the update and switched to 1080p in the display settings, but I can’t seem to find any 1080p content. Is there any?
jcm December 14th, 2010 at 12:33 am 2
Morac, Right now the choices are limited; Vimeo, YouTube and content via the USB port are about the only choices I am aware of. Check out the Roku Forums for more potential options.

http://forums.roku.com/
Morac December 14th, 2010 at 1:51 am 3
I tried YouTube and Vimeo (videos marked 1080P) and neither was in 1080p on my XR HD connected to an Onkyo receiver via HDMI to a Sony Bravia 1080P set. I haven’t tried USB though.

Has anyone confirmed that Vimeo and YouTube actually work in 1080p?
Kevin December 16th, 2010 at 2:18 pm 4
@Morac,

I can confirm that Vimeo does work in 1080p. However, I am using a LG Blu-Ray Networked player to access Vimeo, not a Roku device.
Greg December 22nd, 2010 at 4:01 pm 5
Roku Newscaster programs still have major problems. I can’t get past the 30 minute mark on “Meet the Press” – it rebuffers and gets stuck around 3/4 of the bar. When I discovered the PodTV channel and saw the same programs, I tried there – while it still rebuffers, it actually continues playing eventually.
Sam January 17th, 2011 at 3:42 pm 6
I have a ROKU XDS and unlike what Roku advertises, it cannot play 1080p content. I have tried this in Sony Bravia TVs and Samsung TVs. You get a blank screen when playing 1080p content in Roku.