Roku's Netflix Box Brings Promise of Mobile Movie Rental

Today, Roku--a set-top box that allows you to play on-demand content from Netflix and Amazon.com on your television--announces the availability and extension of three products to their lineup. The promise of mobile movie rental is there, but not quite available yet.

On its own, Roku is more of a home entertainment companion, but coupled with Slingbox--when support officially arrives for the two to play together on the same broadband connection--there is a lot of potential for on-demand movie rentals and viewing on a Windows phone; the company is in talks with Sling Media to allow the Slingbox to sling and control the Roku so you can watch on-demand content on your smartphone.

Roku costs between $80 and $120 depending on the model, and asks for no subscription costs other than your broadband connection and your existing Netflix or Amazon rental subscription. The box will stream content to your television. I've been talking with both Roku and Sling Media and the companies state that they are working together in hopes of having Roku be compatible with Slingbox. When that does happen, Windows phone can have an iTunes Movies-like experience that iPhone owners have enjoyed. With Slingbox and Roku, Windows phone users can potentially watch Netflix content on their phones or rent and view Amazon movie rentals on their smartphone. Hit the jump for more.

Official support for Roku and Slingbox isn't yet here, but Sling Media's engineers pointed me to their unofficial community forums where "he enterprising individual can add support for Roku and Vudu without too much trouble." When official support arrives, Roku's rental streaming hardware coupled with Amazon's and Netflix's content will enhance the mobile entertainment on smartphones and laptops via Slingbox's user interface and will provide users with added content and value while traveling.

The promise of watching movie rentals on Windows Mobile devices have thus far been elusive. Back in August of this year, there was a rumor that Netflix would stream their content directly to Windows phone, but so far we haven't heard of anything further on that front.

On the iPhone, movie rentals can be made via the iTunes Store either over a 3G network or WiFi. It does take some time for rentals to download.

More about the Roku players:

-Roku SD player: $79.99 (composite video outputs only with L/R RCA audio, Ethernet and Wi-Fi b/g)

-Roku HD player: $99.99 (product that is currently shipping today w/ HDMI, component, composite, s-video and L/R RCA and optical video outputs along with Ethernet and Wi-Fi b/g). This model supports HD streaming from our partners

-Roku HD-XR: $129.99 (same video and audio outputs as Roku HD player and also includes Wi-Fi n/b/g and a USB port for future use. The Roku HD-XR is the first Netflix streaming device to incorporate 802.11n connectivity protocol)

The Roku Channel Store will also be launching in the coming weeks, which will bring new content providers to the Roku platform as a slew of new channels will be launched for customers to choose from. The customer will ultimately have control over what channels they choose to add to their Roku home screen, giving a level of personalization not available prior.

Roku has won many awards for its simplicity and ease of use in connecting with existing services like Amazon's on-demand movie rentals and Netflix streaming service with subscription. We'll definitely keep you posted on compatibility of Roku with Slingplayer.