We’re always working to bring Roku customers the best range and quality in streaming entertainment, and today we’re excited to announce that Redbox Instant by Verizon will arrive on the Roku platform this summer!

Redbox Instant subscribers will be able to enjoy thousands of popular movies on Roku as well as buy and rent the newest releases on-demand.

The channel will be available on Roku 3, Roku 2, Roku LT (models 2400 & 2450), and Roku HD (model 2500) players in addition to the Roku Streaming Stick when Verizon launches it.

Redbox also announced this week that Redbox Instant is now available for Google TV, working on the following devices: the 47G2 and 55G2 Google TV-enabled Smart TVs from LG, NETGEAR’s NeoTV Prime with Google TV, the Sony Internet Player NSZ-GS7, and the Vizio Co-Star.

Clearly getting on as many devices as possible will be key to the success of the service as it competes with Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and others.

Roku first launched in 2008, and the device was called “the Netflix player,” basically because its only function was streaming Netflix.

Over time, Roku broke out of the “Netflix box” moniker by adding plenty of other high-profile apps – Hulu Plus in 2010, HBO GO in 2011. Spotify and Time Warner Cable support more recently. As of now, Roku boasts around 750 channels. And with 5 million players sold, it’s clear that Roku holds a firm place in a market filled with streaming options. It’s about half of what Apple TV has sold (globally), for a competitive reference.

“What are people streaming on Roku? Tons of TV shows and movies. Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant Video, Crackle, HBO GO and VUDU are all top favorites. Music is extremely popular, and consumers enjoy Pandora, VEVO and Spotify among other choices. News, sports, science and foreign languages from around the world are also big hits. Did I mention games? In 2011, we introduced casual games to the Roku platform with the debut of Angry Birds, which took the leap from mobile to TV for the first time. Angry Birds remains the most popular game on Roku today – by our count more than 3 billion bad piggies have been eliminated!” says Roku founder and CEO Anthony Wood.

Roku says that these 5 million boxes have streamed over 8 billion individual items of content of video and music, and that 25% of all Roku players stream over 35 hours per week.

Roku just launched their new device, the Roku 3 box, last month – and it’s been getting some good reviews. Are you a Roku user? What do you think the furutre holds for set-top boxes that pretty much exclusively stream online content to TVs?

In 2013, you’ll see new smart TVs from Coby Eletronics, Harman Kadon, Hisense Electronic, TCL, Voxx and Westinghouse Digital that use the Roku Streaming Stick to “provide an integrated streaming experience for their customers.” These partners join the already impressive lineup of TV manufacturers supporting Roku including 3M, Hiachi, Insignia and more.

“Consumer electronics makers are turning to the Roku Streaming Stick to create Smart TVs, projectors, Blu-ray players, digital antennas – and even audio receivers – that give consumers instant access to the highly-rated Roku streaming platform, filled with compelling entertainment and yet incredibly easy to use,” said Chas Smith, general manager of OEM business, Roku. “With 14 CE manufacturers now turning to Roku for streaming solutions, consumers will have many choices in 2013 when shopping for new, innovative and affordable electronics.”

Roku believes its streaming stick offers a far cheaper solution to smart TVs needing regular updates as the consumer can replace the streaming stick with the newest model at a fraction of the price of a new television. Google will tell you that its solved this problem as well with its Google TV platform by providing regular software updates and a cheap set-top box that works with most HD televisions. Both will be vying for the attention of smart TV consumers this week at CES.

In other news, Roku announced that its platform is now host to over 700 channels. Some of the new channels include Blockbuster On Demand, Dailymotion, Flingo, PBS, Syfy, VEVO and more. It’s also host to new music and casual games from the likes of Amazon Cloud Player, Spotify and Big Fish Unlimited.

“When we launched the first Roku player in 2008, it was the very first device to stream Netflix to the TV and offered just that one channel. Today, the content universe is vastly different with many content producers and owners embracing delivery over the Internet and recognizing the broad appeal and strength of the Roku platform,” said Steve Shannon, general manager of content and services, Roku. “We’re excited to say we have more entertainment choices on Roku today – 700 channels – and more importantly, we have the best brands in streaming entertainment.”

Smart TVs and online content delivery were big ticket items at CES 2012. It’s already looking like it’s going to be an even bigger deal this year as more players enter the scene hoping to jump on the smart TV bandwagon before the rumored Apple TV has a chance to take over the market.

“Joining more than 600 video, entertainment and casual game channels already on Roku, the Spotify channel is available today on Roku 2 players as well as the Roku Streaming Stick™ and will be coming soon on the Roku HD and Roku LT players in the U.S. and U.K.,” says Spotify.

According to Spotify, it was one of the most highly requested features.

There is one small catch, however. Spotify says that the streaming service on Roku will only be available to premium subscribers – meaning pay up or this announcement really doesn’t affect you. Bummer for you free Spotify users out there. Spotify recently reported that out of 20 million users, about 5 million were paid subscribers.

This is the second device that Spotify has jumped to in the past few days. Earlier this week, a Spotify app launched on TiVo. Spotify is making a strong push for user accessibility, as the company recently became available on Samsung SmartTVs as well. We also know that Spotify is planning on launching a web player (finally), sometimes in early 2013.

The Streaming Projector is “small enough to fit in your hand,” according to 3M. It is able to project an image of up to 120 inches and can function on battery power for up to 2 hours and 45 minutes. It has build-in stereo speakers, but the audio out for headphones or external speakers is probably a better bet for viewing, considering the device’s size.

“We’ve worked very closely with the 3M projector team to ensure consumers get the best streaming experience available from a projection device” said Chas Smith, general manager of Roku’s Platform OEM division. “The 3M Streaming Projector creates a big-screen Roku experience for people to enjoy content in any setting.”

This all sounds amazing, but there some caveats. Most importantly, while the device will display a 120-inch image, the image resolution is only 800 x 480, according to Boy Genius Report. So, this isn’t anywhere near a replacement for an HD projector or display. Also, the device is currently selling for $299, which is far above the price for a normal Roku HD box.

“With the 3M Streaming Projector, parents can recreate those epic movie memories from their childhoods that can be experienced through the magic of projection,” said Mark Colin, general manager of 3M’s Mobile Interactive Solutions division.

If anyone reading this can decipher what exactly Colin means by that statement, feel free to leave a comment below and fill the rest of us in.

Meanwhile, Hulu is promoting the deal over at the Hulu Blog. Eric Berman, Manager of distribution partnerships at Hulu, relates an anecdote involving his father and a Roku in the blog post:

Last year, I set up a Roku and Hulu Plus on my dad’s huge, brand new TV. Now it was my turn to introduce my dad to some of my favorite shows. The pressure was on to deliver great TV.

I brought up a recent episode of Saturday Night Live, and after laughing hysterically at Steve Buscemi’s Batman clip, we began diving into a whole slew of classic SNL clips. And just like old times, he turned me to one of his favorites: the John Belushi “Samurai Hitman.”

The Batman video Berman refers to is embedded below, and it actually is pretty funny. It perfectly demonstrates how Christian Bale’s edgier, more serious Batman is still as silly as the other live action Batmans, just in his own gravely-voiced way. Also, more Steve Buscemi comedy acting always welcome.

Motorola is announcing DreamGallery by Motorola Medios. DreamGallery is a new on-screen display. Specifically, Motorola is touting DreamGallery’s bookmarking function, which allows content to be marked for later viewing. The platform also has recommendations.

“Consumers spoke. We listened. DreamGallery is to TV what search was to the Web,” said John Burke, senior vice president and general manager for Converged Experiences at Motorola Mobility. “Consumers want to be able to find personalized and relevant content, fast. We set out to address this hunger by leveraging our expertise in media software and our leadership in content delivery. We ended up reinventing the entire interface for television. DreamGallery isn’t just a better search and discovery experience. It’s a better way to watch TV.”

Presumably, DreamGallery will come standard on new Motorola DVRs. Also, much like Comcast’s just-announced X1 platform, there is no mention of DreamGallery having any meaningful internet connectivity. No YouTube, Netflix, or Hulu to be seen in the preview video below. DreamGallery does, however, allow users to watch programming on multiple devices. How this works, and what restrictions might be placed on it, have not been revealed.

These Apple TV-like devices have not been impressive, though The Cable Show is not for consumers. Comcast and Motorola are trying to impress cable service providers. To that end, these products feature interfaces that can be changed easily to promote programming or otherwise control the viewing environment of the subscriber. This focus on cable companies as customers instead of end-users is why many in the U.S. are simply dropping cable altogether.

Take a look at DreamGallery below in a video provided by Motorola:

The HBO Go app launched on Samsung’s Smart TVs back in February. The HBO Go app launched on the Xbox 360 at the beginning of April, but Time Warner Cable was one of the few high-profile names left out of the party. Customers of the other two, DirecTV and Comcast, still find themselves HBO Go-less on these devices.

From the Time Warner blog:

It’s a big week for us here at Time Warner Cable. Believe it or not, we really, really do want our customers to enjoy the content they love on as many devices as possible. We take the “any content, any device” mantra seriously, and we’re delivering on it this week in spades.

According to the Roku blog, this extensions of services also applies to Cablevision customers as well.

Time Warner says they’ve “lit up access,” but that customers should be patient. It should take at least a couple of hours for everything to get up and running. If you don’t see the new option on your Roku/Xbox 360 apps by tonight, Time Warner would like you to notify them in the comments.

As a couple of Time Warner customers have pointed out – this is nice but “Where’s the ESPN3 access for Xbox?” Sadly, no word on that. But hey, that lack of sports action could give you a chance to catch up on Game of Thrones, right?

[Via Engadget]

“Connected TV is an important part of Newsy’s strategy – we will be announcing our app for another set-top box later this month,” Newsy President Jim Spencer tells WebProNews.

“We’ve been working to build content that is both relevant and resonates across multiple platforms – Newsy looks phenomenal on the Roku box and we are excited to hear our viewers feedback on Roku,” he says.

Coming to Roku should greatly increase Newsy’s audience. With a bigger audience, Spencer tells us, Newsy intends to increase content output. “Yes, we are continuing to grow the team so that we can increase production – currently we are producing hundreds of videos per month across nine categories,” he says.

Currently, Newsy enjoys the majority of its user popularity from its iPad app. “Our iPad app is very popular – Newsy is one of the highest rated video news app available in iTunes,” Spencer says. They do have apps for iPhone and Android as well.

“Our multisource videos are also popular through white label agreements on some of our syndication partners (they haven’t been announced yet),” says Spencer.

On how web video has impacted the news industry, Spencer tells us, “It’s had a huge impact as many people would rather watch than read and now they can do so on their mobile devices – research shows video growing very quickly on mobile devices.”

“Search engines are often the first step for Internet users in their search for news and information and increasingly the results are from YouTube and other news video services,” he adds. “This trend has hastened the growth of news videos and helped grow demand for Newsy.”

“Also, there has been an increase in news events that involved user-generated video, such as the hanging of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, and that has helped to drive traffic to news and media websites,” he notes.

With more original online programming finding more avenues into living rooms, we’re really at the dawn of a new era for video content. It’s like My Damn Channel CEO Rob Barnett recently told us. It feels similar to the early years of MTV.

Roku is one of the most popular streaming media devices currently on the market, and provides over 100 channels that for users to stream internet-based content onto their TVs. The Roku Channel Store offers a wide variety of programming options, ranging from movies and TV, sports, music, news, and even games. Popular channels include Netflix, Crackle, MLB.TV, NHL Gamecenter Live, Rdio, and the Wall Street Journal.

As mentioned above, there are two models of Roku currently coming to Canada: the Roku 2 XD will retail for CAD $89.99, while the Roku 2 XS sells for CAD $109.99. The XS model comes with a bluetooth remote control that doubles as a controller for games like Angry Birds, Wheel of Fortune, and Jeopardy. The XS also includes a built-in USB port, providing a convenient way to get media from your home computer onto your Roku. In addition, a channel called Plex allows you to stream content to your Roku from your computer via your home’s wi-fi network.

The Roku will be released on April 30th. Pre-ordered Rokus should arrive that day.

Canadian readers, are you excited to see the Roku coming to your country? What will you use your Roku for? Let us know in the comments.