July 9-10, 2013
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While the rise in set-top boxes is usually viewed as a sign that people are cutting their cable TV subscriptions in favor of streaming video, that may soon change.

Today, set-top box maker Roku announced a partnership with Time Warner Cable (TWC) that will allow cable subscribers to use their Roku boxes to watch television. This is something that Roku CEO and founder Anthony Wood said was coming back in May 2012, as VentureBeat’s Jolie O’Dell reported.

Essentially, TWC is adding its own Roku app, which Roku owners can download for free just as they would any other channel (Netflix, Hulu Plus, etc.). Once authenticated using TWC user name and password, subscribers will gain access to over 300 live streaming channels. The TWC TV app itself should be available sometime during the first quarter of 2013, the company said.

The new TWC TV app is already available via iOS, which allows subscribers to manage their DVR settings, view channel guides, and yes, watch live streaming channels. It’s unknown whether the new Roku TWC app will have the same restrictions as the iOS app, only allowing subscribers to access live streaming channels when connected to their home Internet connection.

“The availability of a service like TWC TV on an open platform represents significant milestones for both Time Warner Cable and Roku as well as for the industry overall,” said Roku founder and CEO Anthony Wood in a statement.

But TWC TV isn’t the only new app coming to Roku. The company is also announcing new channels for several streaming services, including, Amazon Cloud Player, Big Fish, Blockbuster On Demand, FOX NOW,  iHeartRadio, and PBS.

This isn’t the first time Roku has partnered with one of the traditional TV providers. Last year, the company added an app for Dish Network subscribers that also allows them to use their Roku boxes as a secondary way to watch television.

In an interview with VentureBeat, Wood said Roku owners have now logged over a billion hours of streaming content on their Roku boxes. These new channels should give the company a good head start in reaching its next billion hours, too.

The company’s flagship title at launch is Angry Birds, a game that has already collected tens of millions of users. The controller is similar to the Wii MotionPlus controller from Nintendo. Instead of using infrared light to track a motion controller, it uses an internal set of components that track the controller’s orientation. That means the box will register a move to the left or right when you flick the controller.

The device is designed to power 3D graphics. I got to try out Angry Birds on the device (in the video below — I’m not that great at it) and the graphics felt a little sluggish. But given that it’s streaming 1080p video from a tiny box to a huge television, that might be par for the course. The device is powered by a system-on-a-chip architecture, so it doesn’t carry the same oomph that a PlayStation 3 or a Xbox 360 does.

The controller felt very responsive — on par with the Wii MotionPlus controller. It felt like what was happening on-screen was more or less one-to-one with whatever I was doing with the controller.

The company plans to aggressively add game content to the Roku 2 box. That includes the likes of Pac-Man: Championship Edition and other games from Namco, and more versions of Angry Birds. The company is mostly focusing on casual games that people can just “pick up and play.”

It’s a new step for a company that has traditionally focused on streaming videos and movies to the TV. Roku was spun out of Netflix three years ago and given the directive to create a box that could stream Netflix content directly to a television. But the company still intends to focus on Netflix as the device’s flagship app.

The devices are powered by traditional AA or AAA batteries, depending on the model you choose, or a power cable. They are about 3 inches across by 3 inches long, and about an inch deep. Each model has a bold embossing of its model name — the “XD,” “HD” or “XS.” The devices are connected to the Internet wirelessly, though the top-level device features a traditional broadband port.

The base-line model costs $60, but doesn’t include a game remote and only supports 720p HD video quality. The next step up, the Roku XD, costs $80 and includes Netflix title streaming and supports 1080p HD video quality streaming. Only when you buy the $100 model, though, do you get a game remote (and a “free” full version of Angry Birds).

Each box consumes around 5 watts of power. That’s compared to DVR devices — which are known to be electricity vampires — that consume around 30 watts and a PlayStation 3 that consumes around 130 watts at full speed. All three devices feature 256 megabytes of storage with a micro-SD card expansion slot for additional memory.

The company has sold around 1 million Roku boxes to date. You can check out a video of a hands-on experience with the device after the break.

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