Amazon has found itself another route to the television and Roku another use for its set-top box under a partnership announced today.
The internet retailer has been exploring ways to widen access to its Video on Demand service beyond the computer and has already made it available through Tivo digital video recorders and Sony Bravia TVs.
Roku, based in Silicon Valley, partnered with Netflix last May with its $99 box, allowing the DVD rental service to stream movies direct to televisions.
Now it has increased the appeal of the box by adding Amazon’s service.
“It’s a great complement to Netflix. It will be the first time that our customers can get access to new-release movies the day they come out on DVD,” said Tim Twerdahl, head of consumer products at Roku.
Netflix’s free streaming service mainly relies on back-catalogue DVD releases, while Amazon rents or sells digital copies of the latest releases and TV shows as soon as they are broadcast.
Roku’s business model is to make money purely from hardware sales and Mr Twerdahl said sales of the units were now well into the six figures. The sales channel had been confined to Roku’s website but the boxes will now be available through Amazon.com as well.
The internet-connected boxes will be seamlessly upgraded over the next few days with the added Amazon interface. Unlike the Netflix service, where users have to use a computer’s web browser to select and order a playlist of movies, the Amazon interface allows users to interact with the Roku box to choose from the service’s 40,000 movie and TV titles.
“Initially, our service was mainly available on the PC, but we’ve seen over the past year, and particularly at [the Consumer Electronics Show in January] that connecting to TVs is really opening up the video-on-demand market,” said Roy Price, director of Amazon Video On Demand.
The new partnership adds to a dizzying array of choices for consumers in receiving content on demand. Cable and satellite operator’s services in the US are facing competition from movies and TV shows available through the Xbox and PlayStation games consoles and a variety of boxed services from Roku’s to Blockbuster’s MediaPoint, Vudu and Verismo.
