Netflix Bypasses Its Computer or Mail Delivery System with the Roku Device: Watch Movies Instantly on Your Television

No Added Fees for Those Already Subscribing to Netflix and Great Benefits for Film Buffs

For those who already subscribe to Netflix, you may already be taking advantage of their direct to computer system for movie delivery. Now the company has gone one step further and is offering its millions of subscribers the chance to watch movies directly on their television sets. You don't pay any additional subscription fees, although there is an upfront cost for the Roku set-top box. I call that a bargain. Read on and find out why.

For one thing, I've always hated the other option for instant movie delivery: directly streaming them to our computer. I really dislike watching movies on my computer. Even though we have a decent monitor, the screen size never seemed large enough and we'd miss some of the details in our favorite. movies. For only $99 (and I think that is a small price to pay for instant delivery of films), movie buffs and lovers of both classic and relatively new television shows and movies can have them instantly delivered to their television set.

Sales started recently. A main advantage? The price. At around $100, this easily beats Apple's version, known as Apple TV, which sells for nearly $300.

There is one disadvantage, however: at this point, most of the selections are only a fraction of what you can order from Netflix through mail order. There are about 10,000 titles. Still, that seems like quite a lot to me. Also, many of the choices are cult movie favorites, from Dirty Harry to Misery. You can even get Pan's Labyrinth, a movie which isn't brand new but sure feels like it came out just the other day to me, someone who watches days speed by in the blink of an eye. I have a hard time keeping up with the latest films so the Netflix Roku device seems very attractive to me.