By Trevor Dyck
Roku, an OTT digital media player (aka set-top box) provider we have spoken of before on this blog, continues to add content partners. The latest to be announced is Major League Baseball. This adds to the already impressive list of on-demand episodic and movie content from Netflix and Amazon VOD. Blip.tv and Mediafly were also recently announced.
However, I believe the addition of MLB is the most significant. This is the first ‘live’ content on Roku. One of the previous arguments of some against OTT video was a lack of live content. Secondly, the quality is impressive. Trying it out yesterday to watch the Red Sox vs. the Tigers, I was impressed with how good the picture looked. And at only $34.95 a year for a subscription (including HD), this is going to be very popular. I was also glad to see this works outside of the US, for example in Canada where I live.
OTT video really started picking up steam towards the end of 2008, and as we see industry players like Roku adding more and more content, we will see the trend of ‘cable cutting’ on the increase. Why pay $80+ a month for a bunch of TV channels you don’t watch when you can get most of the content you want with a device like Roku and a few a la carte subscriptions?
