DVD Copy Software

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How many little boxes do you have in your living room? A TiVo and a DVD player? Maybe a Wii or an Xbox? A wireless router in the corner? Netflix is betting that—if you’re a happy subscriber and a PC user—you’ll be eager to plunk down $99 for one more. The world’s largest online movie rental service made good on a years-old rumor this week by announcing the release of the Netflix Player. The compact box is made in partnership with Roku, a privately held digital media company, and lets subscribers instantly stream movies and television shows from their account directly onto their television.

For avid Netflix users, this is cause to rejoice. How many months has that copy of “The Battle of Algiers” been sitting on your coffee table? (It would be a shame to send it back without watching it. And yet every time you plop down on your couch, it just feels too much like homework.) With the advent of the Watch Instantly feature last year, Netflix guilt became a thing of the past for many users: you could keep getting your allotted monthly DVDs delivered in the mail and additionally stream a small but growing list of films directly onto your laptop. (Provided you’re a PC user, that is. Apple, whose Apple TV was suddenly a Netflix competitor, declined to play ball.) But there was still one little hang-up: not too many people enjoy watching movies on their computers. Ever try sitting through the director’s cut of “Amadeus” at your desk? Oof.

With Roku’s Netflix Player, subscribers who haven’t already synced their computers with their television sets can now stream movies and TV shows directly onto their living room screen of choice. It’s a cool toy. Setting the box up is truly easy. Simply plug it into the wall, hook it up to your set and run an Ethernet cable to your modem. If your home is Wi-Fi enabled you don’t even need to do that last step: once you turn the TV on, the Roku box immediately searches out your network. The box gives you a one-time code to type into your Netflix account online. Once you do that, every movie in your queue that’s available for instant streaming appears on the screen. A simple remote lets you toggle through the list and choose which movie or TV show you want to watch.

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