Roku has pulled the private TV.com channel off of its servers due to a request from CBS, owner of TV.com. The removal comes shortly after a request from YouTube to take down their private channel as well.

Private channels are simply Roku “apps” that have been developed by 3rd party developers. Users who want to download a private channel are asked to input a secret code before downloading as these channels are not available in the Roku channel store. Codes can be found on websites such as roku-channels.com. With a little research, anyone can find the codes they need to download these channels.

Most people are asking how these actions by YouTube and CBS are going to affect the development of Roku apps by 3rd party developers. Roku has made their SDK available to anyone and encourages anyone with the skills to develop channels for their streaming device. With the giant media companies being highly protective of how their content is delivered (which in my opinion is silly!), it’s going to get quite interesting.

Roku announced that as of recently, has delivered more than 15 million channel downloads from its channel store to its more than 1 million users. The growth has been attributed by two factors: the growth in selection of channels and the introduction of the units brick and mortar stores such as Best Buy, Radio Shack and Frys. With these two factors, Roku predicts it’s customer base will triple to 3 million by the end of 2011.

“We’re seeing a tremendous amount of growth and excitement around the Roku platform–from the number of Roku players we are selling to the amount of content our customers are consuming,” said Roku Founder and CEO Anthony Wood. “The popularity of Roku is driven by our inexpensive price points, which drive mainstream adoption; and the strength of our open platform, which benefits content partners who want to easily reach a rapidly growing TV audience.”

With this explosive growth, expect to see more from this company in the near future!

We all know the Roku is great from streaming our favorite TV shows and movies, but few people know that it also makes a great internet radio. With the addition of just a few channels from the Roku channel store, you can stream literally thousands of radio stations from around the world on your TV or your audio system. I have my Roku plugged into my surround sound system and the audio quality is superb!  Here are our favorite Roku channels that let you tune in the world.

Tune-In
This channel comes from RadioTime.com, a website that provides links to thousands of radio stations around the world streaming on the internet. If it’s streaming on the net, Radio Time has it!

Shoutcast
This popular streaming audio website now has a Roku channel! You’ll never know what you’ll find here. Unlike Tune-In which limits itself to real terrestrial radio stations, Shoutcast gives anyone with a computer and microphone the ability to broadcast anything they want over the internet. Thus, you’ll find some gems, along with some real stinkers on this channel. But, that’s what makes it fun!

Radio Paradise
A fairly new channel on the Roku scene, Radio Paradise is a single station that prides itself on “music being picked by a real human being”. It’s a single station with an eclectic selection of music, plus as an added bonus, beautiful HD scenery photos are displayed on your TV while the music is playing. As I’m writing this article, RP is playing Sara Swenson’s “Passing Cars, Passing Time”. As the song is playing, HD photos of various classic cars are being displayed on my HDTV. Pretty cool! I’ve only been listening to the channel for a few days as of this writing. So far, I’m very impressed!

Baeble Music
Another fairly new channel is the Baeble Music Channel. Baeble features thousands of concerts, music videos and interviews of indie artists from around the world. Video quality is excellent! If you’re an indie music fan, this channel is for you.

Pandora
This channel based on the popular website doesn’t necessarily stream terrestrial radio stations from around the world. Instead you choose a music format, song title or artist that you want to hear. If that song is available on Pandora, you will hear not only the song, but Pandora’s recommendation on what it thinks you may like based on your previous choices. You can setup different channels with different music genres, artists, etc.

Most Roku users who purchased their device never intended it to be a jukebox. However, if you add these channels to your lineup, I believe you’ll be very impressed at what a versatile little box you have. It can do anything…well almost!

Although there is not an “official” YouTube channel for the Roku, one was developed awhile back as a private channel by a third party. In fact there were instructions on the Roku website on how to add it. Unfortunately, that has come to an end.

Google, owners of YouTube, have caught wind of the unofficial YouTube channel and has ordered it removed. New users who have not added the channel are now out of luck on getting their YouTube fix on the Roku. However, users who still have the channel on their device are OK.

As of this writing, there is no word yet if an official channel will be available in the near future.

Baeblemusic recently expanded their number of videos on the Roku platform by up to 400+.  Baeblemusic shows mostly “indie” music videos by “indie” artists like The Low Anthem, Mumford and Sons, Phoenix, and Sara Bareilles.

According to Baeblemusic, they are not done. This spring promises to bring more videos and concerts from the Baeblemusic library and they will all appear instantly on your Roku box. The Baeblemusic channel can be found in the Roku channel store.

There are various stories out there about Roku customer service, unfortunately most are not good. But as any business will tell you, in today’s “stay-connected” world, you hear more of the bad than the good and that’s unfortunate.

However, there is one story floating around on the net in which Roku went above and beyond in terms of customer service.  This is the story of James. His father gave him a 3 year old Roku long out of warranty. James had issue connecting it to his home network. He couldn’t get it to stream anything at all. James called Roku customer service not expecting anything at all since the unit was long out of warranty. After some minor troubleshooting with the Roku rep, Roku sent James a brand new box.

Talk about a great example of customer service! Now if only more companies would follow this path…

Here is a link to the story.

Netflix recently added several classic James Bond 007 movies to their instant streaming collection. Titles include:

• Thunderball
• You Only Live Twice
• Diamonds are Forever
• For Your Eyes Only
• Octopussy
• The Spy Who Loved Me
• License to Kill
• The Living Daylights
• Goldfinger

For some reason Dr. No and From Russia with Love are not included, but this is a good start. Being the James Bond fan that I am, I will be quite busy watching the next few days!

Roku recently announced the availability of its very popular Roku settop internet streaming devices in various brick and morter stores throughout the U.S. Stores include Best But, Fry’s, Radio Shack and BJ’s Wholesale Club.

Until now, the player has only been available online through various websites such as Roku.com, Amazon.com and this website, My Roku Reviews.com. This move into the offline world is seen as major step for Roku to put internet video streaming into more households. 

The verdict is still out on whether internet video streaming will be a mainstream method of getting content into households, but this move from Roku can very well possibly make that concept a reality.

If you ever visited the site Crackle.com, you know it has tons of classic movies and TV shows from the Sony Pictures library. Now those shows can be seen on your TV thanks to the Crackle.com channel available from the Roku channel store.

As of this writing, TV shows available included, Different Strokes, Benson, Barney Miller, Starsky and Hutch, Charlie’s Angels, The Unusuals, The Tick, plus a ton of others. Movies include a bunch of 3 Stooges shorts and movies, Brian’s Song, 1941, Ghostbusters 2, Gridiron Gang, A Knight’s Tale, Oliver, Silverado, Godzilla 2000, Crossroads, plus too many others to mention.

Streaming quality has been very good on all the shows and movies I’ve seen so far. Most shows are available in either 360p or 480p standard definition. I haven’t seen any HD content yet, but I’m sure that’s soon to come.

Keep in mind these are full length shows and movies that are totally free to watch! On some videos, there are short commercial interruptions, others there are none. But hey, it’s free!

To add the Crackle.com channel, simply go to the Roku Channel Store.

See larger image Roku XDS Streaming Player 1080p (Electronics) List Price: $99.99 USD New From: $99.99 In Stock Used from: $78.95 In Stock

At the top level of the Roku streaming device family is the the Roku XDS. This is indeed the “Cadillac” of them all! It not only includes all the features of the HD and XD family, but also includes a USB port for playing music, photos and videos off a local storage device, dual band wireless capability,  and optical audio outputs.

If you want to play videos, photos and music off your local USB thumb drive or external hard drive, the XDS is going to be your only choice since it has a USB port. Simply plug the hard drive into the USB port and you’re good to go.

Dual band wireless allows you to utilize your XDS on an N dual band network, if your wireless network supports it.

Optical audio output allows you to connect the XDS to your home theater to take advantage of true Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound, again if your home theater audio receiver supports it.