After it announced in January this year the UK release of streaming media players, Roku has now started shipping these boxes towards its customers, complete with support for a new BBC iPlayer video channel.

iPlayer can be considered the UK equivalent of Netflix and allows its customers to catch up on recent BBC programming.

“Roku recognizes the importance of region-specific programmes so today we are excited to announce the addition of BBC iPlayer to our platform,” said Clive Hudson, vice president and general manager for Europe at Roku.

“This is among the first of many significant content partnerships for Roku in Europe and we look forward to making additional announcements in the coming weeks,” concluded the company’s rep.

Right now, Roks is selling two of its streaming media players in the UK and Republic of Ireland, the Roku LT and the Roku 2 XS, their suggested retail prices being set at £49.99 and £99.99 respectively.

Both models feature more than 40 channels of streaming entertainment including on-demand films and programs from Netflix and Crackle (Crackle is available in the UK only), as well as live and on-demand sports from MLB.TV and Ultimate Fighting Championship organization.

Furthermore, the Roku players can stream music from services such as Classical TV and TuneIn, display photos and videos from Facebook and Flickr, and get the latest news from WSJ Live, Fox News and others. A selection of games is also available, including the poplar Angry Birds title.

Both the Roku LT and the Roku 2 XS feature built-in 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, HD video play back, as well as HDMI and composite outputs for connecting to the TV set, but the Roku 2 XS also supports 1080p content, Ethernet networking, Bluetooth 3.0 and comes with a microSD card slot.

• Friday, February 10th, 2012 • Techno • RSS 2.0