The Roku Netflix player was the first device to support streaming movie rentals from Netflix and ushered in an array of devices supporting the Netflix streaming service. One of the best features of the original Roku Player was the cheap $99 price tag.

Roku announced today that its Digital Video Player now supports HD streams of films from Netflix. Other HD streaming partners will reportedly be added to the Roku player as well. The additional providers are expected to debut in q1 2009.

Netflix streaming has made it’s way into everything and people like it. As usual, Blockbuster is behind. But here’s some good news for the company.

According to Chairman Jim Keyes, Blockbuster’s download-to-rent service in a Blu-ray player will be here by Q1 of next year. Basically, if you’re an HD film fan then you’ll be able to rent HD quality films from Blockbuster directly through your Blu-ray Disc machine. No word if this will be in the form of a firmware update for existing hardware or part of a new player, but it’ll need to standout a bit and lower the price in order to compete with Netflix.

Online movie rentals are one of the most convenient ways for movie fans to get their favorite films without leaving the house. The catch is that many of the newest releases aren’t available for streaming rentals. Netflix offers a streaming on demand library of 12,000 movies and TV shows to its subscribers.

Several hardware devices will allow Netflix members to access the streaming content including the Xbox 360 and some DVD players. Netflix and TiVo announced today that TiVo DVR subscribers would be able to access the streaming content library over certain TiVo DVRs.

Netflix has proven to be very successful with its online movie rental service. Netflix also offer subscribers a streaming instant movie service that allows users to watch movies on the PC or TV with appropriate hardware.

The problem for users on Mac computers that are Netflix members is that there was no streaming media player for the Mac. Netflix has now announced the latest version of its instant watching service based on Microsoft Silverlight. The new player will allow users on Intel-based Mac systems to enjoy streaming titles.

Now that HD DVD is dead, the Blu-ray player is pretty much a commodity item. Player manufacturers are looking for anything they can get to differentiate their players from the competition in the market. Samsung announced a partnership with Netflix today that will help make Samsung Blu-players more interesting.

The Samsung BD-P2500 and BD-P2550 Blu-ray players will be able to stream Netflix movies instantly from the Internet to Netflix subscribers. In addition to a catalog of 12,000 movies, Netflix also offers TV shows.

It has been several months now since the Blu-ray camp made HD DVD tap out in the ultimate HD fighting championships. Now that Blu-ray is the HD standard, we are starting to see more Blu-ray players hit the market with new and interesting features to set it apart from the Blu-ray masses.

LG has announced the first Blu-ray player to offer the ability to stream movies instantly from Netflix. The player is called the LG BD300 Network Blu-ray Disc Player. Netflix subscribers can use the player to instantly stream any of the 12,000 TV shows and movies from Netflix to their HDTV.

Microsoft announced at E3 today that along with a complete UI update coming to the Xbox 360, they will also be offering streaming movies via Netflix through the game console and Xbox Live. We had heard Netflix express interest in this partnership earlier this year and Microsoft says it will come to fruition in “late fall”. The new feature will require users to be subscribers to Netflix and manage their queue from their computer much like they do now, but will add the ability to stream and view the movies through the Xbox 360 game console. To make this even better, any Xbox Live Gold subscribers will get the service for no additional charge.

Basically this means that owners of an Xbox 360 are getting a brand new interface and all the features of a Roku box (Netflix set-top box retailing for $100) for no additional charges, aside the Live subscription fee that any true Xbox fan is paying anyway.

One of the cool devices that HP was showing off back at CES in January was its MediaSmart Connect device. With the MediaSmart Connect HP is set to take on other streaming media devices like the Netflix Player and the Apple TV.

HP announced today that the MediaSmart Connect is now available for pre-order at a price of $349. The device will be available to pre-order starting today on Amazon.com, Best Buy, Circuit City, and at Newegg.com. Included with the device is an HDMI cable and learning remote that can operate four additional devices as well as a $20 CinemaNow certificate.

Blockbuster has been rumored to have been secretly working on some new technology in the works that would allow streaming video content from an online rental service direct to consumers televisions, and could be available as soon as the next few weeks. No information has been given on the exact technology or price but the service could again bring the home video renting giant back up to par and possibly ahead in technology, compared to other rival video renting services from Netflix and Apple.

Netflix would be directly affected by this new service by Blockbuster and has recently upgraded their service to provide unlimited streaming to some subscribers, however it streams to their computer and not necessarily to the living room of most consumers. In order to work their way into more entertainment centers, Netflix is also looking into providing streaming video rentals through Microsoft’s Xbox 360 game console.

Netflix has officially confirmed rumors that they are indeed looking into streaming video content through Microsoft’s Xbox 360 game console. Spokesman Steve Swasey did not confirm that Netflix and Microsoft have any partnership currently in the works, but Netflix has started surveying existing customers to gauge their interest in a new, additional offering through the game console.

Netflix’ business model has traditionally been to provide a subscription of physical DVDs that are shipped to customer’s homes, but has been working diligently to keep up with new technologies and customer demands for streaming video. The company created a partnership with LG earlier this year for a set top box to stream video content into its customers living rooms, and last year started offering online video through computers which recently increased to unlimited content for $17 per month subscribers.

Apple announced the immediate launch of iTunes Movie Rentals today during the MacWorld 2008 keynote speech, allowing iTunes users to get limited-time download of movies from any of the major studios for as little as $2.99. The new service is part of iTunes version 7.6 which is available now and gives a rental download of movies for 30 days, but once you begin watching the movie the rental will run out in 24 hours. It can be watched as many times as you would like within that time. You can even start watching on your computer and then transfer the video to your iPod and finish watching the movie on the go.

Apple appears to have picked up all the major studios with this offer with the list of participants including 20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Lionsgate and New Line Cinema. iTunes plans to have over 1,000 titles available by the end of February with rates of $2.99 for regular titles and $3.99 for new releases. For another dollar iTunes will deliver titles in high-def with Dolby 5.1 surround.

Netflix online movie rental service is showing that they are not going to be left behind as online digital video content continues to evolve with an announcement on Monday that they are offering unlimited streaming videos to their unlimited rental customers. Subscribers with a minimum $8.99 per month account can take advantage of more than 90,000 DVD titles streamed to their PC for no additional cost and no limit.

Netflix shook up the video rental industry when it launched back in 1998 as the first internet store to offer DVD rentals which had a flat monthly fee and only limited by the number of videos a customer could possess at a time. This new offer extends the unlimited video content to customer’s PCs, which was previously limited to an hour of content per month for each dollar spent on a monthly subscription through the Watch Now program. Lower, $4.99 per month subscribers can get still get two hours of streaming video per month with the new offer.