14 DAY TRIAL // Roku's set-top boxes have managed to make themselves a pretty good name on the market, and now, it seems that they'll even get an extra level of functionality, the latest firmware upgrade available for the Roku XR STBs bringing a whole new set of surprises, including Full HD playback and various other Hulu optimizations that affect all models. So, as Slashgear informs us, it seems that owners of the Roku set-top boxes should expect the new 2.9 firmware to be automatically installed on their machines over the next couple of days, or they can accelerate the process themselves from the Settings menu.
Beside the 1080p support for the Roku XR units, the new firmware update will also bring about some other interesting surprises, such as Hulu application optimizations for quicker trick play navigation and start of playback and Hulu application optimization for improved playback performance on networks with higher latencies.
Moreover, the update fixes a bug that could result in a crash if an app tried to load an image that was too large (greater than 1280×720), as well as the playback of poorly interleaved video streams which resulted in rebuffers around the 25 minute mark in Roku Newscaster programs.
Other modifications include a fix for a remaining case of playback at the incorrect aspect ratio, a changed option menu action name from “change order” to “change position” for re-arranging channels, as well as bug fixed in channel re-ordering related to presence of screen savers.
Additionally, after applying the upgrade, the XR's channel store will display an altered “go to channel” behavior, launching the selected channel instead of only focusing the icon on the Home screen, other novelties including the screensaver preview and set options to the channel store springboard, as well as a fixed subtle audio playback issue in UFC streaming.
All in all, the 2.9 firmware update seem to offer plenty of new and interesting features, and if you happen to be a Roku owner, please, drop a line in our comments section and let us know just how the upgrade process went.