Roku will develop search function for Amazon titles

Set-top box allows for video-streaming directly to TVs

By Danny King -- Video Business, 3/25/2009

MARCH 25 | Roku, whose set-top boxes let Amazon.com and Netflix customers play digitally delivered movie and TV titles on their TV sets, is developing a search function allowing easier access to Amazon's inventory of 40,000 digital titles.

Roku is working with Amazon, the world's largest Internet retailer, to create an on-screen search function that will make it easier for people to sift through Amazon's Video On Demand library, Roku VP of consumer products Tim Twerdahl confirmed this week. U.S. News & World Report had previously reported the pending search feature.

Amazon began streaming its digital movie and TV titles through Roku set-top boxes earlier this month, following through on an agreement that was signed in January. Last July, Amazon, which doesn't disclose sales from its digital titles, replaced its Unbox video-download service with the Video On Demand service, which allows customers to stream TV and movie content, in an effort to continue to build media revenue.

Closely held Roku's $99 set-top boxes last year were the first components to stream Netflix's more than 12,000 digital titles directly to TVs, after the two companies reached an agreement last May.

Twerdahl, who didn't say if a search function was being developed for Netflix titles, said the Amazon search function wouldn't require any new hardware. He declined to be more specific about how the search function would work or when it would be available.