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In the wake of the Xbox 360 receiving Netflix streaming High Definition, Roku has announced, on their own forums, that they will have HD streaming on Roku boxes before the end of the year.  Roku boxes were, in fact, the first devices to offer the Netflix “Watch Now” functionality, straight to your TV. 

On the Roku Labs Forums, “RokuTim” (Tim Twerdahl, VP of Consumer Products at Roku) told the masses that “Roku will be delivering Netflix in HD by the end of the year.”  This is great news for everybody who hopped on the Roku bandwagon early, however he also mentioned that “Roku will be using Advanced Profile encodes which will deliver HD at substantially lower bit-rates than what Xbox is offering.”  Uh oh.  Looks like the Xbox 360 has the upper hand here, and that your Roku HD movies may be a tad on the choppy side. 

However, on the positive side, the number of titles available for the Roku will be equivalent or greater than the amount of titles available for the Xbox 360.  He also says that the Interface will be updated to run at 720p, while fitting more movie artwork onscreen at once.

He ends mysteriously, saying that “the release will include another major new feature that you’ll have to wait a bit longer to learn about.”  For Roku users out there, it better be something fairly groundbreaking, because it’s looking like the Xbox 360 is the go-to device for Netflix viewing among a bevy of other media features.

Read [Roku Labs Forum]