Roku has already seen some success in its push to integrate its operating system into TVs. Over 1 million Roku TVs, excluding Roku boxes, were sold last year alone, and this spring the first 4K Roku TVs will arrive. The company is also working on HDR.
4K Roku TVs coming soon
If you want access to streaming services through Roku’s platform, you can buy a Roku media player and connect it to any TV or you can opt to buy a new TV with Roku’s operating system built in.
Roku and partners released the first Roku TVs last year, and this year its partners will start launching 4K Roku TVs with capabilities similar to the Roku 4 media player. With built-in HEVC decoding, the TVs will be able to stream 4K content from the likes of Netflix, Amazon Video, YouTube, Vudu, M-Go, UltraFlix, and Smithsonian Earth.
- “We’re very pleased with the success of Roku TV since the launch of our licensing program in 2014. Consumer response and engagement has been tremendous, and our TV partners have secured great retail placement and stellar product reviews that have led to strong sales results,” said Chas Smith, general manager of OEM for Roku. “We expect momentum for Roku TV to accelerate as we continue efforts to add new TV partners while expanding our work with existing partners to bring many more Roku TV models to the U.S., Canada and soon Mexico.”
TCL will be one of the first manufacturers to launch 4K Roku TVs with sets coming in 43, 40, 55 and 65” sizes (US5800 and UP130 series). Other current partners include Haier, Sharp, Hisense, and Insignia.
There will soon be over 60 Roku TVs available in the market compared to 40 at the moment. The Roku TVs are still not available in Europe.
HDR is the next step for Roku
The company is also working on a “HDR reference design” for its partners to use in future TVs but no timeframe was announced.
Roku says that it planning to support the open HDR10 format as well as the proprietary Dolby Vision format. TCL will again be one of the first to launch an HDR TV based on the Roku OS.
