Roku Adds Official Support For Video Playback Via USB Drives

There's not much to not like about the Roku, but one of the big missing pieces was support for playback of local content via USB drives. While it was technically supported in beta mode, it wasn't the easiest to implement and the avergae user probably didn't know how to do it. That all comes to an end today as Roku has rolled out a new firmware version (2.9 build 1529) giving users the official "Roku USB Media Player" channel. In addition, Roku has also added support for the MKV format and the company plans to add support for additional formats later this year. The Roku USB Channel currently supports drives formatted in FAT16, FAT32, NTFS and HFS+. I'm giving away a free NETGEAR Roku, the drawing ends today so enter quickly if you want a chance to win.

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