New Rokus may support HDR, ditch the numbers

Another year, another Roku refresh. Leaked documents show the company's plans for releasing new media streaming boxes with HDR support before this year's holiday season.

The leak comes courtesy of tech blog zatsnotfunny.com, which surfaced the leak on two Canadian websites and corroborates an FCC filing. The leaked product lineup has already been pulled from one site, but we were able to view it via Google's web cache.

The documents show an upcoming rebrand for the Roku series, which will no longer feature numbers. Instead, they'll be renamed "Express", "Premiere", and "Ultra" with various "Plus" models in between that bring additional features, like a remote with headphone support.

While the leaked documents don't show the exact differences between the upcoming models, it appears the Roku 1 will be superseded by the "Roku Express." Moving up the Roku line are the "Premium" and "Ultra" boxes which bring more features like 4K, high dynamic range (HDR), ethernet and microSD card support.

A step up

The Roku 4 already supports 4K, but not HDR. That could change with the upcoming Roku Ultra, which will will reportedly offer 4K, HDR, USB and optical out support.

All other Roku boxes will get rid of the USB port for accessing local media, according to the FCC filing. With most people using streaming services rather than local media, it's not surprising that Roku is getting rid of USB support in a majority of its boxes.

Although one leaked document shows a September 7 release date, it's doubtful these boxes will come out so soon. Plus, September 7 will be dominated by the iPhone 7 announcement, so expect Roku to hold off a bit.

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Via TechCrunch