Force 2.2 Mbps streams on your Roku Player

Just how capable is your Netflix STB? An enterprising customer discovered there's an unpublished way to make the box stream much faster than any ordinary user can select.

A feature turned on by default in Roku's Netflix set-top box is intelligent streaming, where the bitrate is chosen according to the user's connection speed, thereby assuring the smoothest stream as possible. A user on Roku Forums posted a heretofore undocumented way to override the automatic selection and always stream at a chosen bitrate.

To access the debug menu, you enter a series of keystrokes on the Roku remote -- not unlike the famous Konami code. You'll see a "bit rate override" screen from which you can lock into a particular speed and ostensible picture quality.

The code is "Home, Home, Home, Home, Home, Rewind, Rewind, Rewind, Fast Forward, Fast Forward." Please note that these are not the left and right navigation buttons, but the actual scan buttons that must be pushed. The STB doesn't appear to be too fickle in the pace of key entry, as BetaNews accessed the menu on the first try, and each successive try even when we varied our button press speeds.

The menu offers "automatic," 2.2 Mbps, 1.6 Mbps, 1.0 Mbps, or 0.5 Mbps. In BetaNews tests on a 17.4 Mbps connection, 2.2 Mbps streamed effortlessly, and maintained a steady stream even when we added three other computers, each receiving its own video stream.