Tech News: Vimeo’s new Roku app lets you buy movies and shows right from your TV

Video network Vimeo has taken another step forward today with its efforts to better promote its original content – meaning those movies and programs available for rent or purchase on its network. Today, the company is making it possible for viewers to rent or buy films and series directly from their TV sets for the first time. This is feature is arriving through an updated Roku application, which now introduces over 30,000 titles that can be paid for, then streamed instantly.
Before, there wasn’t an option to buy directly from the television, says Vimeo. However, when you do choose to buy from the new Roku app, you will be able to stream to any supported device – that way you can start watching on the big screen, then later return to view the programming on your smartphone or tablet, for example.
For Vimeo’s creator community, the addition of a purchasing option on the Roku platform means they’ll be able to put their content in front of a wider audience than before – the “millions” of users who stream video to their Roku, the company noted this morning.

The change follows the revamp to Vimeo’s native mobile applications which were updated to promote easier discovery of the different types of video on its network. While, like YouTube, anyone can upload videos to Vimeo, the company has been trying to carve out a niche in the creator community. Instead of v-loggers, often popular with the younger demographic on YouTube, Vimeo is targeting indie filmmakers, documentary producers and others to use its service to distribute their content. Plus, much of its original content is aimed at adults as compared with YouTube.
Along with the support for buying via the Roku app, the update also includes a handful of other improvements, like the ability to use activation codes instead of signing in with an email and password, for example, as well as support for adaptive streaming and the new Roku 4.