Roku making a TV set in partnership with TCL is the new Boxee making a TV set in partnership with ViewSonic...or, not.

I fail to see the "home run" here. OEMs Hisense and TCL don't have any brand recognition or shelf space at US retail, and the profit margins will have to be huge for retailers to give precious floor space to them over Samsung and others. Billions of hours of streamed content through a $40-100 "puck" does not mean that those same consumers are interested in buying a new TV to have their Roku built into the TV. Also odd: they aren't touching live OTA TV with a ten-foot pole, which doesn't jive with the cord-cutting ethos.

However, there won’t be any actual integration with live TV: Roku TVs don’t come with their own programming guide, and Wood told me that there are “no immediate plans” to allow app developers to overlay their apps over live TV.