Just below the Search row is a Recently Watched row, useful for resuming videos you haven't yet finished. I haven't used the new Netflix channel long enough to know if this section shows all recent videos or just "unfinished" ones. I suspect it's the former, which would be useful for rating movies and shows you've finished watching.

Next are a series of browsing rows with categories similar to those you'll find on the Netflix Website: New Arrivals, Comedy, Action, Independent, TV Dramas, and so on--21 in all. Each row contains a different number of titles, from 10 to 75 in my quick test, but there's quite a bit of content to browse overall, and the experience is a huge step up from being limited to browsing the queue you set up on your computer.

Finally, below the category rows is a row for Netflix's "Like" feature. For example, if you recently watched the first season of Californication, the row might be labeled "Like: Californication Season 1" and would display available-for-streaming movies and TV shows Netflix thinks you'd like, such as Dexter, Brotherhood, and Dead Like Me.

(There's also a setting to show only your Instant Queue, hiding all the other rows. This option could be useful for, say, parents who want their kids to see only the videos the parents have added to the queue.)

In my brief initial testing, the streaming performance of the Netflix channel seemed unchanged, but there's no question the new interface and options are big improvements. The Roku remote is still limiting, especially when "typing" in the search field, but the Netflix channel no longer feels half-baked--it addresses our (the version of the Roku player released back in 2008).