I’m no fanboy, and I hate the hype (except that we get great deals on the open-box-disappointments), but the Roku is pretty decent. You simply need to supplement it with other hardware and software.
If you jumped on one of the simple dvr woots, you will find that your Roku is a very good set top box for this whole house DVR. You can use the tuner to add live tv and serve recorded programming to five rokus concurrently.
Don’t have an antenna? Try Aereo. There’s a channel for that too.
Set up a plex/playon server to pull down a lot of cable programming from the various web sites.
Use free Handbrake to convert your DVDs to MP4s and play them off an attached USB disk with the Nowhere USB channel.
The desktop would have more shows than Roku. It’s something to do with streaming rights. Hulu does’t have the right to stream as much to a TV as they do to a computer “browser”. Roku appears to fall outside the desktop “browser” area and has less shows.
While Aereo is limited in what markets they serve right now, they’re expanding rapidly. I live in a suburb of Dallas and didn’t want to mess with a big antenna on my house. Aereo gives me ALL the networks, some oddball channels (Cozi TV), and 20 hours of DVR for $8 a month. All over the Roku.
Aereo + Netflix + Amazon = painless cable cutting. I may even pick up Hulu Plus. Is it worth it?
Just got Aereo’s free trial here in Denver last night to test out cutting DirecTV. It works great, and I would recommend it to anyone who still wants over the air tv with streaming DVR capability.
Hulu Plus on the other hand, is crap. I can’t believe that with Netflix I get so much stuff compared to Hulu Plus, but with Hulu Plus I still have to watch commercials (Which can’t be fast forwarded). I’d only get Hulu if you have some cable (not network) shows that you must watch and stay current with, and not catch up with season by season via Netflix, AND can’t watch online, like say, Walking Dead on AMC.com.
nothing does yet, sadly, as far as I know. You have to subscribe to HBO through a cable/satellite provider to get HBO.GO. I’ve heard rumblings about it being offered standalone though.
Does this support VUDU? I have a bunch of Ultraviolet movies on there and occasionally rent movies off there. I would need that to be able to use this.
It sounds like Roku firmware updates are a tad wonky. Is it possible to block the patch IP and still retain Roku usability, or does the box absolutely need to communicate to the mothership to work?
Didn’t have such a good experience with WDTV, so I’m trying to spot any pitfalls before pulling the trigger here.
The added $25 SRP is for the second controller. The $89 on on Amazon’s main site or NewEgg only has 1 remote. Whether you want a second remote, or prefer to pay $10 more for one with only 1 remote is your choice.
Can someone explain to me why this is any better than just running HDMI from computer to tv? I understand for the bedroom older tv’s, but if you have a semi recent computer most have an HDMI port.
Essentially, the Roku is a headless linux box with a remote and a ten foot user interface. It runs on a couple watts and some channels developed for the Roku aggregate content not readily available with a PC. The B/W channel comes to mind. It’s not particularly expensive.