Sweet Sweet Roku!

Hardware and technical stuff
1

(No, she’s not an Asian chick.)

My po’ wife has been streaming Netflix to her laptop for a few months now. It saddened me to see her go blind watching British shows on a 17" screen so I decided to get her a Roku so she can watch them on the 47" bedroom TV. After researching I went for the midrange Roku XD, hooked it up for her, and now she’s enjoying Netflix in 1080p on the big screen! I am an awesome husband! (Bow chicka Bow bow!)

I also added several cool private channels, weather radar and so on for me to look at… anyway. Roku just works and it’s kewl.

Well?

2

How much? Beyond the Netflix what monthly fees are there / what do the private channels go for?

3

I love mine. The Netflix UI is just about perfect, the Hulu UI is OK. I messed around a bit with the channel that lets you play media off of a thumb drive, and it also seemed to work pretty well, though it was quite picky about codec/bitrate/anamorphic for video files.

I found that it didn’t work well over Wifi, so I ended up using Powerline adapters to get better throughput. That helped a lot.

MP, I think that the channels themselves are free (I’ve only downloaded a few of them), but some require a subscription service.

4

Roku is awesome. I love simple little things that just work.

5

How does Roku compare to, say, Boxee at this point? Did Boxee finally get Hulu support?

6

This is the one: Amazon.com

Huge list of private channels: http://www.thecontemplation.com/index.php/roku-channels/

I believe most of them are free.

7

I’m tempted. Really tempted. Does it do current episodes of shows easily? We watch a bunch of stuff on Food Network, for example. Or does that all depend on Hulu?

8

It all depends on Hulu (unless you somehow download episodes and play them from a USB stick). Also, you have to be a Hulu+ subscriber.

9

The big advantage Roku has right now is Hulu support. For stuff like Netflix, they are nearly identical. The big win for Boxee is supporting your own media, which Roku can’t do. I have my entire library of kid DVDs/Blurays ripped to my server, and use Boxees to view them. Works great.

10

I’ve had this for a while and never ventured off the Netflix icon. Where’s this weather channel thing? Sounds awesome!

11

If I already have a PS3 and a 360, there’s no reason at all to get one of these, is there?

12

jpinard: Weather Radar and Weather Underground should be addable from the Channel Store.

kozlows: Depends on where you want to use it. My consoles are in my den, the Roku in the bedroom.

13

Be sure to check out the Giantbomb channel. My brother actually set that up.

14

Couldn’t you use something like this to stream your media to a Roku?

Also, can someone explain the whole Roku “channel” thing - are these just user made apps or something using the SDK that let you extend the use of the Roku device?

15

Besides Hulu & Netflix, any other streaming services supported by either or both?

16

Should have my Roku today or tomorrow - looking forward to having a play with it!

17

Yeah, I use my Boxee Box as much for storing and playing my iso version of my DVDS and my music as much as anything. Although the NaviX app makes the Boxee very interesting. Also, I use HBOGo a lot on the Boxee, as well as Pandora, etc. But I still watch Netflix and Hulu + via my PS3 and XBox, just because I always have.

18

What’s NaviX do? Never tried it.

19

Or a laptop with an HDMI out to your TV.

20

Amazon Prime, Crackle, many more.