I've thought about this but we don't watch that many movies. I'm finding it hard to justify the cost.
All I know is that Roku is some sorta nebulous box thingie that you can get GBTV through....
I need info too.
I have a ROKU primarily for connecting Netflix via router to my LCD tv.
IIRC, I paid $99 for the ROKU about 2 years ago. Newer versions are more in the range of $79, now.
ROKU has several ‘pay’ channels and many ‘free’ channels. The pay ones include Amazon streaming, Netflix, Hulu Plus, some sports, etc.
ROKU free channels most access material that is free over the internet — such as public domain movies/tv programs.
I LOVE my Roku. I mostly use it for Netflix and Pandora. It has a great picture, and the interface is excellent. I canceled cable TV, and don’t miss it, except I haven’t figured out how to get Food Network shows.
I wasn’t happy that I bought a top of the line box, and then they came out with a new line within six months, and no longer plan to offer subtitles for Netflix on the original. So get a Roku 2 if you want Netflix subtitles.
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The Roku is by far the easiest device we have in the house.
We no longer have cable. We get all our TV and movies through Netflix and Hulu Plus for about $17/mo, plus high speed data costs through our cable provider. We are probably cancelling Hulu Plus, because we aren’t avid TV watchers and Netflix has more content than we can keep up with.
There are free channels, too, including a Fox News online channel, but we rarely turn to the free channels. The TV isn’t on that often in the house.
Is much good.
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We use it 98% for Netflix, 2% for GBTV.
When my kids were younger (we homeschool) we would have used khan Academy (free).
It’s well worth it for us. We’ve just about exhausted the movie supply, but being able to watch favorite tv series is great.
Simple to install and use. We had to get a switcher box for our old, one-input, TV. Got one on Amazon for $15.
I had a Roku to connect to NetFlix, but returned it because I was able to buy a Vizio Blu-Ray player that also connected to NetFlix. We bought the wireless BluRay player at WallyWorld for about $99. Beware, the NetFlix/Vizio connection is a bandwidth hog, even with FiOS.
My daughter loves to catch up on the TV series she missed on NetFlix when not busy with school work. I think she and my wife have watched all of the seasons of Desperate Housewives.
You won't find everything. History Channel Dogfight is out there, but some old movies I can't find - "Kelley's Heros" comes to mind; it's not on the list ...
I know it drives the Glenn Beck haters crazy every time I say it, but I stream GBTV through ROKU. Then only other channels we view through it is Netflix and Pandora. There are lots of other channels, but most of them are pretty worthless.
Roku is great. I have a Onkyo stereo receiver that I plug the Roku into and use it mainly to stream Pandora. Sounds awesome.
Only thing I can’t figure out is why they didn’t program a web interface into the darn thing. I’d love to use it “headless” when I stream Pandora but am forced to use a monitor to select my music genre. Once that’s done I do turn the monitor off though.
PJ this device seriously rocks, it rocks so much that I’ve cut cable and made the Roku my main form of television entertainment. You need two things to take advantage of the Roku 1. A Netflix membership 2. A Hard Drive.
Netflix is essential to Roku as you will get a lot of material from it, and it only starts at $10.00 a month for streaming. There’s also great services that you can get such as Amazon Prime where you can buy new and old tv shows ala carte for as little as $20.00 for an entire season or $1.50 per episode and $2.00 an episode in HD, you can cancel at any time if the show sucks. I’m still able to watch my favorite shows like The Walking Dead, Cake Boss, and Ice Road Truckers on this for an amount that when added to Netflix comes in way under my old cable bill of $120.00.
In addition, I highly recommend getting the more expensive Roku model because it has a usb port. If you couple that to a 2TB hard drive you can burn movies you get from the library, RedBox, and Netflix this saves me so much cash.
As for sports, I hook up my computer to the tv via HDMI and google sports stream to find sites that stream sports for me. That saves me a HECK of a lot of money. The cable companies suck, I hate them, I found a way around them they can go pound sand the internet is going to kill cable. jmo
Once you are accustomed to "on demand" programming, I don't know why anyone would ever go back to cable or satellite again.
My oldest son bought me a Roku for Christmas back in 2010, and I enjoy being able to live-stream Netflix movies on it. They are always adding more channels. Some cost extra, others are free. You can live-stream radio programs as well. I’ve listened to Rush on mine. I probably don’t use it as often as other folks, but for the low cost, it’s definitely worth it.
Thanks for starting this thread ... I’ve been thinking about Roku or Apple TV too.
And thanks to everyone else and the great feedback here. I think I might just go out and get Roku real soon and cut ties with Uverse.
Get an internet connected bluray player (which is almost all of them) instead. Most of them connect to all the same services roku does, and many can connect to shared content on your computer in case you want to use a service they don’t support, and they play DVDs and bluray, and the entry level ones cost about the same as a roku. These days so many TV peripherals (and the TVs themselves) stream there’s just no reason to get a device that only streams.
Forgot to mention that there is a private Yahoo Group you can join that is specifically for Roku users. Good info and help available, and you can get the postings in an email. Here’s the title for the group: RokuDigitalVideoPlayer, or you can do a search on Yahoo.