How does Roku work? Thinking about ditching cable.
So much TV stuff is now free on the net or I can watch the news programs I want to see the next day on the internet. I pretty much just watch news.
You buy a Roku Streaming Stick+ and plug it into one of your HDMI ports on your flatscreen. You switch your TV to the input and it walks you through connecting wirelessly to your WiFi router with your normal encryption key. Then you decide if you want to install additional apps or remove included apps. Everything is free unless you want a service that costs something. The Pluto TV app gives you Newsmax, America's Voice, InfoWars, OAN “Encore” (prerecorded stuff), and BlazeTV for free. Other apps give you other stations or many other stations (like Pluto TV). If you have Amazon Prime already, load that app and enter your information and all Prime content is free, including 4K stuff for the newest TVs.
The little Roku remote has no keyboard, so you are left hitting a lot of arrows to set up all the searches, but the Stick+ and the next more expensive one has a voice option that will do rudimentary searches for you without keying anything in. Those voice searches cover all apps that a show or movie can be seen in, so you might find several apps playing it for a cost while its free on the Roku Channel app (Roku has it's own set of rotating content).
Disney+ is $7 a month and is a great buy if you like their content options.
The options on all Roku appear may be “live” or prerecorded. For instance, you can watch every old episode of CBS's Cold Case free in the Roku Channel app, while the Pluto TV shows live channels. Disney+ and Amazon Prime are examples of prerecorded content. The Sony Channel is also basically prerecorded stuff.
There are thousands of apps and “channels” to watch, even unlisted content that Roku officially does not sanction, but which is still available to be streamed. You can get a huge number of cable channels streaming through Hulu or similar apps (with a charge).
Do be aware that you will want to check your Internet plan to see if you currently have limits that exceeding will bring extra charges. We have yet to go over 1 Terabyte (1 TB) with our daily 4K television viewing habits, but that amount on some providers could cause an extra $10 per 50 Gigabytes of overage. I will say our plan is “unlimited,” though. Do note that “speed” beyond even 50 Megabyte a second is not needed for even 4K content, meaning for normal HD, it's even less data bandwidth needed.
Cancel your cable and stop paying for CNN. You'll love it.
One more thing. For free access to all of your local channels, you will need a simple antenna, ideally a flat antenna with an amplifier if you live in a city with stronger channels, or a bigger antenna if you live further away.
If you live really further away, the Marathon antenna on Amazon does a wonderful job, and we have this, when needed.
Plug the Roku box into the wall outlet and your TV. Connect it wirelessly to your WiFi. Switch your tv to the input where you connected your Roku. Set up an account. Then watch whatever content you want.
I stream content from my Netflix account, my Amazon Prime account, and my home video server.
I don’t pay anything to Roku (after the initial hardware purchase) because I’m paying Amazon and Netflix for content. Their content is delivered over the internet to the Roku box and then to your tv.