Roku - I like it!

[LoriNSC]

I'm thinking of getting one for my bedroom tv. We have directtv & a dvr downstairs and my oldest son has a receiver in his room (he pays for). I didn't want to pay monthly for another receiver in our bedroom so we've been without our tv there for about a year now. I think this would be awesome for my bedroom. I noticed there are several models. Is the one priced around $49 any good or do I need to spend a bit more?

 

[wenrob]

I have a couple questions if you don't mind?

When you stream can you pause? Forward? Rewind? Also can you set stuff up to stream back to back? Say I want to set the timer on my tv to turn off in an hour or two can I set it up to play two (or however many) episodes of a 30min program in a row without having to start up a new stream? Am I making any sense?

 

[Mom-to-2-Princesses]

Nothing to add, but thanks to all of you for posting on this thread. It's got me thinking and I think it could save us some good money!

 

[DawnM]

I got the $99 model. It isn't a whole great deal more compared to getting another DVR!

The $49 one has a lower streaming quality. If your TV is not a 1080p anyway, it may not matter.

I think the upper model is the only one with playback (rewind) but it could just be the only one with 30 second rewind....you know, when you go, "what did he just say?"

Upper model also has a USB port and allows you to play your own stuff downloaded from the computer.

Dawn

I'm thinking of getting one for my bedroom tv. We have directtv & a dvr downstairs and my oldest son has a receiver in his room (he pays for). I didn't want to pay monthly for another receiver in our bedroom so we've been without our tv there for about a year now. I think this would be awesome for my bedroom. I noticed there are several models. Is the one priced around $49 any good or do I need to spend a bit more?

 

[SettinSail]

OK, so as I mentioned earlier, I gave DH a Roku for Christmas. We finally set it up last night, very easy, we got a one month free subscription to Netflix and we also subscribed for $8 a month.


BUT.......there are hardly any movies to choose from I am new to Netflix but I thought it was similar to shopping at BlockBuster
I had never heard of atleast 50% of the movies, many of them were very old
(like 15-20 years old, not classic movies). I'm so disappointed. Is there more selection on Netflix if you get them in the mail monthly

 

[JB2K]

I've shown him many 'channels' we've downloaded and that are available and also have enticed him by sharing that we could subscribe to the MLB channel during baseball season and he could watch all games live plus playback the past 7 days of games.

A word of advice to anyone getting this device for the baseball fan in their life...

Per Major League Baseball rules, all games for your home market team are not aired live over MLB.tv (the service carried on Roku, PlayStation 3, and other streaming devices). Those games are typcially made available on these devices several hours after game completion.

In other words, if you have a Phillies fan living in South Jersey, a Red Sox fan somewhere in New England, or a St. Louis Cardinals fan somewhere in that team's large "home" territory, they won't be able to view their team's games live on the Roku.

 

[JB2K]

BUT.......there are hardly any movies to choose from I am new to Netflix but I thought it was similar to shopping at BlockBuster
I had never heard of atleast 50% of the movies, many of them were very old
(like 15-20 years old, not classic movies). I'm so disappointed. Is there more selection on Netflix if you get them in the mail monthly

Here's the story regarding Netflix and current movies -- if you are looking for recent releases on Netflix, you normally have to add the DVD-by-mail service to your account (which costs extra). True, the movie selection at the streaming Netflix isn't spectacular -- I only use mine to watch past seasons of classic TV shows (which beats spending 30 bucks for a season's worth of episodes on DVD).

As for Hulu Plus, that is a vehicle for Disney/ABC, NBC/Universal, and Fox to air their recent (and some classic) TV shows. The fact it has commercial advertising doesn't justify the monthly cost.

Though it never gets any mention on the Budget Board, you should check-out Vudu (an on-demand movie-steaming service owned by Walmart which is available on Roku and many other devices) -- their prices are pretty good for what they offer...

 

[JB2K]

HuluPlus has many of the current shows the next day as available. HOWEVER, the one channel that will NOT allow this is CBS. They won't allow you to view anything of theirs on anything but their website, which really stinks because most of what I watch is on CBS!

It isn't that CBS "doesn't allow" it - they simply have no ownership interest in Hulu Plus.

Hulu is jointly-owned by the Walt Disney Company (ABC), NBC Universal (NBC) and News Corporation (Fox). Since CBS is not one of the owners, their content is (noticeably) absent from this service.

 

[wenrob]

Here's the story regarding Netflix and current movies -- if you are looking for recent releases on Netflix, you normally have to add the DVD-by-mail service to your account (which costs extra). True, the movie selection at the streaming Netflix isn't spectacular -- I only use mine to watch past seasons of classic TV shows (which beats spending 30 bucks for a season's worth of episodes on DVD).

As for Hulu Plus, that is a vehicle for Disney/ABC, NBC/Universal, and Fox to air their recent (and some classic) TV shows. The fact it has commercial advertising doesn't justify the monthly cost.

Though it never gets any mention on the Budget Board, you should check-out Vudu (an on-demand movie-steaming service owned by Walmart which is available on Roku and many other devices) -- their prices are pretty good for what they offer...

I've looked on the Roku site and Vudu site and can't find anywhere that says they work together. Can you you point me in the right direction?

 

[JB2K]

I've looked on the Roku site and Vudu site and can't find anywhere that says they work together. Can you you point me in the right direction?

I stand corrected -- I thought Vudu was an available channel on the Roku players (much as it is with Blu-ray players, etc.). Obviously, that's not the case...

 

[DawnM]

I see, well, I thought I had read that they had tried to get CBS shows but CBS had not agreed to it. Netflix doesn't seem to stream CBS content either.....but you can get the shows on DVD from last season.

Dawn

It isn't that CBS "doesn't allow" it - they simply have no ownership interest in Hulu Plus.

Hulu is jointly-owned by the Walt Disney Company (ABC), NBC Universal (NBC) and News Corporation (Fox). Since CBS is not one of the owners, their content is (noticeably) absent from this service.

 

[solfan68]

Yup. Roku's awesome. Had ours for about six months now. Over the last few days(whilst pulling old clothes for donating and slipping new ones from Christmas into the rotation), I managed to plow through a movie and season 1 of Storage Wars on Netflix. We have Dish with DVR, but the master bedroom was never wired and I just don't want to go through the hassle. Just need to add DW's Prime account to the Roku so we can further open our entertainment choices.

 

[SettinSail]

Here's the story regarding Netflix and current movies -- if you are looking for recent releases on Netflix, you normally have to add the DVD-by-mail service to your account (which costs extra). True, the movie selection at the streaming Netflix isn't spectacular -- I only use mine to watch past seasons of classic TV shows (which beats spending 30 bucks for a season's worth of episodes on DVD).

As for Hulu Plus, that is a vehicle for Disney/ABC, NBC/Universal, and Fox to air their recent (and some classic) TV shows. The fact it has commercial advertising doesn't justify the monthly cost.

Though it never gets any mention on the Budget Board, you should check-out Vudu (an on-demand movie-steaming service owned by Walmart which is available on Roku and many other devices) -- their prices are pretty good for what they offer...

Thanks for the info. Now we are thinking Amazon Prime may be a better deal than Netflix. It's cheaper at $80 per year and the movies are much more recent. I just need to check into if there is an add'l cost per movie or if you get all those movies free with your Amazon Prime account

We also played around with the Pandora channel last night and I wanted to build a queue of songs but all I could do was build a channel that selected the music for me

As you can see I am easily befuddled with technology....I just want to turn the thing on and be instantly entertained with my choices!

 

[Nayan]

Thanks for the info. Now we are thinking Amazon Prime may be a better deal than Netflix. It's cheaper at $80 per year and the movies are much more recent. I just need to check into if there is an add'l cost per movie or if you get all those movies free with your Amazon Prime account

We also played around with the Pandora channel last night and I wanted to build a queue of songs but all I could do was build a channel that selected the music for me

As you can see I am easily befuddled with technology....I just want to turn the thing on and be instantly entertained with my choices!

The movies that comes with Prime are free, no additional charge . As far as Pandora, you pick an artist and it will play music of the genre. For instance, if you type in The Monkees, you'll get all music like that. If you type in Faith Hill, you'll get that kind of music. Napster used to offer what you were looking for, but sadly they are no more and now owned by Rhapsody, which is like Pandora.

 

[pat fan]

As you can see I am easily befuddled with technology....I just want to turn the thing on and be instantly entertained with my choices!

You and me both!

I just want to tell someone what I want and have them say "You need to buy "X" and subscribe to "Z" and you will be all set. But no, it can't be that easy,can it?

 

[scnrc00]

I got the Roku 2 for Christmas also and we love it. My DH and girls love playing Angry Birds on it. We cancelled cable several months back to cut back on costs so this little box is great. We watch Crackle, Hulu & etc.

 

[pat fan]

So what exactly can you see on HULU? I've been to the website, but I must be dense, because I just don't understand how it works. Current shows, but not on the exact date it airs? Not CBS shows? What about specials? Like say at Christmas, Rudolph, Charlie Brown....are they on there? I just don't get it apparently

 

[apnep]

If your TV is not a 1080p anyway, it may not matter.

Dawn

I am struggling with understanding this. I asked my DH what our TVs were and he said they were 720p? Is that bad? Does that mean if we got a ROKU the streaming or video quality is horrible??

Thanks in advance,

Ang

 

[pat fan]

If your TV is not a 1080p anyway, it may not matter.

What is 1080p? How do I find out what my tv is? I think I will just be paying DirecTV for the rest of my life

 

[JB2K]

So what exactly can you see on HULU? I've been to the website, but I must be dense, because I just don't understand how it works. Current shows, but not on the exact date it airs? Not CBS shows? What about specials? Like say at Christmas, Rudolph, Charlie Brown....are they on there? I just don't get it apparently

As I said in a previous post, Hulu's content is mainly recent hit shows (and a few "classic" series) from ABC, NBC, and FOX -- no CBS programs air on Hulu.

As for holiday specials - that's hard to say, since the rights to many of those classics are held with other third-party companies, and not the major networks, themselves.

For example, "Rudolph" and a select few Rankin-Bass produced specials most of us grew-up with during the 1960s are currently held by Classic Media (and AFAIK, they still air annually on CBS).

The "Peanuts" library, OTOH, airs on ABC (and the ABC/Disney family of cable networks, such as ABC Family). The rights to those specials are held by Warner Bros.