Anybody Roku?

We currently have 3 AppleTV's (latest gen) and love them. Great for Netflix and a few other sources, but I just picked up a Roku and should hook it up in the next few days.

I like the idea that We can stream movies from Amazon for free (Prime account) and the idea of adding additional channels is appealing. I find with the Apple TV's, we primarily rent movies from iTunes and not much else. We don't use it for music at all

With the Roku box vs AppleTV

We:

Lose YouTube (no biggie)
Lose seamless streaming of our existing content (though there are apps for that)
Lose Airplay
Gain Amazon Prime
Gain lots of channels
Gain Bluetooth remote



Anybody using one?

I have one on a tv in the basement and bought one for each of my girls' families for christmas - the Roku private channels can be interesting to track down and play with...

I'm holding out for the new google TV. Heard good things about the Roku. But a browser and search is a must for me. I personally don't care for appletv at all.

Sent from my SGH-I997 using Bimmer

can you just connect your ipad to your tv and do the same as appletv and more?

Love our roku. We use it for amazon prime, netflix, plex (there's a plex channel that connects to our plex server so we can play all movies from that on it). Solid device.

IIRC the Roku box doesn't do DLNA, is that right? That's a must have for any box, imo. Currently testing WD TV. Kludgy interface and definitely has it share of tweaks needed to connect wireless but it has all the features I want.

Can you get regular TV with these boxes or are they just for streaming movies?

Originally Posted by FIA

Can you get regular TV with these boxes or are they just for streaming movies?

Streaming, but last night I did find a channel that provided live feeds of CBS/NBC/ABC/FOX and CW

Just got my Roku 2 XS... so how do you find these "channels" ??!!

Does anyone have a good feel for how the picture on Roku compares with a standard HD cable or DTV picture? I can see a definite difference between DTV (much superior) to things lie MLB.TV or YouTube on my Samsung Apps, or through my old Laptop (which, when I bought my new laptop, I reformatted and such up as a permanent media center onto the TV).

Is Roku better than any of those other non-cable/DTV alternatives?

Originally Posted by chasfh

Does anyone have a good feel for how the picture on Roku compares with a standard HD cable or DTV picture? I can see a definite difference between DTV (much superior) to things lie MLB.TV or YouTube on my Samsung Apps, or through my old Laptop (which, when I bought my new laptop, I reformatted and such up as a permanent media center onto the TV).

Is Roku better than any of those other non-cable/DTV alternatives?

Your ISP may be to blame. UVerse was so slow we had to move to a higher tier to get HD.

Originally Posted by brkf

Your ISP may be to blame. UVerse was so slow we had to move to a higher tier to get HD.

I thought Uverse ===> FiberOptic ===> lighting fast!!??

Originally Posted by beewang

Just got my Roku 2 XS... so how do you find these "channels" ??!!

visit the channel store - setup and account - login from the roku and you can push channel to your roku from the web - or the iphone app:

http://www.roku.com/channels#!now-playing

Roku is pretty cool - son has one in his room. We have Apple TV in the living room and use it for NetFlix/Hulu/Youtube and streaming from iMac.

Originally Posted by wyb

visit the channel store - setup and account - login from the roku and you can push channel to your roku from the web - or the iphone app:

http://www.roku.com/channels#!now-playing

...heheh... I was referring to the 'Secreat" Channels...

Originally Posted by beewang

I thought Uverse ===> FiberOptic ===> lighting fast!!??

In San Diego Uverse = cheap garbage. But hey it's cheap.

Originally Posted by hockeynut

Roku is pretty cool - son has one in his room. We have Apple TV in the living room and use it for NetFlix/Hulu/Youtube and streaming from iMac.

Add plex to your imac and make it a media server. The plex channel on roku is awesome!

I picked one up for my parents around Christmas time for the DishWorld channel. Channel wouldn't stop buffering. Terrible. Of course, Roku is not to blame for this because its not their content. I returned it. I'll probably pick one up myself to complement my AppleTV.

Are there lots of 3rd party stuff? I couldn't find it. Would be awesome to be able to get FirstRowSports.eu on the roku for Basketball games not shown on national TV (or NBA TV)

Originally Posted by beewang

...heheh... I was referring to the 'Secreat" Channels...

http://www.roku-channels.com/

to add the channel copy the code onto the end of the URL:

https://owner.roku.com/Account/Chann...ODE_GOES_HERE_

like this:

https://owner.roku.com/Account/ChannelCode/?code=H9DWC

While I love my AppleTv's, I figured I'd try out a Roku, hard to beat the deal yesterday at 1SaleADay, $49.99 for a factory Refurb Roku XS (Their top of the line offering)

I bought my first Roku almost 3 years ago to watch Netflix.

I replaced it with a new Roku 2 XS last year because, the new one supports Netflix Subtitles and you can play Angry Birds with that Motion Control remote.

Originally Posted by brkf

Your ISP may be to blame. UVerse was so slow we had to move to a higher tier to get HD.

Hmmm ... I have Uverse at 11MBit download speed, which should yield 1 Mbyte per second throughput. Not sure why that wouldn't be enough for an HD picture? Do we need faster than that?

Originally Posted by chasfh

Hmmm ... I have Uverse at 11MBit download speed, which should yield 1 Mbyte per second throughput. Not sure why that wouldn't be enough for an HD picture? Do we need faster than that?

No, that should be plenty. Are you sure you're really getting over 5 Mbps?

Originally Posted by wyb

http://www.roku-channels.com/

to add the channel copy the code onto the end of the URL:

https://owner.roku.com/Account/Chann...ODE_GOES_HERE_

like this:

https://owner.roku.com/Account/ChannelCode/?code=H9DWC

Add to that...

https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?...Wc&output=html

Channel types: Channel Store, and Private. YMMV.

Last month I posted a question about Apple TV and a couple Roku users offered their perspectives. May help with the comparo.

http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=664021