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Roku, anyone?

Christiern
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Christiern Newbie

Christiern

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Posted

My Roku arrived today and it was installed with the greatest of ease. What is Roku? A great movie ticket...

Here's a description, check it out.

This afternoon I played hooky for 2 hours and forty minutes—ten minutes were spent connecting and setting up Roku, two and a half hours were spent watching The Comedians, a movie I hadn't seen since its release in 1967.

It works like a charm, smooth as a DVD.

I'd love to see comments by anyone who has this little device.

Ted O'Reilly Newbie

Ted O'Reilly

Posted
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So, pardon my complete ignorance, but does this have to watched on a computer screen? Or is the device meant to take an internet feed and send it to my TV set?

Ted, I have it hooked up to my 37" flat screen via HDMI cable (it accommodates virtually any cable) and the quality i remarkable. Most of us have a wireless router, I suppose, and that's all you need. In my case, it is a Mac with Apple's Airport. You create your film que on the computer and they show up on your TV when you need them. Roku comes with a small remote control unit that allows you to stop, start, resume, play from beginning, freeze, etc., as if youu were running a DVD.

I have the $8.95 Netflix deal, which means that I can get unlimited thru-the-mail discs, one at a time. Roku is included, so I could watch movies 24/7, if I were an idiot :)

BTW, a Netflix account also lets you see movies on you computer screen.

Geez, I hope it's not available in Canada. :unsure: My daughter (the movie/TV maven) will go crazy with something like that. Pleeeze, Roku, be USA only!

Uncle Skid Rookie

Uncle Skid

Posted
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We've had one here for a few months now, and have been quite impressed. We also have the $8.95 Netflix deal.

Going into geek mode for a minute, so please bear with me:

It is absolutely amazing what Roku is doing with this box. The box is running Linux, and I still can't believe they are selling it for $100. Either they are very good at hardware design, or they are selling it at a loss in anticipation of future earnings... either way, it's still pretty darn cool. FWIW, I suspect it's a little of both.

But, what's really impressed me is the image quality, the ease-of-use, and the automatic software upgrades.

The image quality is obviously dependent on your internet connection speed, but I'm getting very good results over wireless. I'm not sure that HD is "really" HD, but it looks great to me. Netflix has the original Star Trek series on-line in HD, and it's been fun revisiting those old episodes in HD.

The user interface is simple and easy to use. The remote control doesn't have tons of buttons, and it's intuitive.

When I first bought the Roku box, it didn't support HD. Since then, it has automatically upgraded itself to support that, and it has also added support for Amazon Video on demand. Looks like most Amazon on demand is $3.99, which seems a bit expensive, but it's still nice that Roku isn't just tied to Netflix.

Last geek thought: sorry Moose, you can't watch movies 24/7 on this thing, unless you've got a very generous ISP. Most have instituted download limits per month, and watching movies more than occasionally would probably hit that limit fairly quickly. Streaming video eats up lots of bandwidth.

Net Neutrality is a good thing, but I'd be very surprised if the big providers (Comcast especially) let that happen without a fight.

It's pretty clear to me that Roku could be a very nice (on-demand) replacement for cable TV, eventually.

  • 2 weeks later...
seeline Newbie

seeline

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I didn't realize that Roku was now handling Amazon video - it was Netflix-only at 1st.

I'm beginning to think that I'll buy one, because I'd far rather watch the content on my TV than on my computer monitor.

Thanks for all the input, guys!

.:.impossible Newbie

.:.impossible

Posted
Posted

Ok. Everywhere but here, I read much more grounded reviews. You guys have no issues streaming? I'd even consider a mac mini running boxee. I know there are BR players that have streaming capabilities. Blockbuster has partnered with Tivo...

I hunk I like the mac mini boxee solution best, though a bit more expensive.

Uncle Skid Rookie

Uncle Skid

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I very seldom have streaming issues. My internet connection is the standard Comcast cable; I think it's roughly 6Mbps.

Roku appears to be buffering ahead quite a bit (as expected), and also has a "quality" indicator. Most of the time, ours is at highest quality, but I have seen it dial down automatically. Apparently, they deal with low bandwidth issues by reducing quality as needed.

Edited by Uncle Skid
Dave Garrett Explorer

Dave Garrett

Posted
Posted

I very seldom have streaming issues. My internet connection is the standard Comcast cable; I think it's roughly 6Mbps.

Roku appears to be buffering ahead quite a bit (as expected), and also has a "quality" indicator. Most of the time, ours is at highest quality, but I have seen it dial down automatically. Apparently, they deal with low bandwidth issues by reducing quality as needed.

Comcast has a 250GB monthly cap now, after which you start getting whacked with extra charges or warnings that they'll close your account if the level of usage persists. I'd be interested to know how much bandwidth the Roku consumes, as one of the big concerns about the bandwidth cap is that it's going to be quite easy for those who stream decent-quality video on a regular basis to hit the cap.

Uncle Skid Rookie

Uncle Skid

Posted
Posted (edited)

I very seldom have streaming issues. My internet connection is the standard Comcast cable; I think it's roughly 6Mbps.

Roku appears to be buffering ahead quite a bit (as expected), and also has a "quality" indicator. Most of the time, ours is at highest quality, but I have seen it dial down automatically. Apparently, they deal with low bandwidth issues by reducing quality as needed.

Comcast has a 250GB monthly cap now, after which you start getting whacked with extra charges or warnings that they'll close your account if the level of usage persists. I'd be interested to know how much bandwidth the Roku consumes, as one of the big concerns about the bandwidth cap is that it's going to be quite easy for those who stream decent-quality video on a regular basis to hit the cap.

250GB is a huge amount of data, even when streaming video is involved.

This article estimates it would take 8 hours a day/7 days a week of (non-HD) streaming to hit Comcast's cap.

Of course, that doesn't mean that Comcast's 250GB cap is reasonable. I'm paying for "unlimited" bandwidth, dammit! <_<

Edited by Uncle Skid
  • 3 weeks later...
.:.impossible Newbie

.:.impossible

Posted
Posted

I tried connecting my laptop to the tv to stream Netflix and the results were less than satisfactory.

I am toying with this idea of a Roku, or possibly a Mac Mini running Boxee, which would also allow Netflix streaming, but the quality was so poor, we stopped watching after a few minutes.

On the other hand, streaming directly to my laptop has been fantastic.

  • 5 months later...
blajay Newbie

blajay

Posted
Posted

I tried connecting my laptop to the tv to stream Netflix and the results were less than satisfactory.

I am toying with this idea of a Roku, or possibly a Mac Mini running Boxee, which would also allow Netflix streaming, but the quality was so poor, we stopped watching after a few minutes.

On the other hand, streaming directly to my laptop has been fantastic.

What was the problem when you tried hooking your laptop up to the tv to stream things? We're debating the same things at my place.

  • 5 weeks later...
blajay Newbie

blajay

Posted
Posted

We just cancelled cable, in favor of a digital converter box and antennae. Before buying the Roku box, we decided to try out the laptop connections. We tried one cable that didn't work because our laptops weren't compatible. But we just got a different VGA converter, and the results are fantastic. It only costs $30, and Netflix, Hulu or whatever looks perfect on our TV screen. I think it is still superior to the Roku for the ability to do anything online, and it's also cheaper.

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product....=1&format=2

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