Got sick of paying for cable/dish several years ago and have only used DVD player from that time until about 6 months ago when I picked up a Roku. I mostly use NetFlix but also browse other channels from time to time, lots of shows like "All in the Family" and "The Andy Griffith Show" are out there. After using Roku I'll never pay for cable or dish again.
The only downside I have with dumping DirecTV is the loss of local channels. No reception for me for on air TV. Right now I am learning this nifty little box and have found some channels that don't work but I can live with it.
My Roku should arrive today. After the NFL is done, I'll go back to the $29.99 base plan on DirecTV if the Roku works out. If the Roku is as advertised, I'll be wondering why it took so long for me to do it.
The three Roku boxes and the rooftop antenna paid for themselves in six months over the cost of Direct TV. The $50/month savings pays for the data plan on two phones. Mostly, I watch Netflix, Hulu plus and Ted. Small_e_wife watches all the news and talking-head shows. We're very happy with Roku and have reccomended it to many people. WHAT FREE PORN CHANNEL????
I was thinking of getting a Roku but how is it different from my Sony Blue ray player. I can stream video thru my Blue ray player. Its a little cumbersome and just started playing with it. But $50 a month for DishTV is a lot for mostly crappy shows. Does Roku have a buffer to help with the streaming. My internet is DSL 2.5Mbsecond. The stuff I have tried so far has worked well.
The hold out for me is the DVR. BEing able to record shows and play them back and skip commercioals is great. Though, I sure am paying too much for things I don't want... like commercials. I would miss Speed TV and a few of the series my wife and I enjoy...
Take a look at Simple TV. It allows you to use any external hard drive to record shows. And you can get it with DVR functionality. A couple of guys I work with got them and love it. Also, you'd be surprised at what you can get on the internet. Most shows can be found available on the web for free or very low cost. PlayOn is another service offering streaming video through your computer to a Roku. There are plenty of options out there. You just have to do a little digging.
Interesting. I can't get cable or Fios here. I am doubtful about DirecTV or DishTV because the trees on the south of the house are just too high. So that leaves the internet. I barely get 1.5 mbps because I am at the very distant end of the DSL line. Maybe Roku will work for me? I have some favorite networks shows I want to watch - not just movies. I love the history channel and such.
Just got my Roku 2 XS after realizing I was paying $1800 a year for crap TV with commercials, slow internet, and phone. So, I cut the cable (and the bundled internet and phone) Went with an ISP that provides unlimited download, and talk broadband for around $40 /month. 5 Mbps down is good enough for HD (though might be 720, not 1080). Just hooked it up to a Roku and am on my free trial of Netflix. Liking it, but, between kat.ph and isohunt.com, I am getting most of my TV shows withing 24 hours for free anyways. I download and transfer to a HDD hooked up to a western digital media player. Being in Canada, the selection on the Roku is not as good. Even our Netflix has less content than the US subscribers. We can't even get Hulu. Been thinking about getting a ISP spoof such as unblock-us to access US content. But before I do that, I need to leanr more about the Plex Media Server and the Plex Channel on the Roku. Anyone running Plex?
+1000 for plex! I have a drobo with 700+ movies and a few TV shows, but all the seasons of them. http://www.plexapp.com for content, I set this up: http://www.totalhtpc.com/ultimate-usenet-guide.html very very slick. I don't care much for sports, and live out in the boonies, so OTA antenna setup won't get me much, if I am VERY lucky, one channel maybe. The nice thing about the TV shows off Usenet is they already have the commercials stripped out Mendo
Bumping up an older thread here, but our Roku arrives tomorrow. Discowife decided that we needn't be paying the outrageous Comcast bill any longer (plus this was due in part to a massive meltdown I had with Comcast on Sunday - long story). We will be stuck with Comcast for broadband - the only other choice is CenturyLink DSL, but the speeds are 20x slower, and I am not willing to downgrade to that extent, but we will be dropping cable and phone next week, for a savings of somewhere around $150/month. I HATE Comcast, but they are really the only option here for decent internet. We have two very nice TV's, and we currently stream Amazon Prime through the PS3 on the basement TV, but we needed something for upstairs (first world problems, I know), so she wanted to get the Roku, and an HD antenna for local stations. Any issues with it? How is the picture quality? I've been surprised at how good some of the streaming is through the PS3 - also wondering about sound quality for movies and the like. Other than a few shows I watch religiously, and most of those can be watched via Amazon, Netflix or Hulu, even if not immediately, the real kicker for me, is sports. I am a huge hockey fan - I probably watch about 80-90% of the Minnesota Wild games, and I am not willing to part with that. That means come fall, we will probably be turning on whatever the most basic cable package I can get with Fox Sports North, or else getting one of the new customer deals with Dish or Direct which will still be considerably cheaper than what we are currently paying. NHL Gamecenter is available, but they blackout in-market games, meaning no Wild for me. I know there are VPN options but that seems like a lot of rinky-dink screwing around that at this point I don't feel like dealing with. I'm convinced that sports broadcast rights are the only reason that the current cable/sat model continues to exist. I'd be ecstatic to drop cable if I could even PPV for an entire NHL season streaming local games...
Are you sure you can't? For example, the only reason I have comcast is to watch our local NBA team, the trailblazers, play. But I can buy a subscription to the entire season streaming on the web for $99. I am getting ready to do exactly what you are doing. Please post up a review of your roku.
Just pony up for the NHL Gamecenter and watch the local blacked-out games by connecting via a proxy so you trick NHL into thinking your IP address is actually out of market.
Is there a MLS channel or ways to watch games on this thing? I stream Amazon and Netflix through a PS3 but I want to catch some soccer games. Disregard, I used google after posting...http://www.rokuguide.com/channels/mls-matchday-live
You'll like the Roku. The picture quality is excellent and sound from HDMI is very good. The menu and remote are very intuitive and in the event of a hardware issue, Roku has excellent customer service. They replaced ours for free even though it was slightly past the warranty period. Roku's environment is very open for adding various new content. Some free, some paid. I do like AppleTV's Netflix app better. Having access to all of your iTunes content is also very nice. And it rocks to be able to stream content from any iPhone/Ipad/Mac via Airplay. The downside with Apple, as always, is their walled garden. For example; you won't be seeing an Amazon Prime app on there anytime soon. For what you are saving per month by dropping your cable, you could easily buy both and still be money ahead after 3 months.
I got home from softball tonight and she had hooked up the Roku and antenna, but we didn't have much time to play with it. We hooked them up on the upstairs TV, since the basement TV has the PS3 (and also has the home theater surround sound setup). The antenna barely worked. It found about four channels (should have been 16 or so) and only Fox came in with a decent signal. NBC was poor, and CBS and ABC were non-existent. I think we will need a powered antenna, since we live about 20 miles from the transmitters, and we kind of live down in a low spot with a lot of trees. The Roku is cool. Great picture and sound (sound is only through the TV speakers, but still sounded decent). I can't wait to play with it some more. I think I'm going to like this. As far as Apple TV goes, we looked at it (and I'm an Apple fan boy to some extent - everything we have here is Mac or iPhone), but the big kicker was Amazon Prime, which apparently you can't run unless you jailbreak. Easier to just get the Roku, and supposedly, there's a way to stream your music library through the Roku anyway (as you can with the PS3 - I have that set up already with my Mac Mini server).
From what I've researched, this is offered at the team level, rather than the league level, so if the Blazers choose to offer a streaming setup to local customers, they can, but not all teams do. I've read that for the NHL, Vancouver and Toronto and a couple others do this, but not sure about others. It would also depend on their local broadcast contract. I don't think the Wild does this. Re: running Gamecenter through a proxy. I've read mixed results on this, but it seems to be more due to bugs in Gamecenter than with the Roku or proxy themselves. If I thought it would be stable, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Apparently that works really well for MLB.tv, but not so much for the NHL, at least at this point.
Yep, antennaweb says we should be fine with a small multidirectional antenna, but it's not working well. I'll try and play with it more tomorrow. Thanks for the note on Plex. Sounds similar to the PS3 media server program, which works well.
I'm 60 miles away in either direction from signals. Antennaweb recommended an antenna and monoprice had a powered one that all reviews said it would pull from long distances. It doesn't. At some point I'm going to have to put one on the roof. Before football season. The Roku is still going strong however, and is basically used for movies. It doesn't see a ton of use as there are days at a time between turning the tv on, but it was a wise investment for sure
