Anyone rocking Roku?

I'm moving and I currently have cable for my tv service I'm considering other options because cable is freaking expensive. I don't have any other accounts besides cable, I don't have NetFlix or iTunes, nada. I have two small kids so my tv time is minimal. We currently watch about 4 things Top Gear UK, sports, movies, and PBS kids. I was thinking about getting NetFlix because they have TG and PBS. A coworker suggested Roku. Anyone using it? How does it work? How would it compare to just NetFlix? Do I need Roku to stream NetFlix through my tv?

Thanks

Roku isn't a service, it's a company that makes set-top-boxes that you use to watch things like Netflix, Hulu, Youtube, and others on your TV. Before you buy one, see if your TV is a "smart" TV, you may not need it.

Anyhow, we have 3 of them, they are great. I mostly use them for watching my own downloaded and ripped content with the Plex app. The newer Roku 2s and 3s have a headphone jack in the remote, so you can watch without disturbing anyone else.

Alternatives to Rokus include Apple TV, smart TVs and smart Blu-Ray players, WD TV Live, and a few others. But Rokus are probably the most popular.

We have two of them. One in the kitchen and one in the den. We have Amazon Prime and Netflix for streaming content. It's much cheaper then cable. Wireless, small, cheap, what's not to love.

I really don't miss Direct TV or cable.

Ditto to Toyman, we have two also. We watch netflix and amazon prime. There are some cool free chanels on there too. I don't miss cable AT ALL.

I had a Roku for years until the hardware died. I'd have another but my sister gave me a Apple TV for free.

Anyone try Amazon Fire TV?

Just picked one of the older N1100's up from the local Goodwill and set it up in a spare room, haven't played with it much yet, but I think I'll like it once I use it a bit more.

Need to figure out how to access the files on my local network and I can probably kill the HTPC.

We have an older one in the bedroom. I like the interface on the PS4 better.

yeah that is all we use, i think it is great, they got a new concert channel, concerts from the last 50 or 60 years...

I'm not interested in giving up my cable service, but we use a Roku box in addition to the sucky DVR that we have to use. We stream primarily Netflix with it, but also use the Amazon app for it to stream Prime and paid-for content. The Plex app is a little flakey on the server side, but once you get that set up it is so much more convenient to just have all our DVDs available at the push of a button and organized into folders.

I have noticed that Roku gets a little confused from time to time and needs the occasional catastrophic loss of power to get itself back in the game.

I just bought the new Roku Stick. Love the little thing. It comes with a very simple remote or you can use your smart phone to control it.

Yes, you will need a Netflix / Amazon Prime subscription to make the best of it. However there is still a lot of "Free" channels.

If you have good friends that will enter the pairing codes with the cable/sat account login you will get pretty much everything you will ever need.

edit: I can cast things from my phone to it as well (Youtube, pictures, videos, etc)

No roku for me. Both of my tv's have smart/streaming BR players.

But I do have a chromecast on one for things the BR doesn't offer, mainly HBOgo. It is ok with my iPhone, but it doesn't work with "apple media" and some apps on my iPhone. But, big surprise(!), it works a bit better when "casting" from a chrome browser on a computer.

Toyman01 wrote: We have two of them. One in the kitchen and one in the den. We have Amazon Prime and Netflix for streaming content. It's much cheaper then cable. Wireless, small, cheap, what's not to love. I really don't miss Direct TV or cable.

Same as him but no Netflix.

We cut our cable back to basic with Internet and got one of the Roku 3 a few months ago and so far it has been great. Between Netflix and Hulu Plus we get like 80% of the shows we watched. The only thing that sucks is that our kids like to watch shows on the Disney channel but access to those are tied to your cable TV package and Time Warner is not one of the ones that work.

Other than that I really like it.

I bought my dad a Roku 2 for Christmas, it's still in the box. He then got a new "Smart" TV so there's really no point in having the Roku. However, he hasn't bothered to use any of the smart TV features either so I guess the Roku was a bad idea for a gift for him.

We've got Netflix and Amazon Prime, Xbox 360 in the living room, Wii in the bedroom. We were cable/satellite free for 4 years. When we moved to our current location, the best bang/buck internet service was through the local cable company. So got their "internet only" package. The internet service is over a coax cable to a cable modem. Out of curiosity I hooked coax going to the modem up to the TV and scanned for channels, surprise, we also get about 30 HD cable channels.

• Lee

hijack risk: i cut the cable a few months ago and am now jonesing for F1. where/how can i watch F1 without cable? is Roku part of the solution?

wae wrote: I have noticed that Roku gets a little confused from time to time and needs the occasional catastrophic loss of power to get itself back in the game.

We get short term power outages at my house frequently, and every time we have to reboot the roku before it will act right.

Thanks for asking the question. We're in the market for a new smart box too. To piggyback on what Angry asked, is anyone a college football fan? My wife is a Tennessee football nut and won't let me dump DishNetwork in favor of Roku/AppleTV/Antenna.

In attempt to add to the conversation. I have all the pieces to build a couple of these since we're so close to Dallas...

http://www.instructables.com/id/Build-a-Large-DB8-HDTV-Antenna-Big-Bertha/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlShMxSCZJ0

EastCoastMojo wrote:

wae wrote: I have noticed that Roku gets a little confused from time to time and needs the occasional catastrophic loss of power to get itself back in the game.

We get short term power outages at my house frequently, and every time we have to reboot the roku before it will act right.

My routers and DSL modem are the same way. Such is life in the modern world.

AngryCorvair wrote: hijack risk: i cut the cable a few months ago and am now jonesing for F1. where/how can i watch F1 without cable? is Roku part of the solution?

http://www.rokuguide.com/channels/motorsportworld

There also might be something available in the private channel world:

http://catastrophegirlsrokuchanneldata.blogspot.com/

We have a two Rokus and love them. One's the original one, and we have one of the newer models, as well. They're fantastic for streaming content, and they cover both Netflix and Amazon Prime (Apple TV doesn't stream Amazon Prime). Buffering is fantastic, we rarely experience blips in playback, and there are two floors between where we watch most of our TV and our wireless router.

Ours have both been rock-solid, and they're simple enough that my 2.5 year old can use it. A Roku comes highly recommended from my perspective.

We've got a Roku box along with Netflix. Way cheaper than cable and more shows than I have time for. Highly recommend this setup.

I rock the Roku exclusively sans cable now for 3 years.

Love it, love it love it.

Netflix and Amazon Prime subscriber.

I have 2, both with Netflix and Amazon Prime. The newer one is the only thing attached to the kid TV and all they watch is Netflix. There is a ton of kid friendly content on there. The other one is the previous generation and hardwired from the router. The kids screw up my Netflix recommendations and we used a lot of different channels when we did a cable free experiement for 3 months. I really want to cut cable but we can't get all of the network channels without a big-ass antenna on the roof. Netflix and Amazon Prime cured our On Demand useage through Charter. They just jacked our rate up $30/month so I'm antenna shopping again.

I've been thinking about a Roku as well, and this thread has just about sealed it. Now to get a TV...

Speaking of, I'm so far out of the loop (my TV has tubes!) that this is the first I've heard of "smart" TVs. Do such contraptions exist that have built-in digital antennae so I can pull down the local channels, or will I need something external for that purpose?

alex wrote: I've been thinking about a Roku as well, and this thread has just about sealed it. Now to get a TV... Speaking of, I'm so far out of the loop (my TV has tubes!) that this is the first I've heard of "smart" TVs. Do such contraptions exist that have built-in digital antennae so I can pull down the local channels, or will I need something external for that purpose?

Every one that I'm aware of requires an external digital antenna.

Roku + Plex = mind blowing entertainment value