Learn me: Roku boxes (and yes I searched)

I did some searching on here and found some stuff about the Roku streaming player. Most of the answers seemed repetitive, so let's analyze things a bit closer.

We've recently become a one income household, and because of that our income has been cut somewhere around 30 to 40%. We've talked about cutting TV, and although my wife doesn't want to, we've been behind on the bill for awhile and its been turned off for a few months. We've survived just fine with Netflix and YouTube.

We currently stream Netflix through our PS3. My four year old can turn everything on, find Netflix and find her shows all by herself. Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant etc is all available on PS3, but we haven't subscribed to those, yet.

The thing we wanna know is. Besides the streaming Netflixes, what is free on the Roku? I expect Watch ESPN, HBO2Go, etc to be, but what about the other things that are offered? Is everything subscription based or are the Roku original programming shows free?

I know theres a USAC channel... and that's freakin cool!

If it's not any better than what we do on the PS3 now, I won't bother buying one.

Netflix and Pandora are what I use with mine (original version, not 2 or 3), with a little amazon mixed in. There are several other free movie channels are on there but they are pretty old stuff, or have very annoying ads, or also on netflix, so I find that I just use netflix almost exclusively. You can't use HBO go without a concurrent cable subscription (no web only subscription). As far as I know there is no original roku programming? No YouTube channel yet.

In all i like my roku, but I don't think there is much to be gained over a ps3. The ps3 netflix interface is better too in my opinion.

Nothing is free.

nothing is free uless you get free internet..........i have roku and turned off my cable last year, there are hundreds of channels on roku, some you have to pay for some you dont, the free ones normally have commercials, we pay for internet which they charge more for if that is the only service you are purchasing in my case 52 dollars per month then we buy netflix, amazon prime and BBC's Acorn channel, so we are paying about 70 dollars a month and have all the tv we can stand........drawback is if you are big into sports like college fooball you cannot stream those live...........it is the future smart tv's have a roku like device in them now and in a year or two every tv will have a roku like device built inside of it.

also roku has a forum you can look at lots of answers there

we had an xbox 360 instead of the ps3... also had a roku1... in my experience there is no reason to go roku over the gaming systems if you already have them (granted xbox you do need to have the gold live so $60 a year to use).. the only real advantage of the roku was a REAL remote... the controller for the xbox had to be turned on to use and would shut off if not used...

on the old roku it's a very clunky UI, the free stuff is OK but as mentioned it's going to be older movies with commercials (part of being "free")

I am pretty sure you can buy remotes for both ms and sony consoles. I have one for the xbox.

I'm leaning towards a Popcorn Hour over Roku because I believe they have better decoding hardware and they deal with more file types and encoding schemes. And they seem to be about the best (I know this is a highly subjective statement!) at dealing with local media, like if you have file to share off of a PC or other storage setup in your home, vs. the game consoles which seem to be getting worse about this and not better.

I'm also in no rush at all to make this purchase, just doing a little research recently.

tversity takes care of 99% of the decoding issues... at least it has for me with using xbox to stream from my PC...

as for the remote... yup but it was never bothersome enough to spend the $20 lol

I have the original Roku, and really only use it for Netflix and Pandora. Netflix pretty much handles our meager TV needs. (No cable or satellite either). I've perused Break and Flixster, occasionally but that's all I know.

I'm not sure which Roku I have, but it was the first HD version I think. Does the XDS model sound right? I think that's what it is.

I pay for Netflix (which comprises 50% of my Roku viewing). I also have Crackle (good movies, uncut) that shows great titles with some very unobtrusive commercials tossed in from time to time. Its nothing like a TV movie which has all the good stuff cut out with 15 minutes of movie for every 5 minutes of Kia commercials, its more like 30 minutes of movie with 2 minutes of commercials. Completely acceptable in my book.

There are a handful of other TV/movie free channels, but many of them seem to either carry recycled Netflix titles or carry 3 big-name movies and the rest are junk.

I recently added cable (after years of nothing but Roku and Wii) and I still have just the Roku in the bedroom and I'm perfectly satisfied with it.

I think if I were accustomed to years of cable/satellite and had to go with just streaming stuff it might be a tough transition, but its not a bad trade-off. Honestly, the only reason I went back to pay TV was because they offered me a cheap bundle.

The netflix interface is a lot better through the roku than it is through our blue-ray player or the xbox. Searches are easier and you can view categories of movies if you don't know what you want to watch. The xbox is super noisy, so we don't use that for streaming. We most use netflix and occasionally amazon, though there are a lot of free chanels with roku, ain't nobody got time for all dat.

So it looks like I won't be buying one, since our PS3 already allows for most of those services anyway.

Thanks for the input, dudes. (and ECM)

We have a Roku, a Wii, a streaming blue ray, and just got a smart TV. Of all of them, I like the TV's streaming interface marginally better than the Roku and that's because I can watch my current show while searching for another. The blue ray's interface sucks and the Wii isn't bad, its just the TV and Roku are dead simple. All of the platforms seem to offer the same content for the same price. We mainly use Netflix and Amazon. We had Hulu and will probably go back when we ditch cable again. My biggest hurdle is finding an antenna that works well.

I just got a Roku. Haven't hooked it up yet so I'm no help. I got ours (Roku 2) on Woot for half price.

roku $35.00 shipped

http://www.dealfisher.com/product/Roku-HD-2500R.html?Ref=CJ

Roku + Plex + usenet + sabnzbd + sickbeard + couchpotato = happyness

pres589 wrote: I'm leaning towards a Popcorn Hour over Roku because I believe they have better decoding hardware and they deal with more file types and encoding schemes. And they seem to be about the best (I know this is a highly subjective statement!) at dealing with local media, like if you have file to share off of a PC or other storage setup in your home, vs. the game consoles which seem to be getting worse about this and not better. I'm also in no rush at all to make this purchase, just doing a little research recently.

Plex takes care of that, you do need a media server though (I use an old quad core desktop)

We have a newer model roku2, and my wife and son mostly use hulu plus, netflix and amazon prime. All of these are subscription, but I have found alot of stuff on the free channels that I can get into to. Granted, I only get about an hour or so or tv/day so I may not be the best source.

They have alot of techy, and science type channels for free. Most w/ commercials, though. The roku forums is a great place for this info.