Anyone have ROKU?

[ssawka]

I already have DVD players. May as well use them until they stop working. For the extra $100-$150 over the Roku it wasn't worth it. Not only that, many of the best features on MLB.TV aren't available when streaming through Blu-Ray players.

Yes, I guess it depends on what you want it for, but most people are just looking for Netflix, Hulu, etc. Also, your numbers are way off given prices for Blu-Ray players now. You can get a Sony for $95 wired or $130 wireless. Personally, I prefered wired as it is more reliable.

 

[ExPirateShopGirl]

Back when I bought my Roku the price difference was greater... and few Blu-Ray players were capable of streaming Hulu plus. Unfortunately, Sony still doesn't offer MLB.TV connectabity with its Blu Ray players. Not all devices capable of streaming media are created equal. I absolutely love the fact we can watch Red Sox games just as if we were back in BOS... even at our convenience!

Yes, I guess it depends on what you want it for, but most people are just looking for Netflix, Hulu, etc. Also, your numbers are way off given prices for Blu-Ray players now. You can get a Sony for $95 wired or $130 wireless. Personally, I prefered wired as it is more reliable.

 

[cglaura]

I've had my Roku for about 6 months and love it. I mostly use it for NetFlix. Huluplus didn't really interest me. Its too bad they don't offer the regular Hulu on the Roku as well. I'm also an Amazon Prime member so I've been watching a few things there as well. Please note that the free prime member streaming does NOT include new releases. Most of the videos available are also on Netflix streaming. However, new releases are still cheaper than my cable company's OnDemand rate (Amazon is $3.99 for SD). The only negative so far on Amazon is the lack of a que for the free prime member streaming. I cannot figure out how to get videos in the library unless I buy/rent them. So for that reason, I prefer Netflix. Browsing through the options on the Roku is a pain.

Thank you for posting this. That is the only reason I was going to sign up Amazon Prime. Oh well, guess I'll have to wait the excruciating two days for my dvd to come in the mail

 

[KristinU]

Count us as more Roku users and lovers! We have 2 TVs in the house and bought one Roku box for Christmas to give it a whirl. We liked it enough to buy a second one for the other TV about a month ago and we just bought our antenna over the weekend for local programming. As a matter of fact, I'm planning on calling the cable company this evening to drop back to just internet.

Before buying our second box we did look into other devices, but from what I found it sounds like Roku has the best interface for Netflix. The Blu Ray players I was looking at all didn't have a search capability and you had to just go off of your queue that you set up online. Not to mention, like ExPirateShopGirl mentioned, we have a perfectly fine DVD player and no Blu Ray discs.

 

[SandrA9810]

Sony does have a Blu Ray player with MLB.TV, it's the PS3. And supposedly the price is going to drop to 199$ towards the later part of this year. The other benefit to a PS3 is the harddrive, movies are available for purchase through the PSN store and vodu, so you can directly save it to the PS3 for viewing at anytime. And contains all the programs that a Roku box has.

Blu Ray movies are actually coming down in price, comparable to a DVD movie. Especially with Disney releasing a lot of the movies out of the vault for the first time on Blu Ray, the prices are hard to beat with the sales and 10$ coupon. Blockbuster has been another big help with expanding the collection, 3 local stores are closing and the prices are at a good discount. During the holidays Best Buy had a lot of them at 10$ a movie. I'm up to 11 blu ray Disney movies.

Right now, Blu Ray is at the quality of what the movies are shot at. So you can't really improve upon it too much. So until the camera technology increases, movies can't get much better. Just like with VHS, eventually you'll be upgrading to Blu Ray.

 

[ExPirateShopGirl]

Just what I need... a gaming system. NOT. Sony wants you to use their game system and spend on the system, accessories, games, downloads through PSN, etc.

There's a reason Sony doesn't offer it on their lower-priced devices. Just a one time purchase. Thanks but no thanks!

Sony does have a Blu Ray player with MLB.TV, it's the PS3. And supposedly the price is going to drop to 199$ towards the later part of this year. The other benefit to a PS3 is the harddrive, movies are available for purchase through the PSN store and vodu, so you can directly save it to the PS3 for viewing at anytime. And contains all the programs that a Roku box has.

 

[*disgal*]

I already have DVD players. May as well use them until they stop working. For the extra $100-$150 over the Roku it wasn't worth it. Not only that, many of the best features on MLB.TV aren't available when streaming through Blu-Ray players.

Ok, you seriously need to tell me about the major league baseball thing! What determines what games you get to watch? Any other sports? Basketball? College Football?? (we are huge Penn State fans)

TIA

 

[*disgal*]

anyone?

 

[Lewisc]

MLB can be purchased for viewing on some LG and Samsung Blu-Ray players.

You can rent Blu-Ray disks from Redbox. From Netflix. I think post people would be better off purchasing a BR instead of a Roku. The cost of Blu-Ray players, like most home electronics, has dropped.


pp http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/subscriptions/index.jsp?mlbkw=2383J1-19A9KZ

Read the fine print regarding blackouts.

 

[RitaE]

I'm really tempted by the Roku

Right now I have the old Wii (kids moved on to PS3) hooked up to the TV in our bedroom and I can stream Netflix over it. I've signed up for the 1 week trial of Hulu Plus but I'm just not finding much there that I'm interested in so I'm not sure that the Roku would give me much advantage over the current set-up. I'm not that interested in Blu-Ray either. I really don't watch many movies.

I'm tempted just to hit an outlet store and buy a dedicated desktop computer to stream to that tv. Seems like that would give us the most options.

 

[ExPirateShopGirl]

I have no idea about sports other than MLB. That's pretty much the one sport we watch (besides a month of March Madness).

If you reside within an MLB franchise broadcast area, those games will be blacked out for you, as will any game that team plays away. That isn't a problem for us because we can see the local team on our basic cable in HD. The team we follow (Go Sox!) isn't in our market, so we can watch every game they play this year, live or at our convenience. Total treat for us!

Ok, you seriously need to tell me about the major league baseball thing! What determines what games you get to watch? Any other sports? Basketball? College Football?? (we are huge Penn State fans)

TIA

 

[*disgal*]

I have no idea about sports other than MLB. That's pretty much the one sport we watch (besides a month of March Madness).

If you reside within an MLB franchise broadcast area, those games will be blacked out for you, as will any game that team plays away. That isn't a problem for us because we can see the local team on our basic cable in HD. The team we follow (Go Sox!) isn't in our market, so we can watch every game they play this year, live or at our convenience. Total treat for us!

Well, I would have to investigate that, I guess. We are St.Louis Cardinal fans but live in upstate ny so I don't think we would have to worry about black out....I think??

So you watch college basketball on Roku?

 

[SandrA9810]

Well, I would have to investigate that, I guess. We are St.Louis Cardinal fans but live in upstate ny so I don't think we would have to worry about black out....I think??

So you watch college basketball on Roku?

Right now it's just Hockey and Baseball that are out, there's talks of basketball coming soon. But I'm not sure if it's all levels or just professional level.

 

[SandrA9810]

The main purpose of a PS3 is it's a gaming console, but it is an all around entertainment center. It gets just as much use playing video games as it does with other media. And if you want to get into Sony taking more of your money, just look at what Microsoft has done with the Xbox, now that's a rip off.

 

[golfgirl3613]

I have just been reading up on Roku myself. So if you have Roku, you can eliminate your cable tv service completely?

 

[Purseval]

So let's say the latest episode of Dancing With The Stars is Monday night. How soon before you can watch it on Netflix?

 

[DawnM]

You can do whatever you want!

Will you get cable programming through Roku? NO! It is for streaming Netflix and such through your internet connection.

You cannot use it to watch live TV. You will need an antenna or your cable TV programming to do that.

Dawn

I have just been reading up on Roku myself. So if you have Roku, you can eliminate your cable tv service completely?

 

[cglaura]

So let's say the latest episode of Dancing With The Stars is Monday night. How soon before you can watch it on Netflix?

Netflix you would have to wait for them to release the season on DVD.

If you want to watch current shows on Roku, you'd need something like HuluPlus (or maybe Amazon Prime, not sure what they offer.)

On HuluPlus, shows are usually available within 1-2 days.