I’ll put this here in CS, instead of IMHO, although I’m asking for an opinion.
My family recently bought a new house, and as part of the deal (with ourselves), we cut cable to save some money since the new house would be more expensive per month. We still have Internet, because I need it for freelancing, but it cut our monthly bill down by at least 60% after we got rid of phone/television/dvr/etc.
We love our Roku. Actually, we have several and are going to be adding more. We also have a blu-ray player that has streaming and use the PS3/360 for content. On top of all that, if there is a DVD we want, typically we can get it at the library.
As we explore on the Roku, though, we keep adding channels just to be disappointed. Some are great, but some are terrible. What channels would you recommend?
I have a roku 2, was not satisfied with the streaming from the ps3. I think about the only two channels i am actively watching are netflix, and sky news out of the UK. Lots of signal to noise, but its early days yet. As long as its free , add and delete as required.
I started a Roku channel review thread a while back but it faltered. There are some truly bizarre channels - beginning, of course, with the pay channel DogTV. For dogs. There are many, many “My Patriotic Truth About America” channels with approximately the same six or eight wooly-headed rants about Big Gummint and That Kenyan and Gun Haters and so forth.
But best? Netflix, Vudu, Amazon Video and Hulu Plus will bring in almost anything you care to watch. The rest are either useless teaser channels, require cable channel subscriptions (!) or pretty specialized.
I haven’t tried too many different channels on Roku. I mainly use it to stream subscription services like Netflix, HBO GO, and Amazon Prime videos. I also use the Plex service to stream videos from my computer’s hard drive to my Roku.
If you like anime, **Crunchyroll **is a channel that has a bunch of content. I’ve just started watching Attack on Titan based on some recommendations in another SDMB thread. Crunchyroll also has some live-action movies from China, Japan, and Korea.
Drive-In Classics - lots of old sci-fi and horror B-movies (and C- and D-movies).
My opinion on Roku channels–there are a few gems here and there, depending on your interests, but mostly you get what you pay for. You’re not going to find tons of great stuff for free.
How did you find crunchyroll, its not showing up in my channel store and wondering if its a license issue in Canada, as I am not seeing hulu or any of the other things I would have expected, now that I have read the thread.
A minor point about the Roku worth bringing up for the enlightenment of anyone as dense as I’ve been: we have always had a fairly complicated video setup and as a result I’ve used programmable universal remotes for many years. I was annoyed at the Roku for using a BlueTooth remote that couldn’t be integrated with the universal IR remote, so we have spent a couple of months back in that 80s wonderland of juggling multiple remotes.
I finally decided to look and see if anyone had come out with a remote that handled WiFi and BT devices, only to find that…
Rokus never lost their IR port. Most programmable remotes have a control set for them. You don’t have to use the BT remote or a WiFi equivalent like a smartphone.
I installed Plex this morning and it is pretty awesome. I think that will solve a large amount of our issues, as we could set up a dedicated desktop as a storage device and stream from it. I installed the Drive-in Classics also and it looks like it has some fun stuff just to watch on crazy movie night or whatever. I love old cheesy sci-fi.
Also, Amateur Barbarian, you could have done like we have. We bought multiple Roku players, then lost one of the remotes. This led to using smartphones, tablets, laptops, etc. as remotes rather often. Then, our oldest son started watching PBS shows on the Roku. He takes a remote for himself, we use phones. He brings it back, we use the remote. We switch between about 6 devices as a remote depending on who is in the room. It’s a bit annoying.
I think I’ll play around with Plex and the other internal streamer mentioned. It could add some dimension to our choices.
Substitute “Dinosaur” for “Barbarian” if you like; we have one TV, one media stack. We don’t do bedroom TVs and don’t have a second “family” area with one. I know, truly primitive. Ook. Argh. Rahhhrr.
As we just recently moved, my mother was at our house helping put things away. Although it was helpful, it turned into a weird lecture about how “No one really needs to put a television in a kitchen. Or in their bedroom. Maybe you should get rid of some of these televisions…”
We have one in the living room area, one in the kitchen, and three in bedrooms - one in ours and one in each of the oldest kids rooms, the baby doesn’t have one but she doesn’t have much in her room since it is a temporary room during the finishing of construction. We’re adding a family room and bedroom suite type area, so she will get our old room eventually. We are definitely one of those families that have too many electronics around…
It’s not “electronics” I mind - my house is probably half semiconductor - but the idea that you have to have a TV in every major room and for every person or group of people. I’ve never been able to get my mind around that need/concept/habit.
I just set up a new Roku 3, and installed Plex, which seems pretty cool. But I can’t get Facebook to install as a device: it just says, “Oops! Something happened…”
And DogTV seems broken, when I enter the activation code, I get a page of source code.
