I’m not a network person and do not have statistics for this, sorry! All I can say is that I’m using it and it works well.
I am interested in hearing about the experience of folks who have both Roku and Apple TV.
I just received my Apple TV yesterday (and posted about it), but I have never had hands-on experience with a Roku.
The price is cheap enough that I might just pick one up if it is so much more awesome than the Apple TV.
The only thing (besides the rewind function) that I like a lot more about Apple TV than Roku is the ability to stream iTunes. I don’t have a ton of movies that I bought on iTunes, but I have a few, and it’s nice to be able to easily watch them on my TV. It’s also nice to play podcasts or music that I have on my computer in my bedroom where I have the Apple TV.
Beyond that Apple TV and Roku are fairly similar, but for me Roku works a bit better. I like the interface better, it’s a bit smoother and more user friendly. I don’t feel like I am going to snap the remote in half or lose it forever if I put it down in the dark (the apple tv remote is slick, but too small.)
It’s a bunch of little things that make it a nicer overall experience, not any one big thing.
A question about all this: when I set up my Netgear wireless router some time ago, I put in all the security settings I could, as I only wanted to have my laptop connect in the house. I also, I think, used Neetwork Magic to lock it even more. Since then, I have uninstalled the latter program.
Everything works fine, except now nobody else can connect wirelessly. My two sons have come, and have tried to get each of then connected with no luck at all. So, they just connect with a long Ethernet cable I got for them. Only my laptop seems to be able to connect.
The only way I know of fixing this to do a Reset on the router and set it up all over again. I want to avoid this if possible, as the cable works just fine for my sons.
So, finnaly, the question: Will the Roku be able to pick up the wireless signal for the TV? The Ethernet cable is not long enough to go all the way from my computer to the TV in another room.
Without knowing your security settings it is impossible to tell. The Roku can handle WPA2-PSK (private shared key or just “Personal” mode), which is the most recent 802.11 wireless encryption protocol; it should prompt you to set that up when you boot up. If you have MAC address filtering enabled, i.e. the router only accepts requests from a specific list of network adapters (each of which has a unique twelve digit hexadecimal identifier) then you’ll have to include the Roku on that list, which you can do by turning off security, letting it hook in, and finding out what the MAC address is. It won’t be able to run a client for a RADIUS or DIAMETER server, but unless you already know what those are you aren’t using them. If SSID broadcast is turned off (i.e. the router doesn’t send out its name or channel information) then you’ll need to put this in manually.
It sounds like you have more security than you need, or worse yet, have activated features that make it seem secure but may not actually be improving security and are hindering your use. I would suggest that you find a tech-savvy friend to come by and reconfigure the router to be suitable for your use. That should really be about a fifteen minute job for someone who knows their way around routers.
Stranger
Thanks, Stranger, for the info. I think you are right about getting some help. Just wen I think I’m pretty savy with computers, something like this comes up to keep me humble.
And a word to the wise… if you have a geek in the family who configures your routers, don’t let the cable/phone company mess with them.
I went over to my sister-in-law’s house on Sunday to try to figure out their Internet problems and ended up scheduling a technician from Verizon to come by.
My brother-in-law was home yesterday when the Verizon guy showed. The technician tested things and said the problem was “back at the office” and was ready to head out so he could fix things.
At that moment, for some asinine reason, my brother-in-law insisted that he “change the box” anyway. Verizon guy complied and gave him a combo modem/router to replace his old separate router and modem.
I got an annoyed call from my wife’s sister last night saying none of her wireless was working. Of course it wasn’t, because her laptop is looking for a network named “sassy” and will never find it until I pay another visit.
I’d just go with resetting the router and enabling the WPA2 (or WPA if that’s all the router can do) security. If all you have is a laptop and a Roku box to reconfigure to the new settings, you should be able to do it yourself (especially if you did it before).
We’ve been doing this for about a year now. Our house has an addition off of one end, and the modem happens to come in WAAAYYYY down at the other end of the house. We were having troubles getting a solid wireless signal in the addition. The powerline ethernet system works well enough to use the internet in the addition and to let us watch hi-def movies over Netflix/Roku. I haven’t tried any gaming via the powerline ethernet though.
How do you do that?
My friend has a Blu-Ray player with WiFi that he uses to connect to Netflix. Is the Roku better in some way than a Blu-Ray player? I’m running out of HDMI connections on my TV.
Also, how fast of an internet connection do you need to stream Netflix and/or other programming? I have AT&T Uverse’s slowest internet, it is I think 1.5 megabytes per second. My WiFi speed is 54 mbps. I’m tying to figure out if I’m going to need to upgrade anything to get Netflix.
At 1.5, I find the Roku streams with almost no problem–until I start trying to play Starcraft II at the same time. Then both SCII and the Roku have problems.
I have both.
For Netflix, Roku is better.
For other stuff, accessing content on my computer, Apple is better. (and by better I mean it can do it while Roku can’t).
I don’t know if it is the Apple TV or simply Bandwidth issues in general, but prior to Apple TV I never had problems accessing Instant Watch on my Roku. But now, getting a show to run on the Apple TV can be a frustrating experience… SO SLOW! Part of me thinks this would be the case with or without having replaced my Roku with an Apple TV, but I simply don’t know for sure.
I don’t know. We tried renting a movie from iTunes with the apple TV last night and it took 3 hours to download. I rent movies from Amazon with the Roku in under 3 minutes. I am not sure what the hold up was, but it was annoying.
No problems here with loading. Of course, we just put in a fairly optimal setup: FIOS 25up/25down, cat6 cable, and gigabit switches. The kids had no problem renting movies over the weekend—the video started in about 30 seconds.
It’s weird because I have never had this issue renting anything before, and I have downloaded stuff from iTunes on my computer and it only takes a moment, so I don’t know what happened. I’ll have to try it again and see if I have the same problem. If I do still have trouble the easy fix is to do the actual rental from the computer and then go into the other room to watch it on the TV. But there has to be a better way than that.
I do envy your FIOS connection. My neighborhood isn’t wired for it yet.
Scroll down a bit in this article: Finding Roku Private Channels like YouTube - Dragon Blogger Technology
You add the channels from Roku.com site.
This is a great tip and I hadn’t heard of private channels before reading this thread.
Here is another site listing Roku channels. To see just the Private channels, under “Type” click Private. Some require codes to add them to your channel list; to do so click the link at the top of the list (the owner.roku link) and enter the given code.