I’m not actually sure if it does. I know that PlayOn does (which I have a license for), and I just figured that Plex does as well, since the General Internet Consensus is that Plex is the bee’s knees. I haven’t had the chance to really dig into it and get it set up on everything in the Munch Household. Hulu Plus isn’t a bank-breaker by any stretch, but free’s free, ya know?
Good point. Don’t buy into the hype of “HDTV Antennas.” You don’t need a special antenna to pick up HD. Rabbit ears work fine if you live close enough and have line of sight to the broadcast locations.
Thanks everyone! Good stuff! I’m going to try the rabbit ears and see how useful they are.
What remote are you using?
I got rid of my cable a couple months ago and don’t really miss it. The only cable show I watched all year was Ke$ha’s My Crazy Beautiful Life on MTV, and that ended in the spring. When the next batch of episodes airs, I’ll just have to wait a couple of days and watch on MTV.com. I won’t have a problem watching Bears games because they’re all on over-the-air channels, but I will miss seeing the Florida Gators when they’re not on CBS. I’ll listen to their radio broadcasts online instead. Lots of Cubs games are on cable also, but they blow, so there’s no need to watch them anyway.
If I could find a way to watch the blackhawks and Bulls I could drop cable. Alas it is not to be.
No, It’s a small box with power and video-out connectors on it. Plug it into the wall, connect the video to your TV, that’s it. You need WiFi internet (although I believe some Rokus have wired connectors). You control Roku with a little remote control, it’s small but works well. Arrow keys, select button, back button, replay button. That’s most of it.
You can get free TV and movies from dozens of different sources, some like Crackle stand out more than others. It also works with Netflix, Hulu Plus, and Amazon Prime and on-demand video.
Now where you’re thinking you need a computer might be when using Plex or PlayOn to stream content from your computer to your TV. In that case, the Roku is what receives the content from the computer and displays it on your TV. Those service are optional “channels” you can add to Roku if you want, but they are by no means required. Oh, and you can watch YouTube on Roku too, it’s a custom channel you have to hunt for a little, but works well.
Really if you have any interest in watching Internet video on your TV, a Roku is a teriffic little device and very easy to use.
My dad has been considering this and I’m talking him out of it only because of my stepmom. She’s technologically challenged. Getting her acclimated to a complicated cable/satellite system remote control was challenge enough. She’s not going to understand the whole streaming/Roku set up thing. She’s going to want to flip on the TV and watch what she wants to watch.
That said, Dad asked me about local news. I’m assuming that the local stations won’t be streaming via Roku or Amazon – is that correct? So if he wants to watch the local news (I don’t know why, it’s horrible), he could pull in the over-the-air signal like in back in the Dark Ages (the 1990s?), but probably not get local news streamed – unless his local affiliate happens to be streaming news reports from their particular website. True or false?
Then I won’t be doing this because:
•I can’t get HBO any other way than dish or cable. True or false? Is there another way to get HBO?
•So far, trying to find Indy car races streaming (like when I’m at the beach and don’t want to sit inside all afternoon watching the Indy 500), is almost impossible. So, unless Indy Cars specifically live-streams races and/or it’s not on LiveStream, I’m SOL, right?
I hate Netflix – I’ve seen everything I want to see there. I do not watch TV shows on Netflix.
I’ve only used Amazon Prime a couple times – I don’t find it to have much variety either.
And looking around on Hulu/Hulu Plus, I also didn’t see much selection, not to justify paying the subscription fees for more than a month.
So it appears to me, dropping cable and going streaming is dependent upon which content you prefer. Anyone beg to differ?
Bought a Roku, fell in love with it and dropped satellite shortly thereafter. For live sports and TV there’s also USTVNow and a few XBMC add-ons such as SportsDevil. XBMC is also great for movies and television shows. Visit XBMC.org and XBMCHub.com to learn more.
A cable or satellite provider could give me service free at this point and I’d probably only use it once in a random while. Between Roku and XBMC, I simply don’t see the need.
Nope, I agree. Like I said previously, the only way I can get the Bulls and Blackhawks is cable, so the cable stays.
Are those legal? No accusations, just want to verify.
Dogzilla, depending upon where your dad lives, he may be able to get local news via the NowhereMan app on Roku. Also, most (if not all) of HBO’s programming can be found on 1Channel or IceFilms via XBMC.
Depends on who you ask.
I’ll add to the voices who say Roku can really make it easy to cut the cord. I was kind of worried because I love my DVR and I was thinking that if I was going to watch OTA programming, I couldn’t record it and watch it when I wanted (I’m not around during primetime hours usually). But then I found out that the lowest tier Tivo Premiere can be used with OTA broadcasting and I was sold.
I also just got a Chromecast, which works perfectly for sending regular Hulu to my TV (no stuttering so far)
Zoid, these articles may answer your question a bit better than I can:
Is Streaming or Watching Movies Illegal?
Also Fresh Calls to Congress to Make Movie and Music Streaming a Felony
I’m not as technologically challenged at your stepmom, but compared to my husband and other IT types, I’m considered challenged 
I’m the same way, though in wanting to be able to flip on the TV. I don’t want to have to deal with a million station choices and networks I’ve never heard of. We’ve had basic cable for so long that…heck, I don’t ever remember watching anything on HBO or any other premium channel :shrug:
Bars? Don’t bars have cable? And beer? And wenches serving in low cut blouses?
I use this thingy. There are better ones I’m sure (maybe ones built with Netflix controls or something) but it was one of the few options available to me in in 2009 that worked with Windows 7. It works with PowerDVD and WMP and I think VLC (when I say “works” I mean the “Play” button maps to the play button, etc) No problems with it, just that it’s IR so you have to make sure you have a clear line of sight.
Over-the-air is now digital and it rocks. Looks just as crisp and clear as an HD cable station. Of course availability depends on the location of your house and your antenna and your local towers but you can still put an antenna on your roof and stuff. You also get the weird inbetween digital channels your local stations might put out, like MeTV and ThisTV, maybe a local weather station (we have two of them -3.2 and 19.2), several branches of PBS and whatever other goodies your local stations are throwing out there.
I get about 30 channels of digital OTA. My brother is a little higher up and has a better antenna and he gets even more.
If your folks have a modern TV with a digital tuner, it doesn’t hurt to try. Spend $30 at Best Buy on an antenna and hook it up and see if you get anything. If you don’t, return it and keep cable.
A few years back when I dropped cable, I made the HD antenna seen in this YouTube video, and it worked quite well for me, even here in the notoriously TV signal finicky SF Bay Area. I’m on the far side of the hills from SF, so I didn’t get the local market stations, but I got the affiliates out of Sacramento, and got mostly good reception except when it rained or was really windy. It’s cheap and easy to make, much less than $30 at Best Buy.
As for sports, that’s definitely a problem, though as noted above almost all of the NFL games are carried on over the air channels–and if your local team is involved, even the ESPN and/or NFL Network games will be carried by a local OTA channel as well.
Bars, which means it’ll likely cost you more money than just keeping cable. 3+ hours in a sports bar will run you what, $40 if you’re frugal? $20 if you’re super cheap? Probably over $50 easily. Figure a couple hundred per month just for the NFL, not counting any expenses for alternative television options like roku or whatever.
Plus, if you’re an actual NFL fan (as opposed to just a fan of your favorite team) you’re essentially SOL for the other games. And highlights of those games.
Worst of all, in a bar you’re now watching in real-time. shudder I can’t imagine not queuing up the first hour of the games to blast through commercials. What an archaic nightmare that would be. And the hassle of having to leave the house at noon on Sundays? Ugh.
Cutting the cord is more for non-sports fans. At least as of today’s options. Even if I had no qualms about stealing content, NFL games aren’t torrented very much. (As opposed to pretty much every scripted show on the air.)