Not that long ago, I cut the cord, which means no more TiVo. I’ve had a Tivo for the last 20 years and I’m aware part of my issue is that I’m very used to it.
In any case, one of the really nice features was it’s ability to search all your various platforms and present all your shows in one place.
Now I have a Roku and I haven’t found any (good) way to do that. The other day, I counted how many keystrokes it took to go from “Are there any new episodes of [streaming show]” to “Are there any new episodes of [streaming show on a different network]”. IIRC, it was over 20.
I know I can search, from the Roku, across the various platforms, but that seems to be about it.
Does that make sense? I assume other Tivo users understand what I’m getting at here. Essentially, I’d like to be able to watch any given show without having to go into that app and navigate to it.
I know it has a way to save/favorite shows, but it’s kinda clunky and, come to think of it, it brings me to another problem. When I do pick a show I want to watch, I get presented with a number of streaming platforms that I don’t subscribe to. It would be nice if I could either get rid of the ones I don’t have or at least prioritize the ones I do have.
Well, a Roku is more of a… clearinghouse device/app for presenting other streaming services, and not some sort of omni-streaming platform that would work like a DVR for streaming. Rokus are typically used in situations where the TV itself isn’t able to natively host the apps for the various streaming services.
So you’re at the mercy of whatever the individual streaming service apps themselves let you do in terms of seeing a dashboard of new episodes, etc… and your Roku just gives you a way to access all those streaming service apps in one place, especially on a TV/monitor/etc… that doesn’t have built-in app capability. It’s not much of a show-manager, in the sense of showing a menu of shows from multiple streaming services as if they had been recorded on a DVR. I don’t know if such a thing exists either.
The content providers (Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, etc) do not want Roku or Roku-like devices to allow the user to directly play their videos without going through the provider’s app. They want the user to see the lists of suggestions, etc. in their app, which drives users to new content and other stuff they want to push. It’s unlikely that anyone could make something like the OP wants and stay on the good side of the providers.
Ten years ago I was sure somebody would have come up with a consolidator service, which would have access to all the shows and let you pick what to watch, and pricing would be based on what you watched. Hulu seems the closest to that, or Amazon Prime or even Apple+, where they link to other services beyond their own.
Both the Apple TV and Chromecast with Google TV devices have something like this. They tend to work very well in organizing streaming services, but sometimes have issues in that some apps don’t want to link into the systems - Netflix being the major one.
I hadn’t considered it from the streaming service’s POV. Makes sense, I don’t like it, but I understand the reasoning.
That’s exactly what Tivo does. When you select a streaming episode (or movie) in the list of ‘recorded’ shows, it would launch that app and take you directly to the show.
I actually have one of those, but I never liked it. I recall finding it really difficult to navigate and I hated the stupid triangular remote. I don’t know who thought that was a good idea, but it wasn’t. It didn’t sit right in your hand. You had to pick it up to use it (for example, you couldn’t just hit the pause button with it sitting on a table). And, on top of all that, the buttons are both stupidly laid out and stupidly marked.
Also, for some reason it had a lot of conflicts with my HDMI-CEC settings. Just trying to watch a show meant playing a game of whack-a-mole to get the TV, the Shield and the receiver to turn on without something else turning off.
Hopefully someone will figure something out. The Tivo did such a good job of handling all this and I don’t do well trying to keep track of it all myself. I often end up going a few weeks without watching a show because I forget about it.
It seemed like such an obvious way to handle things, I was really surprised when I got the Roku and it didn’t do the same thing.
Also, regarding them wanting you to visit their platform so they can suggest other things. I think that could be worked into it. The tivo always had shows it would suggest to you (not my picture, but you can see the suggestions across the top).
Plus, I’d be fine if the Roku still made you use the provider’s app, if they had a list you could see showing you what shows have new episodes. I have a few shows saved so I don’t have to search for them, but it still means going in and out of each app, each day, to see if there’s anything new. A simple “X Unwatched Episodes” next to each show would make that a lot less frustrating.
I, too, remember a Kodi app that would do that; you can search for a show and it wuold find the episodes as well as tell you whether they are on NBC, CBS, Amazon, Netflix, or any other network. I believe it gets the info from the theTVDB.com or some similar site? Come to think of it, you can simply go there with a web browser.
I know this response is of no help to the OP, but this is exactly why I have yet to “cut the cord.” Yes, I can probably find most or all of the shows I watch on various streaming platforms and ultimately pay less per month than I currently do for cable.
But watching TV shouldn’t be that much work. The convenience is part of what I’m paying for.
Apple TV consolidates a show from Hulu, a show from Paramount, a show from HBO, all in one place? I’ve never seen that feature. That’s what the OP is looking for.
Yes, all in the “Up Next” section. So if the last 3 shows you’ve watched are Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Paramount+'s Strange New Worlds and HBO’s The Sopranos, whatever episodes you’re currently watching will show up in order. If you’re up to date, the next episode will appear at the front of the queue once it’s released.
It’s up to the streamer to incorporate the Up Next function into their app, so it doesn’t work with all of them. I’m pretty sure Netflix is the only big name holdout, though, but I might wrong.
A Roku is generally a little USB gizmo with Wi-FI that allows you to attach it to a device via HDMI (or whatever) and watch streaming video.
Its market niche is that it allows you to watch streaming video on ANY device with a HDMI port. So any monitor, TV, projector, etc… that has an HDMI in, is capable of streaming video if hooked up to a Roku. It does this by handling the internet connection aspects and the actual video-out aspects so that to the display device, it’s just any other source of HDMI data.
From the user’s perspective, it’s just a sort of clearing-house for streaming service apps. You can install Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, HBO Max, and so forth on your Roku, and stream their content to your display device using their app.
What it isn’t, is a sort of catch-all streaming video manager. It doesn’t track what you’ve watched, what’s new, etc… independent of what the various services’ streaming apps do themselves. At best, you can sometimes search for something like a TV show or movie, and it’ll show you what all streaming services carry that movie for you to stream.
I’m not really sure what it is that the Tivo does - it seems like what you are looking for is something that will tell you on the home screen that The Handmaids Tale" on Hulu and " The Crown" on Netflix both have new episodes. Although I’m not 100% sure if you mean “new episodes” or “episodes Joey_P hasn’t watched yet”. I have a Samsung smart TV and Firesticks and I used to have Roku and none of them will do that. They will let me search for a show or movie and give me every service where it is available. They will show me what I have recently watched but they won’t throw the “Marvelous Mrs Maisel” up on the home page if the last time I watched was last year. I will have to go to the app for that.
But this streaming device might give you what you want - and if it doesn’t, my guess is that nothing does.
Well, it might not tell you what you’ve watched, but since something like 80-90% of Roku’s revenue comes from advertising, it sure as shit is telling a lot of other people what you’ve watched.
I didn’t miss those comments - but I’m not exactly sure that
If you’re up to date, the next episode will appear at the front of the queue once it’s released.
is what the OP is looking for. It might be - or he might be looking for something that actually says “new season” or “new episodes” like some streaming services have. But if the Tivo streaming device can’t organize his shows “like a Tivo”, I’m pretty sure even Apple TV will have some differences.
