So many movie streaming channels on Roku - which ones are good?
Have Netflix and Hulu already, but I know there are tons more, as I scrolled through the choices one night. I know a majority of them are free with commercials, but from what I have sampled, it hardly seems worth it considering the movie selection. I tried Tubi.tv but its pretty much like Epix, only with more commercials.
Any other picks from more seasoned Roku users?
Frankly, IMHO none of them are any good. Sorry.
My main Roku channels are Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu, AcornTV (British programs). I’ve tried out some of the other movie channels, but the movies are lame and obscure, and they usually have ads or some kind of additional charge.
I also have Smithsonian and the TED channel but I rarely watch either of them.
I hope other Roku users will chime in with some good suggestions.
I still prefer my Roku to cable and am not in the least tempted to go back to those huge charges. Amazon Prime costs about $100 per YEAR (and its primary benefit is free two-day shipping on select items. The video/music stuff is an extra benefit). The other three channels I mention above, taken together, are about $15-20 per month. Waaaay less than cable.
Netflix and Hulu comprise just about all the regularly watchable stuff on streaming. Amazon is good if you have Prime, otheriwise Vudu seems to have better selection for PPV (and they now have a free, ad-driven tier. Don’t forget the free network/channel apps like ABC and CW and PBS. (Many of those are locked for cable users only, which is absurd. CBS has a paywall, which is absurder.)
You can get HBO, Starz/Encore and a few other premium-content providers as well. Acorn is great if you’re a Brit boffin.
But yeah, the free channels are either good but very limited in selection, or… not worth much time.
Don’t forget any local OTA channels you might have. Look up your location on the FCC site and see how many ‘green’ channels you might receive; for the cost of a DTV antenna its up to three channels per channel of completely free (although ad driven) TV.
However, “Chucky Talks to God” makes the entire Roku experience worthwhile.
(I am presently giving a long series of sessions on streaming TV as a replacement for cable, all over my wee state.)
I can usually find a couple of movies on the Crackle channel that I like and which aren’t available on Netflix, Hulu or Amazon Prime. It has ads but at least it is free.
Thanks all for the tips. It’s good to know that I’m not missing much with the other channels. I’m doing good with just Netflix and Hulu.
I love me some Pub-D-Hub, but then I’m a little weird.
I also get use out of the Smithsonian Channel for documentaries.
You can now get HBO as a separate channel without a cable subscription if you want their offerings. HBO NOW they call it and, while a little pricey at $14.99 per month, it gets you everything HBO, soup to nuts.
Amazon also has add-ons for other premium channels, Starz, Cinimax, Showtime, etc. that you can add to you Amazon Prime account for an additional fee of around $10/month for each.
Find a friend who is a movie freak and who has a VUDU account. VUDU allows sharing with up to (I think) three other people at no extra charge. My son and his wife are always uploading movies to it, including very recent films, and I leech off of them.
Several years ago, I had shoulder surgery and was pretty much confined to my recliner for two weeks. I spent a lot of time looking for good stuff on Roku. Sadly to say, it seems Roku is like an iceberg: there is a very small top tier (Netflix, Hulu, etc.) that is worth looking at, and a vast underbelly that is less-than-optimal.
It has been a long time since I have reviewed the Roku channels, but this is what I remember from my last foray.
I’m a documentary geek, and will watch the TED channel regularly. Always good stuff on there.
I am not a big fan of the Smithsonian channel, because it seems to me that most of their stuff are just snippets that are 3-5 minutes long. I might be missing the point, though. It is possible that the snippets are to whet your appetite for the longer items, but I seem to recall there being a lot more snippets than full-length items. I’ll have to look again to see if I am mis-remembering.
We had a “Pet TV” channel, that had lots of videos of puppies and kittens. It may still be on, for all I know. I think that the channel was for people who wanted to give their own dogs and cats something to watch during the day. I have watched the channel for a bit when I have been stressed out and need to flood my body with feel-good hormones. I mean, its puppies, right? And kittehs.
I think I watched a few movies or documentaries on the “Military” channel, but don’t recall there being a whole lot of good stuff.
There is at least one channel that has non-English shows and movies, but it seemed to be heavily-dominated by Korean shows. I was looking for Irish/Gaelic shows, and I think there was only one or two things on at the time.
There was also a Game channel that had video poker. Spent a lot of sleepless hours at 4:00 in the morning playing video poker on the Roku.
Well, after adding Netflix to its cable boxes a few months ago, Comcast has released the beta version of the Xfinity app for Roku. In good news, it’s at least the fourth player moving into the “streaming cable” market, after Sling TV, Playstation Vue and Direct TV. The big unknown is Hulu, whose “cable” offering will be rolled out later this year.
The bad news being, of course, that the last thing we want in streaming is the same shitty “take it all or take nothin’, and at our really great bundled price” model we’ve been battling from cable for fifty years.
Crackle is a good one, but it does have commercials. Not the end of the world for me. If you’re a News Radio fan, you need Crackle.
Popcornflix: I’ve seen a few movies on there that I haven’t seen on Netflix or Prime.
Tubi also has things you don’t find on other channels.
Generally, I use the roku search for a movie title and see which services offer the movie.
I’ve just discovered private channels. I’m not too sure why they’re called that, but I intend to get busy finding out this weekend:
Most of my Roku viewing is on Netflix, Amazon, or Hulu, as others have said; I’ve also enjoyed Shout Factory TV, Pluto TV, and Acorn TV from time to time. I love the cross-application movie search feature, but it doesn’t cover everything, and sometimes it misses things on services that it does cover, so that frustrates me.
Other lesser lights… Crackle and VUDU and VHX, PopcornFlix…
Oh, and I am a subscriber to Crunchyroll and Funimation.
Honestly, the only thing I enjoy on AcornTV is QI - now that I’ve run through all the available seasons there and on Hulu, I may as well drop AcornTV, come to think of it.