I have heard a lot of people talking about getting rid of their TVs and going with Roku. How does it work? Do you have to subscribe to get shows? I can’t imagine getting all the shows I get on my cable for $60. Do you subscribe separately to Hulu Plus, HBO and things like that? How do I get my NCIS each Tuesday? (Hey, I’m old) It seems like that could add up. Would it work with my TiVo?
I’d love to get rid of my cable, too!
Your best source of direct info will be the website www.roku.com
You can subscribe to Netflix and Hulu. This will give you most popular shows and movies and plenty of other stuff. However, you can not get HBO on Roku unless you have an actual cable service with the HBO channel. And, only if your CATV company supports it. So, that’s a no on any “premium” cable channels.
Will it work with your TiVO? Maybe, but, the whole point behind Netflix and Hulu is that no TiVO is required. They both have all the episodes of whatever show available all the time.
Oh, there is also Amazon Prime video but you have to buy most of the decent shows.
I’ve got a Roku. Basically it acts as an interface between the internet and your TV. However, it doesn’t “come with” any TV/movie content of its own; it just allows you to pipe the services you already subscribe to onto your TV screen. For example, the main thing I use mine for is to stream Netflix directly to my TV rather than watching the shows on my computer screen.
Note that you do need a Hulu Plus subscription to get Hulu shows on your Roku. Regular, free-to-the-viewer Hulu is inaccessible on a Roku.
I was a Netflix subscriber for a couple years before I got my Roku, so for me the Roku was an add-on to that. In general I’ve been really happy with it. It’s pretty cheap for what it does, and it’s much nicer to sit on the couch while watching TV than to sit at my desk.
You’ll also need a good internet connection to get reliable high quality streams. DSL won’t quite cut it, especially if there are other people in the house that want to browse or play games while you watch stuff on the Roku. But a decent cable, or any sort of fiber service, will be plenty.
In terms of budget, Netflix and Hulu Plus together are $16/month. You should compare the total cost of internet + Netflix/Hulu vs. internet + cable. If you have a bundled internet/cable subscription, the savings might not be that dramatic. Still, in my case I consider the internet connection essential, so my comparison is $16/month for Netflix/Hulu vs $35/month for bundled basic cable or $55/month for a “premium” package.
It’s also important to note that Netflix Streaming and Hulu Plus together will get you a lot of channels, but not HBO or AMC. If you’re not a cable subscriber, AFAIK the only way to watch HBO shows is to wait until they come out on DVD and get them from Netflix DVD (additional subscription cost) or buy them on Amazon Prime (can get pricey.)
Finally, note that sports options are somewhat limited when you only have a Roku. I think MLB and the NHL, at least, have official subscription services that the Roku is compatible with; but these are also expensive. For the NHL one, at least, you have to subscribe for the entire season at the time. I really only watch the NHL during the playoffs, and so when April rolls around I just go down to the local pub to watch the games I’m interested in.
You also might want to compare with Apple TV. Both products are evolving but when I looked last ROKU gave you access to Amazon video (must have the appropriate account) and AppleTV gave you the ability to connect to your iTunes on your computer and play any song/video there. Both supported Netflix and HULU.
For what it’s worth, I used a Roku successfully with DSL for several months in the last place I lived. (Then I moved somewhere where I could only get cable.) I only rarely had trouble with the Roku not being able to handle the video streams. However, I do have a pretty crappy TV, so I didn’t really notice much difference when the Roku decided to use a lower-bandwidth (and lower-quality) stream because of slow Internet speeds.
I recommend getting PlayOn, a media server software. It’s $50 for a lifetime subscription, and lets you access (via a media server set-top box, such as Roku, some network-connected televisions, Wii/360/PS3, iPads/iPhones, etc.). It will give you access to Hulu (not Hulu Plus, so it’s free), quite a bit of cable-on-demand content (from channels like Comedy Central, SyFy, Spike, ESPN360 (live!), etc.), Amazon Prime (if you have a subscription), Netflix (if you have a subscription), etc. It will also allow you to access any media you have on your home computer.
I believe you can jailbreak an Apple TV (prior to the latest OS update) and install Roku software on it, making it a nice little piece of equipment.
Whoops - nope. You can install Boxee on it. Not quite as good as Roku.
Thanks, everybody. The HBO thing doesn’t bother me, but I watch a mix of network shows and cable shows, as well as a lot of NFL and college ball in the fall.
And thank you Munch. That’s exactly what I meant; who knows why I typed TVs instead of cable.
I would say the people who are happiest cancelling cable in favor of Netflix/amazon prime/etc/ via Roku or Xbox 360, are those who never watch sports and don’t care about watching any particular show at any particular time.
That describes me perfectly – I realy don’t care at all if I’m watching last year’s sitcoms – but it doesn’t sound like its a good fit for your tv watching needs. Also, if your cable company is a monopoly providing shitty service at an outrageous price, you might have an added incentive. OTOH if your cable service is good and reasonably priced, the balance might weigh differently. We save $150 a month by eliminating things we never cared about to begin with. I have friends who got equivalent and even superior cable service for $30 a month; I think if our cable wasn’t such total crap to begin with things might have gone differently.
Note that for a lot of areas, there is a minimum super-ultra-basic cable with only local stations/network affiliates that they don’t advertise and it’s actually cheaper to have [cable internet + super-ultra-basic cable] than [cable internet + nothing]. So if you like what you can get on the Roku but can’t live without a few network shows that are carried on local channels (as a totally random example, if you have a girlfriend who really likes Oprah) that might be an option.
As an alternative:
Consider getting a cheap, used netbook or laptop–anything capable of surfing and streaming should do. It will give you the same subscription options as a Roku, but will likely be a lot faster, easier to use, and provide more content (e.g. Hulu regular).
We have two Roku boxes in the house, purchased shortly after they first came out. We love love loved them. I’ve nothing negative to say about them. Then I built a new PC and moved the old one to the theatre as an HTPC and never looked back. Even the Netflix experience is better as searching and playing is much better (and faster). When we upgraded the Mac, we moved the old one (a Mini) to the exercise room to replace the Roku there and it too was a fantastic improvement.
We use a very handy, small Lenovo mini keyboard/mouse(there’s another version out there that’s only 30 bucks–we have both and the newer model is worth the extra $20).
We pay a la carte for several shows (Mad Men, Breaking Bad, etc.). Even at $2 an episode, it’s a lot less than a monthly cable bill.
Not everything from cable is available via Netflix & Hulu. But they offer (in my opinion) much more content and better quality content for $15 than you get for your $60 cable.
I love sports. I pay $129 for the MLB.TV package, and get access to way more baseball games than were available on cable. There are similar packages for other sports. We watch NFL games on over the air. All we miss is the Monday Night game, which is on too late for us to stay up for anyway.
YMMV -
We use DSL, and it’s not uncommon to have one person watching a Netflix movie through the Roku, and another person playing an MMO on a computer. The only times we seem to have any problems is when we have 2 computers playing online games and someone is watching a Netflix movie. And then it’s usually a game that suffers, not the movie.
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Thank you for the clarification. All I know is that you can only get out-of-market sports games on the services I happen to have. It does strike me as quite expensive (the usual reason for turning off cable is the price). If you can’t afford cable you probably can’t afford that, and if you don’t get good aerial signal you’re sort of out of luck, no?
We have cable and DSL connections in the house with a pair of A/B switches to change between them when one goes out (home office needs the redundancy of connection). When cable goes out and we switch to DSL there’s a noticeable difference in the office when up/downloading large files, but I’m not sure we notice the difference streaming-wise–sometimes after a cable outage where we switch the whole house to DSL we forget to change back, and unless something happens in the office we can’t really tell. There’s only two of us though, but it’s not uncommon for one of us to be streaming things on two different screens.
ETA: this was true for both when we had the Roku devices and after we switched to all PC-based streaming.
That’s $129 per year, not per month. If you’re paying $60/month for cable that gets the out of market games you want, the Roku route would still result in significant savings: $320/year for NetHuluflix + one sports package, vs $720/year for premium cable.
Ohhhh, gotcha.