I’m giving serious consideration to cutting the cord with cable, and thought I’d come to you guys to answer all my questions.
As I understand it, Roku is a piece of hardware that organizes all the various streaming services and gives you a tidy interface into your TV. Some of the streaming services may cost money (like Hulu Plus?), which is fine – I already subscribe to Netflix.
So, here are my current TV viewing patterns – what would or wouldn’t work with Roku?
Live local broadcast channels: I usually have the local news on in the morning, mostly for traffic and weather. And watch Jeopardy at night during dinner.
Time-shifted broadcast: I have a bunch of network TV shows on my DVR, and don’t particularly care when I watch them; except that I do watch several reality shows (DWTS, Survivor, etc) and prefer to see them the same day as the original broadcast, just so I can come here and enjoy the corresponding discussion.
HBO: Game of Thrones, Silicon Valley. From the Roku website it sounds like it’s possible to view HBO Go through Roku. How does that work? Can you subscribe to HBO without having a cable/dish provider?
Sports: like to watch SF Giants (Comcast SportsNet) or college football (broadcast networks, and/or ESPN or Fox Sports). Is there any way to do that with Roku?
To use HBO Go, you need an HBO subscription through your cable company, which is going to require a full cable subscription (I’ve never heard of a cable company that would let you get just a premium channel and nothing else, but if there were one it would be very expensive). You’re not going to get local broadcast through Roku either, but you might be able to put up an antenna and get it that way without cable. Many network shows are available on Hulu (not sure about Jeopardy) shortly after airing, but you’d need to pay for a Hulu Plus subscription and they show an annoying number of ads. I think most of my friends who have “cut the cable” are pirating some stuff with BitTorrent or the like, but that’s not something I’m willing to do (both for moral reasons and because it’s a pain in the butt).
FWIW I have a Roku and an AppleTV (as well as cable), and I use the AppleTV alst exclusively over the Roku. the Roku has some content the AppleTV doesn’t (you need to carefully look at what’s available on each platform and match it up with what you watch), but the AppleTV interface is so much nicer and easier to use it’s really no contest. Plus I can play stuff from my iPad or iPhone onto the AppleTV if it’s not available natively.
For our viewing habits, there’s no way we can use a streaming device to the exclusion of cable, but it’s nice to have.
Live sports are going to the bitch. You won’t be able to use the Watch ESPN without a login from a cable or dish company. You won’t be able to see sports which are broadcast on the local cable networks. The various subscription services, such as MLB, will block out the local games. You’ll be able to see the out of market games, but the Giants and A’s will be blacked out.
Yes, with additional fees, via Amazon, Hulu Plus, etc.
No.
dalej42 reminded me, I do have NHL GameCenter on my Roku. But I almost always stream it to my computer instead of the TV.
Note, the two I answered No on, you can buy a cable subscription and pump it through your Roku–I can do this with Time Warner cable, at least. But it wouldn’t save me any money. I’m not sure why anyone would do this rather than using a cable box.
I love my Roku, but I use it only for Netflix and Plex (streaming video from my computer).
I recommend going through the channel list and seeing if anything is appealing.
Simple, appliance-level access to Netflix, Vudu, Hulu, Amazon Video and (on new models - coming to older ones Real Soon) YouTube make Roku worth it. Access to most of the pay sports channels like MLB.tv and so forth are good, and there are many alternate movie channels, free and pay.
But as others have already said, the sweeping and “free” coverage of sports that cable brings is just not there yet for streaming audiences. Even the pay channels are subject to lavish blackout zones.
Far easier to use - just use, not screw around with like an old ham radio - than most embedded streaming tools in disc players, TVs etc.
Absolutely mind-blowing range of user-developed channels - you can spend whole evenings just gaping at the plethora of Jesus and militia channels, and then there’s always my personal fave for whacked-out whackoism wtih zero intelligence behind it, Chucky Talks to God.
Roku supports Airplay? How do I enable it? I’m sitting in front of mine right now and I don’t see any options for it (and it doesn’t show up as an option on the airplay menu on my ipad).
So does this mean that I could get sports, if I’m willing to pay? That would be ok – assuming that an MLB.TV subscription is cheaper than a full-blown DirecTV subscription. (And assuming that one can get pay sports without a cable package)
But it’s sounding like streaming boxes aren’t quite the be-all-end-all cut-the-cable alternative, yet
Unless something is different in SF, you won’t be able to get local cable sports. In Chicago, there is no way for me to get Comcast Sports Chicago (which has most of the Cubs, Hawks, Bulls games.) unless I have a cable or satellite subscription. I’m at work until 830 PM Mon-Thurs. I go to a bar or listen to a radio broadcast of a lot of local games. A few games for each team are also broadcast on WGN, which I get over the air.
Does Roku do anything that a blu ray player can’t do? Almost all Blu ray players have apps for Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon etc. plus they play Blu Rays which Roku cannot. I’m just curious.
Roku has way more “channels” (sources) than any Blu Ray player I’ve seen. If all you care about are Netflix and maybe a few of the other big ones, a Blu Ray player will do, but Roku gives you far more options. Also in my experience (I currently have three different models of Blu Ray players with streaming), the software in Blu Ray players tends to be buggier, the interface harder to use and the software updates far less frequent. It can be frustrating.
Comcast seems to offer a low budget way to get HBO in some markets. You can add on a very low tier cable option to your internet package to get local broadcast networks, and then pay for HBO in addition to that. That’ll get you access to HBO Go on your enabled devices.
IME, a much better experience, instant startup, no slowly diving through badly-designed menus to use an even more badly-designed interface to choose a slow version of the streaming app. YMMV.
It’s a simple appliance and works quickly and smoothly when you want it, draws next to no power when you don’t. (Cable boxes draw 40-50W or more, 100-120W for DVR models… 24/7/365.) Roku doesn’t even have a power switch; it just goes into standby on its own and wakes instantly. I find that appealing - when I sit down to watch stuff, I don’t want to fuck around with a computer, Windows, apps, a lack of appropriate controls, boot time, or the kind of slow in-between of using a disc player.
having said that, we’re happy with our MLB.TV subscription combined with dumping dish, adding hulu plus and netflix and OTA broadcasts in our area. YMMV. do research for your area diligently before plunking down your simoleons.
I have a Roku, and using it is what convinced me to become a cord-cutter. I will never subscribe to cable or satellite TV again. I’ve eliminated removable media as well; I no longer own a DVD player. Almost everything I watch is from Netflix, from pay-per-view streaming services like Amazon, or streamed from my computer to the Roku via Plex.
I do have a small indoor antenna that I can use for OTR stuff, mostly news broadcasts. Lack of live news coverage is one of the drawbacks to going streaming-only. There’s a way to get a live feed of CNN through Roku, but it’s the international version of CNN and the video quality is terrible. I’m not into sports, so I can’t tell you what the options are for that.
You can get HBO GO through ROKU with a subscription. However, if your cable company blocks it, you can’t set HBO GO up. (I have Xfinity/Comcast) and they won’t allow it, so I can’t get HBO GO through ROKU. From looking at the list of providers that do allow it, it seems Comcast may be the only one that doesn’t allow it. :mad:
They aren’t , really. It’s more like an alternative to watching Netflix or Amazon or Youtube etc video on a computer screen. It doesn’t replace cable or satellite if you actually watch cable stations , whether for sports or because you don’t want for the Walking Dead DVD release.
One very neat thing about Roku is that you can “pair” the web browser on your PC/phone/tablet to it, so that you can search for a Youtube video on your other device and have it play on your TV. It definitely saves a lot of time over trying to key in a search query with the remote.
The main reason I got mine was so that I could watch the WWE Network on my TV rather than on my computer monitor. I haven’t actually tried much with it aside from using it to watch Youtube and Blip and WWE, but it’s performed admirably for everything I’ve tried it for so far.