Roku 2 and 3 updates

[Flint]

Is there a brave standards organization out there leading this one?

I hope there is.

Jeff

I happen to work for an SDO (Standards Development Organization) - my staff works with the committees which define the standards for CAT-5, CAT-6 and the upcoming CAT-8 copper cable standards, as well as hundreds of other standards.

I can speak from firsthand experience, standards only work IF the majority of the companies in the market agree that a standard which anyone, including their competitors, can access and use without restriction, will improve their ability to sell more stuff.

Look at BluRay. A group of a few hundred companies, representing the vast majority of the manufacturers of content and hardware, agreed to work together on that standard and support it. Meanwhile a competing, smaller group created HD-DVD. What was the result of that? Massive market confusion! Loss of sales, frustrated consumers, and more. I got a free bottle of good Scotch from the mess, but other than that, adoption was slower and the industry suffered and consumers did as well.

Apple wants everyone to work with them. Google wants everyone to work with them. Amazon wants everyone to work with them. Roku, however, would like to work with everyone else - but not everyone else wants to work with Roku.

Apple promises an ease of use unparalleled by the other guys. They are catering to their loyal core customers. They are hugely profitable and definitely don't NEED to work with everyone else. So what is in it for them? Their market is growing and they are hugely profitable.

Google is feature rich and offers some really cool capabilities, but it is sometimes difficult from fragmentation. They are advancing their user base and making a little money, but they want to collect data on their users. They don't really need to offer 100% compatibility, especially if it costs them money as they don't want to spend money to get data.

Amazon just wants to ensure they are not working with or promoting competitors who are not playing nice with them. They don't want to make it easy for their "partners" to steal their customers. So... there is some lack of support where they see that happening.

I get every perspective. I agree it is extremely frustrating, but it happens. The fear of losing existing customers is MUCH more powerful than gaining new ones. If Apple starts losing customers they will consider changing. Same for Google and Amazon.

But that's the problem with trying to create standards. It only works when everyone, absolutely everyone, agrees to work with them.

 

[Haywood]

The root cause of a lot of this is a move away from open standards to proprietary operating systems and standards designed to force consumers to buy everything from on vendor or another. Give me an open platform and let me pick which content and services I want to buy. Is that really such an unreasonable thing?

 

[Deleted member 133]

Flint,

You're welcome.

Jeff

ps. Well said!

 

[Flint]

The root cause of a lot of this is a move away from open standards to proprietary operating systems and standards designed to force consumers to buy everything from on vendor or another. Give me an open platform and let me pick which content and services I want to buy. Is that really such an unreasonable thing?

So, this leads to a business question. If I am Amazon (or whomever) and I offer everything which all of my competitors offer - literally everything. How do I differentiate so people will buy my product and service over my competitors'? I would argue that in the American economy the cheapest provider will win the majority of the business if they are all the same in what they offer. People will generally not care if one device/service has voice control if it costs 40% more than some generic brand which has all the same content and no extra features. Why go into a market which is racing to the bottom on price?

Just a thought.

 

[Haywood]

I am not talking about services. I am talking about operating system platforms. Amazon is a content provider with a unique mix of offerings. So are Netflix, Hulu, Vudu, HBONow, etc. They are competing mainly on content. I fail to see how this is compromised if I can choose the hardware I use to watch it. Devices should compete based on features and ease of use. Bundling devices and content just makes life suck, especially when consumers have to keep switching between a bunch of different devices. It is not just, "Which service is that show on?" It is, "Which box is that service on?" It makes it very difficult to search and navigate content.

As yourself what would have happened if Microsoft tried to pull half of this stuff on the Windows platform.

 

[Flint]

I am not talking about services. I am talking about operating system platforms. Amazon is a content provider with a unique mix of offerings. So are Netflix, Hulu, Vudu, HBONow, etc. They are competing mainly on content. I fail to see how this is compromised if I can choose the hardware I use to watch it. Devices should compete based on features and ease of use. Bundling devices and content just makes life suck, especially when consumers have to keep switching between a bunch of different devices. It is not just, "Which service is that show on?" It is, "Which box is that service on?" It makes it very difficult to search and navigate content.

As yourself what would have happened if Microsoft tried to pull half of this stuff on the Windows platform.

I think Microsoft DID pull this stuff with IE and even Media Player, to some extent. If you recall, while nearly every PC had a DVD-ROM reader, they didn't pay for DVD-Video playback licenses in the OS. That meant you had to buy a third party DVD player app to use the hardware you already owned. They also did it with video decoders, even free ones. You had to go risk Trojan horses by installing free CODECs or pay a small fortune for a commercial media player that included the common CODECs.

That said, they were not terrible. Only Apple refused to get along with them, insisting iTunes only work on Apple's hardware until the users screamed loud enough they changed their model. Even now, Apple's DRM won't work with any player except iTunes.

I just don't see the problem. Ten years ago if I told you a $50 video player could get you 80% of everything you wanted to watch, you'd call me an idiot who doesn't understand how tech works. Back then we were spending $300 on pretty darn good DVD players, as the norm, and still dreamed of getting a killer upscaler to make them look better. Now you could get two media players and access 100% of all the streaming media you could want, but that isn't good enough. Instead you want everything from one device as if that once device which does 80% of everything you could want for $50 is a piece of shit.

Ever see that Louis CK late night interview where he talks about the guy getting on the airplane and acting shocked and excited that the airplane now offers WiFi, then acts really pissed off when the flight attendant has to announce that the WiFi isn't working on that flight?

We are spoilt with amazing technology and capabilities, yet we still complain.

 

[MatthewB]

I have both the Appletv and of course Roku. The only and I mean the only thing I use my Appletv for is to access my entire music library which is stored on iCloud. I don't mind and I'm sure when my now six year old Appletv dies I'll buy another just for the convience of being able to access my music library and use my iPad to easily select the next song I want hear. I use my Roku for everything else. I'm lucky I guess because I share my Netflix account with my mother who in turn shares her HBO Go account with me. My brother in law shares his Hulu Plus account with me because I added him and my sister to my linked Vudu account. So I get the benefit of having multiple choices at the cost of 8.00 for Netflix (not counting the 100.00 a month I spend on Vudu titles for my family).

It's a shame nobody wants to work with Roku as it is the number one streaming device sold. I think it's a sham that CBS went on their own and wants you to pay a monthly fee for their shows while other stations just give it to you. So it was really surprising when I found all seasons of NCIS on Netflix as I thought CBS would hold tight on to that show strictly for their CBS app.

I used to pirate movies but I prefer the picture quality and audio quality of Vudu over a bootleg movie so I can wait. That and with so many titles in my library I can't keep up so now I just wait. Sure it would be nice if one device could handle everything (a one ring to rule them all if you will) but with so many hands in the pie you know there will be in fighting. Apple wanting this amount of the profits as compared to Netflix and so on.

Flint brought up a good point how just a few years ago we were all paying 300.00 for an up scaling DVD player and with 4K bluray players and movies already in stores and with PS 4 announcing built in 4K players in a cheaper machine Ina few months it's gonna be a game changer and all our bluray titles are gonna be worth nothing. In fact they already are. I'm slowly selling my Blurays as I load them into Vudu since I never use them anymore and I find I'm only getting about 1.25 per title at second hand stores. Sucks for sure which is why I buy strictly digital codes now for new titles. Sure I miss lossless audio because it clearly is a better than DD+ but when I can buy a new movie for 5.00 as compared to the Bluray for 20.00 it's worth the downgrade in audio.

Flint your never gonna let me live that down me losing that bet to you huh?

 

[Towen7]

I think it's interesting how some of this crowd went from wanting the absolute best audio and video quality that they could get ... To wanting "good enough" performance in trade for streaming convenience. That sounds judgmental and it's not intended to.

 

[Haywood]

I think it's interesting how some of this crowd went from wanting the absolute best audio and video quality that they could get ... To wanting "good enough" performance in trade for streaming convenience. That sounds judgmental and it's not intended to.

A lot of that has to do with the shrinking gap between best and good enough combined with the ever increasing gap in overall ease of use.

 

[Flint]

I think it's interesting how some of this crowd went from wanting the absolute best audio and video quality that they could get ... To wanting "good enough" performance in trade for streaming convenience. That sounds judgmental and it's not intended to.

I am definitely one of those in that crowd.

For music, I still insist on the ultimate quality. I don't generally use streaming services for music, unless it is my only option (which is rare).

For video, this is my viewpoint: Until recently, the best video we could get in our homes was clearly imperfect. We could see artifacts, color inaccuracies, distortions and so on with even the best sources and TVs. So, we strived for better all the time in hopes of eliminating, or at least reducing, the issues of home video. Then BluRay and affordable near perfect 1080p TVs came along and blew away everything that came before. Within a year of that streaming was besting DVD quality and getting close to BluRay quality and in a short time the quality of a streaming video program was amazingly good. Ultimately, if we cannot see the artifacts or issues in the video quality, we are more than happy with it. Is BluRay better? Probably, but the difference is only apparent if you compare them side by side. Then, with audio with video, the video inherently distracts from the issues with audio. So, good enough is good enough in most cases. I would probably not enjoy watching a perfectly filmed and recorded opera performance being streamed as much as I would having it on BluRay or a perfect 4K source.

So... I see the point, but I think the rules for acceptable in video are different than with pure audio.

 

[Haywood]

I mostly moved away from discs because

1) Vudu HDX is so close to Blu-Ray quality that I cannot even tell most of the time
2) The cost of content acquisition is dramatically lower
3) The convenience of being able to watch anywhere is very nice
4) Not having to hunt down discs all over the house is a good thing
5) Being able to legally share my movie library with select people is great

 

[Deleted member 133]

A huge number of movies in my collection are public domain black and white classics (many silent) - some now shot over 100 years ago.

For movies, for me it has always been all about the content first; if I can see it, and hear it (as the case may be), and therefore understand what's going on on the screen, then for the most part I'm satisfied.

For newer movie releases I enjoy the immersive (sight and sound) experience as much as the next person, but only if the content is worth watching and listening to.

While all of my background / convenience music listening is done using 192k MP3s (ripped from CDs), I really do enjoy those times when I can spin a hi-res multi-channel disc, undisturbed, in my main HT.

Jeff

 

[Haywood]

I almost never play CDs anymore. The overwhelming majority of my music is ripped to FLAC on my media server, which can then transcode on the fly to whatever the client device can handle.

 

[Barney]

Back to Roku....Roku can stream every app even has some xxx channels. Problem is their 4 was a big boo boo. Still have issues with Netflix 4k and 10bit, can't display 4k/24fps, and no WCG of any kind. Maybe the Roku 5 will be better.

 

[Botch]

I mostly moved away from discs because

1) Vudu HDX is so close to Blu-Ray quality that I cannot even tell most of the time
2) The cost of content acquisition is dramatically lower
3) The convenience of being able to watch anywhere is very nice
4) Not having to hunt down discs all over the house is a good thing
5) Being able to legally share my movie library with select people is great

Scott, this is funny, I've stayed with disks for almost the same above reasons, from a different viewpoint:

1) Okay, this one I can't respond to, I don't have Vudu HDX.

2) I buy so few movies, the cost is a non-player.

3) I have no smart phone or working tablet, and really only want to "watch" something in my living room.

4) My collection is alphabetized and I have no kids/women/clever dogs, and with my blood clot it's good to walk a few steps every two hours.

5) I have no family nor local friends, so another non-player.

I guess its good that we all have different setups to match our individual circumstances! :handgestures-thumbup:

 

[Flint]

For me... I have two living locations (Austin, TX, and Arlington, VA), and I travel all over the world... so having a solution where I can view anything I own on any PC, Tablet, streaming device, or Phone I own (which are plentiful) is a better choice for me.

 

[Haywood]

If Roku can come out with a successor to the Roku 4 that is as great as the Roku 3, they will win me back in a heartbeat. I love the fact that Roku is the Switzerland of streaming devices and works with just about everything. Right at the moment, I'm mainly using the built-in Android TV on my new Sony, because it has Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Vudu, YouTube and Plex, which is most of what we watch. It can also handle 4K HDR from both Amazon and Netflix and it has the added perk of a Google Play Music client.

 

[Barney]

I just remembered one app Roku doesn't have....Playstation Vue. But awhile back I talked to tech support for Playstation and they have future plans to have an app for Roku.

 

[Haywood]

If Amazon and Vudu would hurry up and get general release Android TV apps out there, I would get an NVidia SHIELD TV and not look back.

 

[MatthewB]

I'm with Haywood all the way. HDX is damn near as good as Bluray obviously lossless audio is better than lossy but as I mentioned when I can buy a new title release for 5-7 bucks tax free as opposed to paying over 20.00 per movie is just makes sense to go digital. I have just passed 2,000 HDX movies in my collection that I can take anywhere, share my collection with my family especially my mother whose also a huge movie lover. My nephew adds movies about as fast as I do so my collection has grown exponentially in just three years since I discovered Vudu. When I can add 10 movies in HDX format from my public library for the cost of one bluray it just makes sense.

I have my modem hooked up to a battery backup so when my power goes out in the summertime, the girlfriend and I just prop up the iPad and stream a movie while waiting for the power to come back on which you can't do with a home theater system. So not only being able to stream to your home theater or on the go is just a wise choice. I also have a wide selection of titles in HDX that may never see Bluray which is also nice. I've enjoyed True Lies in HDX for a few years and that title is still absent on Bluray along with some classic movies because demand isn't high to mass produce on Bluray but the titles have been given to streaming services in near Bluray quality. Also if a movie sucks I'm out five bucks big deal as opposed to being out 20.00 along with gas and my time shopping at stores.

I also get the added joy when a family member will call me and thank me for adding a movie they've wanted but never gotten around to buying themselves. My older sister has a massive movie collection and my nephew two years ago added 150 of her movies to our linked accounts and she had some gems in her collection which I still have never seen on Bluray.