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Roku Owners: Still Happy with your Roku 3??

Oh and Flint we are old enough to remember when all we got was five channels that shut off at midnight each night and getting the channel to work right is when your father would put tinfoil on the rabbit ears and have you adjust the ears till the picture came in clear enough and changing the channel was when the old man would yell at you to get up and turn the channel. We truly are spoiled by how much we have compared to our parents and grandparents.
 
You ask why some popular channels and shows are not available to stream, essentially for free, without commercials. But you answered your own question when you said THAT was the reason you weren't canceling your SAT subscription.

MatthewB said:
Um CBS is free OTA why would I pay 8.00 to have access to NCIS which is shown free on TNT all the friggin time.
Click to expand...

CBS is free OTA but you aren't asking for OTA level of access. More importantly CBS sells the rights to broadcast NCIS to TNT and other channels. That show's popularity is what drives the price CBS can charge those channels for re-runs and for those channels to charge the advertisers.
 
CBS can charge what it wants, but $8 per month for one channel with lots of ads is a terrible value proposition and I have no intention of giving them my business. I would much rather use my OTA DVR and FF through the ads. We are not talking about 3-4 minutes per hour like Hulu. We are talking about 12-15 minutes per hour. I think it is extremely obnoxious to have the few ads on Hulu when I'm paying a subscription, so why would I ever want to pay $8 a month to waste 12-15 minutes per hour on non-skippable ads. I hope the CBS offering flops hard. I hope consumers bitch slap anyone who tries to pull this shit.
 
Matt, I am 90% happy with my Roku boxes. My only gripes are:

1. The reboot thing is mildly annoying. It happens a few times a month.
2. I think the UI is a bit stale in spots.
 
MatthewB said:
......Same with CBS channel but CBS wants you to pay 8.00 per month to stream their shows from a computer. Um CBS is free OTA why would I pay 8.00 to have access to NCIS which is shown free on TNT all the friggin time.
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Technically, TNT is not free since you have to have cable or sat to get TNT, therefore, NCIS isn't free either.


I get your jist though Matt. First thing I thought when I added all the local network apps (CBS, Fox, ABC, etc.) was being able to watch shows I missed on demand. Instead, all I got was short trailer clips like you mentioned. I did however get to get caught up on Agents of Shield via Hulu. It's mainly which app is carrying what show and whether the show in question is going to be available for streaming.


MatthewB said:
Last week I bought a Roku based on your guys recommendations and now you all have me leery....
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As for being leery, don't be. I do think the Rokus are worth their money, but the 3 just isn't a 5 star product imo.

Remember all the streaming issues I had with my PS3? Well the Roku is nothing like that. It's just enough for me to question if anyone else was having the same issues as mine, not to the point where I bagged everything up and dumped it off at a Goodwill like I did with my PS3. Does that make you feel a little better? LOL!
 
Some of the free programming is decent, but most of it is crap. PBS and PBS Kids are nice. You can get some recent episodes for free from History and Discovery even without a cable login. There are some cool private channels like Nowhere TV, which is a nicely curated content aggregator. Obviously, YouTube is free and useful. There are a lot of free news channels from BBC, Fox, CNN, etc.

The bulk of the utility of the box is with subscription services and local media. The combination of Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime provides a vast array of programming options. When supplemented with an OTA DVR, local media and Vudu, there is little reason to miss cable unless you are a huge sports fan.

Dish just announced an internet delivered cable package that works with Roku and includes ESPN for $20/mo, but I do not find it very compelling for those not into sports (too many non-skippable ads, insufficient time shifting capability, too expensive for what you get).
 
walls said:
Can someone explain the benefits of a roku if one already owns "smart" tv's?
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It depends on which smart TV you own. The big advantages of Roku over many smart TVs are the simple user interface and the selection of content. Samsung and Vizio both have well developed app ecosystems that have most of the things most people want, but even they cannot quite match Roku for selection. Many smart TV sets also have really lousy user interfaces. The interface on the Samsung in my kitchen is extremely clunky and counter-intuitive compared with Roku. This is starting to change, however. A bunch of TV makers just unveiled nice new software on their sets that should change the UI equation quite a bit. There are also a handful of manufacturers that are using the Roku platform for their smart TV functionality.
 
I have all Samsung tvs and for the most part they are pretty much user friendly. Am I missing out on content then?

Also I have to agree with Flint online thing, I would find it extremely frustrating to have to "reboot" the roku a few times a month. I might have had to turn one of my TV's off and start over to "reboot" once or twice a year if that.
 
walls said:
I have all Samsung tvs and for the most part they are pretty much user friendly. Am I missing out on content then?

Also I have to agree with Flint online thing, I would find it extremely frustrating to have to "reboot" the roku a few times a month. I might have had to turn one of my TV's off and start over to "reboot" once or twice a year if that.
Click to expand...

One of the reasons for the difference is that you turn your TV sets on and off on a regular basis, while the Roku is always on. If the Roku would do some maintenance reboots on its own, this would be less of an issue.

Are you missing out on content? It depends. Samsung has more apps than anyone other than Roku. Roku tends to get new services first, but Samsung still tends to get all of the majors. A lot of the content available on Roku and not on Samsung is more fringe stuff. For example, every church and religious organization on the planet seems to have a Roku channel because Roku makes it very easy to publish on their platform. My wife subscribes to a service called DramaFever that is not available on Samsung and our Tablo DVR does not have a Samsung app either (though I can get around the latter by using the Tablo Channel inside of Plex). Unless you are looking for something specific that is not in the Samsung ecosystem, you are probably fine.

Samsung just launched a whole new OS for its smart TV sets going forward. Up until that, however, there were different versions of the UI for different levels of TVs. I have a more basic set and the UI is pretty crappy. I am not fond of it in the least, but it serves my needs because I only use it when someone in the kitchen wants to watch something different than the person in the living room.
 
Bump!!
Not sure if a firmware update took care of this issue, but lately I have been checking out Roku. Really waiting for Roku 4. During my searches alot of people had issues w/Netflix app on the Roku's. Rebooting didn't solve the issue. What folks found was removing the Netflix app & re-install a new Netflix app.
Just a fyi.
 
Barney said:
Bump!!
Not sure if a firmware update took care of this issue, but lately I have been checking out Roku. Really waiting for Roku 4. During my searches alot of people had issues w/Netflix app on the Roku's. Rebooting didn't solve the issue. What folks found was removing the Netflix app & re-install a new Netflix app.
Just a fyi.
Click to expand...


How do you do that on a Roku 3?


I can stream Netflix through the Dish Hopper, so the only time I use my Roku is when I'm on Amazon Prime, Youtube, etc.


If Dish would add YouTube and PBS (for the kids), I think I'd dump my Roku.
 
My Roku boxes have been a LOT more stable than they used to be for a long time now. They seem to have fixed most of the bugs with various firmware updates. I go several months at a time without needing to reboot the things, which are always on. The unified search feature just keeps getting better too.

Roku is still my primary source component and it just got a whole lot better for music. Both Plex and Roku now support FLAC playback and Plex just added a ton of new features for managing and playing music that made the overall experience very nice. The Plex interface on Roku was completely redesigned awhile back and I absolutely love it. It makes keeping track of what you've watched and where you left off very easy. I continue to make nearly all of my video purchases in the form of UV and DMA licenses. UV has already signed on with Vidity, which is the next generation video download and playback system supported by the studios. Unlike streaming, Vidity supports fully uncompressed downloads of movies to local storage. All of the studios except Disney are already onboard and so are Vudu, M-Go and Kaleidescape. It will be interesting to see if the next generation of Roku boxes supports it, as I am nearly certain they will support 4k streaming.

With Roku channels for Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Instant Video, Vudu, Tablo DVR, Plex Media Server, Amazon Music, Spotify, Pandora and a ton of other services, I do not miss cable at all and have zero desire to return to it. Why would I? I get all the content I can possibly watch or listen to for less than $50/mo.
 
We bought ours with the intentions of cutting the satellite , however that never happened due to the low signal local Fox.

I may use our Roku 3 once or twice a month and when I do it works fine and I am blown away by the picture quality.
 
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