*Official* Roku 2 Media Streamer Thread - Page 18

It's never a "bad move" to build a product in accordance with agreed-upon industry standards. It was a "bad move" by Samsung to (apparently, according to your next "point") build a product that defaults to a non-standard setting guaranteed to cause a poor image when connected to sources that are in strict compliance with the standards.

It doesn't matter how big your market share happens to be, if you don't comply with the standards it's not everyone else's responsibility to deviate from the standards to accommodate you.


I'm glad you got it working right and that it turned out to be just a switchology issue on the TV. Hopefully this information will help a lot of other people with Samsung TVs.

Previous access of Netflix was via my Wii. Even with the component connect to TV, the picture quality was terrible. The Roku 2 is way better and puts my favorite apps (Pandora, Amazon, HuluPlus, etc) all in one easy to access place.

Since writing that I got a Roku2 XD. Actually very nice. I like their channels and as you point out they have a nice access to major streaming sites. It's a nice streamer. I still prefer certain alternatives but it's one of those products that is well worth trying. That being said, I rarely use it as our Smart TV does everything the Roku2 does in a more convenient way (with respect to premium sites).

Philip

The Roku 2 is a pretty damn good product. That being said, if I find a standalone streamer (or inexpensive BD player) with VUDU (which the Roku lacks), Netflix with 1080p/5.1/CC support and Amazon with 5.1 sound support, I'll buy that and sell the Roku.

My daughter got Roku & said it was awesome. She's stopping her Dish. What channels comes free with it? OR can you give me a link that explains in a novice way what it is, channels you get free, need to do to have a good picture? Etc. THANK YOU!

http://www.roku.com/roku-channel-store

I don't see it as a replacement for cable/sat but that may work for you. It also has a lot of private channels in addition to the official channels you will find in the link.

Philip

I've been using my Roku2's since July they have become the only streaming devices I use I like the channel selection and reliable PQ during peak and off peak time. My Wii and Panny BR player that can stream are not much more than dust collectors.

I'm considering purchasing a Roku 2XS. Does the unit output audio to the HDMI and analog audio outputs at the same time? I'm asking because I would be connecting the audio of the Roku to a 2 channel stereo receiver. Thanks!

Just tested it - simultaneous HDMI and Composite audio works fine with my R2 XS - although, normally I only use HDMI for audio (and video)

Bear in mind there seems to be an ever-so-slight difference in the timing of the audio. If you have both active your ears will be sensitive enough to pick up the difference. At least that's the case with the Roku XD I tried it with.

There are no options in the Roku setup to manage the audio. It'd be nice to have at least the option to enable/disable the outputs. A volume level would be great, otherwise you're stuck with programming a universal remote to handle everything instead of using the Roku remote (which isn't that great anyway).

Agreed -- I also notice an audio time delay/difference when using the HDMI to a TV/speakers and using an optical out from that same TV to an optical input on a receiver

Interesting article based on interview with Anthony Wood, Roku CEO!

How Roku is kicking the cable industry's butt & where it's going next [exclusive]
http://venturebeat.com/2012/03/03/roku-intervie/

I'm wondering if Roku can help in my situation??? I'm an avid race fan (F1, American LeMans, LeMans, DTM, BTCC etc.). The problem is, as of the 2011 season, the ALMS stopped broadcasting races Live. The only way to view races live is via ESPN3.com.

The obvious solution is to use my laptop, however, when I tried this last season, my MacBook Pro began to overheat after a few hours of viewing (the Sebring Race is 12 hours). Also, I'd like to view the event on my flat panel TV.

So, I'm looking to get a device that will allow me to view the races. Streaming movies, and other content isn't as important, but would be a bonus.

Currently, the only devices with ESPN3 access are PCs and Macs, iPhones, iPads, Android 2.2 or later phones and tablets and Xbox 360s.

Roku has a Motor Sports World TV channel.

And playon. You get a playon license and install it on a windows pc, install the playon channel on the roku and you can watch espn3, regular Hulu and others on the roku.

How about the Logitech Revue and Boxee Box? Of the two I prefer the Revue's implementation.

Yeah, ESPN3 works well on my Revue. They're hard to find for under 100 bucks now, though.

Vizio's got that $99 Google TV streaming box that should be out *sometime* in the near future. And no separate keyboard to deal with - it's on a more standard-style remote.

I was mistaken--sorry. That'll teach me to trust ESPN's site .

Hardware wise I love the Revue except for the fact you can't turn it off. I thought I would hate the keyboard but I really like it and it even worked with TiVo and other devices rather nicely. I grabbed a few refurbs for $79 (back when) and now I wish I didn't sell all of them.

Thanks guys.

It looks like my choices for access to ESPN3.COM are limited unless I decide to use a PC or my Mac.

Roku - No - (unless I install Playon via PC)
Xbox - Yes - (must have Xbox Live Gold Level starting at $5/month)
Logitech Revue - Yes
Boxee - ?

I'll look into the Roku/Playon and Logitech Revue. I don't mind investing the time and money, I just want to be certain that it actually works taking the plunge.

or if you have an idevice and an apple tv, use the watchespn app and airplay it to the appletv. works great. thats what i use mostly.

For $80 you can get a PlayOn lifetime license and a Roku 2 LT (on PlayOn's website) - that's like getting the PO lifetime license for $30

Personally I own an R2 XS (and PO lifetime) - but I got my daughter the lifetime PO license with the R2 LT for her bedroom (I already gave her an R2 XS for her TV room)

Edit - btw there's a 3rd party E3 app for Boxee, but I'm not sure how well it works... http://thinkonezero.com/

I need to purchase 3 streamers (for old crt tvs in kids and quest room, as my cable company now requires a set top box for all tvs, NO signal otherwise, and don't want to rent 6 boxes at $8 a month each) currently have a small win7 media server using WMC to stream our ripped dvds to xbox360 and using ps3 media server software to send those movies to ps3 and panasonic viera plasma. Will any of the new rokus be able to access these movies (all the movies are stored in mp4 format as it was the best choice for all the different hardware accessing them), also these media streamers would be connected to powerline ethernet connectors rather than wifi, looked at apple tv but need the older composite connections for older crt tvs

You're pushing your luck expect to drive multiple streaming devices over powerline extenders. There's only 'so much' available bandwidth, eventually you're going to run into problems when more than a few streams at once. Your only reliable solution is to use a direct wired connection to each streamer. You'll try, but eventually you'll end up having to use wired. Plan for it. Save your money and skip the powerline gizmos.

As for your company 'requiring' set top boxes, don't think they can force that on you. The FCC requires them to offer cablecard support (if you're in the US, that is). Now, more advanced features like video-on-demand might require one of their boxes, but just TV stations should work with a cablecard. Those you will have to rent but they're usually a lot less than a set top box.

You can get an HDMI to component, or even composite/s-video converters. That'd let you use an HDMI output device like an Apple TV or a Roku with an older TV. Bear in mind that with component adapters your TV still has to be able to support the output resolution the device provides. So if your TV can only take 480 component then you still can't use an adapter, for that you'd have to get a more expensive scaler than handle down-converting. Given what TV's cost these days it may end up being cheaper to just get a new TV instead of adapters for the old one.

What you may want to consider, if you really end up pulling wire (and you will) might be to use an HDMI over CAT5 solution. Maybe even one with a matrix switch. That'd let you connect several sources and be able to deliver them out to multiple rooms, while also feeding IR remote controls back. Monoprice makes a decent 4x4 CAT5 matrix for around $300. Other solutions exist and prices go up from there.

For ripped DVDs (as he states) powerline should more than handle the load (in most cases). Presuming you have coax next to the TVs you could also look into MoCA which would offer better performance although typically at a higher cost.

Do you know about the cable card PC tuners, Prime and Ceton? That might help you out a little with cable channels extending to the xbox360's.

Not for the quantity of TV's he's mentioned, and still not with MoCA either. Trying to push that much data through a single pipe is going to result in choppy streams on all of them. As opposed to pulling one ethernet hard wire for each of them into a switch. There you'll have more orderly management of the streamed packets (as opposed to collisions), up to the point of saturating the link to the fileserver source. If that gets swamped he may need to look into multiple connections, perhaps via teamed adapter connections into the fileserver.

Suffice to say this applies to wireless as well.

I'm wondering whether he's taking the usability and user expectation hassles. People think of TV as 'live', not as seperately saved streams. Going from live TV sources to streamed may not be as pleasant as expected. It's often referred to as the "Wife Acceptance Factor".

Thus my suggestion of distributing HDMI from the source. That way you can push a shared connection to a live source, like a cable box. Or more than one if being able to watch things independently is desired. We have two Tivo DVRs shared this way. One is typically used in the family room and the other in the bedroom. Both are on a rack in the basement (the wife hates the slight amount of noise the Tivo makes sometimes). We can watch either one of them in other locations around the house. There's also a Win7 media center and a BD player on the matrix. We may add streaming boxes at each TV as that doesn't usually lend itself to be used as a shared source. You "can" since it's just a video signal, but the behaviors of using one aren't the same as just watching TV. So having one in the room with the TV seems like a better idea. That and going with more than 4 ports on a matrix switch starts getting really expensive. The same thing can be accomplished by using an Xbox or a PS3 as a streaming box (with varying success based on the sources).

As far as the set top boxes go, have already received letter from cable provider, Cablevision in NY state. I currently have three boxes, two of which are dvrs, the third is a normal box. We currently recieve some channels on the three tvs have do not have boxes attached, but when the change occurs these tvs will no longer get any signal straight through the cable, thus requiring a set top box, my cable provider does have cable cards but I have no devices that use them. I am ok renting three boxes a month just do not want to rent six. The streamers would have occasional use, evening and bed time as they would be in the kids rooms, the family rooms would still have the set top boxes.

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Cheers