Roku HD Player
by Roku, Inc.
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Our Price: $69.99 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Home Theater See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Roku HD Player
Customer Review: 10 Stars for Roku (1 Star for Amazon VOD)
Summary: 5 Stars
This little sweetheart represents the best $100 I have spent in years. I love it so much that if my house were on fire I'd be hard pressed to choose between saving my kindle, my Roku, or my husband. ;-)
In all seriousness, this is a fabulous device. It's incredibly easy to set up - someone obviously put a lot of thought into that and it proves that interfaces CAN be intuitive and user-friendly. (Take heed, manufacturers of other electronic toys!) It's even easier to use, with a small simple remote and, again, a very user-friendly interface. My 70 yo mother can figure out how to play a movie - even though she still doesn't understand how the movies come out of the little box.
But best of all is what it does-- streams movies (and other things) directly to your TV. Once you have it set up - about 4 minutes from when you've opened the box - it prompts you to activate your netflix and/or amazon account. It will stream anything from your netflix Instant Queue, and anything from your amazon Video on Demand Library. Between the 2 sources, you barely need to pay for cable TV any more... I have canceled all my premium movie channels. It's a wonderful way to watch movies, and an even better way to watch TV series you've never seen (or would like to see again)... all in a row and without changing DVDs. We have discovered several great series (eg Leverage) like this.
A word about netflix vs amazon VOD: Netflix is virtually free; instant streaming is included in your netflix membership. Amazon VOD charges for TV shows (usually $2.99 an episode), movie purchases (usually $9.99 and up), and movie rentals (usually $2.99). Netflix Instant choices are varied. You can get some shows the day after they air, some the season after, some never. You can get some movies very soon after they've been released on DVD, and some years later, and some never. This is occasionally frustrating but still - there are enough good choices that I currently have over 70 movies, workouts, and TV series in my Instant Queue. And the netflix streaming NEVER fails. Sometimes I want a show or movie that isn't available on netflix badly enough that I cave and buy it from amazon - amazon has more recently produced choices. But amazon VOD, though it costs money, does NOT have failsafe streaming. It constantly stops and reloads while you are trying to watch. It's maddening - especially since they charge per movie/show (unlike netflix). I have called about this many times and they always try to claim that it's my Internet connection (even though netflix is streaming just fine) and not their own glitch. I do still occasionally buy or rent from them, when I really 'need' to see a show... but honestly it's less and less often. They poor streaming quality usually just makes watching their stuff an exercise in frustration.
That's not my sweet Roku's fault though! It still has my eternal love. HIGHLY recommend!
Customer Review: Good Picture but no Closed Captions
Summary: 3 Stars
Good: Picture and Sound
Bad: Wireless with WPA encryption doesn't work on my unit. Also, takes at least 20 min to enter a "random" 63 character passkey, during initial setup. Only about 15% of Netflix movies are available for download.
Ugly: No closed captions on English language films, (Netflix or Amazon).
I purchased the Roku HD Player from Amazon two weeks ago to be used primarily for viewing downloaded Netflix movies. Although I only own a 32" CRT type television, I may upgrade to a LCD or LED set with HD capabilities in the near future. My router will handle wireless-n, but my intent was always to connect the box to a gigabit/sec Ethernet cable from the router.
The Roku setup started out pretty easy but since I was using wireless for my initial set up, (I didn't want to run 60' of Ethernet cable under the house right away), there was the annoyance of entering my WPA, 63 character passkey, but Roku only displays about 25 characters at once on the TV. They also require changing the on-screen keyboard on the average every second character for my passkey that was initially randomly generated. After 20 minutes, I had the passkey entered and checked, but the box wouldn't connect. I double checked and triple checked but it still wouldn't connect. Finally I gave up and wired it which immediately started an upload of new firmware from Roku. It was fairly easily to setup Netflix, Amazon and Flickr, and they all worked. I tried to hookup through the wireless interface again, but it still didn't work.
The movie playback quality and features are dependent not only on Roku, but on Netflix or Amazon, the modem, router and wiring, and on your high speed ISP, which in my case is Comcast cable service. The picture on my non-HD set seemed to have good color, contrast and clarity and was free from interference. The sound seemed good too. The big issue which is mentioned nowhere by Roku, Netflix or Amazon is that neither Netflix or Amazon stream closed captions with their English language films, so for me and other hearing-impaired and deaf people, this box is virtually useless. The only reason I'm keeping it is that my wife's hearing is fine. Another annoyance with the system, is that Comcast high speed internet is down for an average of several hours every week, which means occasionally we can get a 5 minute to 5 hour delay in what we're watching. Comcast seems much better at keeping their cable television up and running than their cable internet, (same cable). One other note, Netflix says they expect to start having closed captioning by mid-2010, but Roku may need an upgrade to support this. I think the Roku and Netflix advertising is deceptive by hyping this setup as equivalent to DVD's but not mentioning the lack of CC support.
Customer Review: This little box is worth the money!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
I found this player to be very good addition to a home theater system and Netflix account. Set-up only took about 5 minutes and it is very easy with HDMI cable, connection to my secured wireless network and internet access to Netflix for your account verification code. The Roku box is small enough to sit inside my stereo cabinet without being noticed.
I found downloads of watch instantly shows on Netflix from my Comcast cable and Belkin wireless G router to be very fast. I don't have my wireless laptop up when I'm watching the Roku. I can see how having other 2.4 GHz wireless devices up could slow down the download speeds and degrade picture quality. I'm watching a movie a lot sooner compared to loading a DVD/Blueray on my PS3. Netflix is easy to navigate and add movies/TV shows and the updated list is downloaded to the Roku player. I haven't timed how long it takes to update; but, the movies were available when I wanted to watch them the same day.
I have the player set for the highest wide screen quality and I find the picture quality on my Panasonic 58" 1080p TV to be similar to using an S-video connection (a little below DVD quality or very good 480i look). I also found the sound quality to be very good with my TV speakers or with my Denon S-301 home theater system. Waiting 30 seconds to watch a movie with Roku is a lot more desirable compared to waiting 24-48hrs from the US postal service. I decided to purchase another Roku for my Mom's house and her Netflix account.
I signed up for the Amazon on demand video, which is also offered through Roku. Amazon has a very good selection and much newer videos available for download. Unfortunately, you have to pay for everything you download and it would be too expensive in a short amount of time. Amazon's free selection of shows to download with the Roku is not worth signing up for by itself. Stick with Netflix and you will have everything you need. Amazon, why would I want to pay $1.99 for watching a free TV show that came on last night?
Roku Pros:
- easy to set up and use
- quick access to thousands of titles (with Netflix)
- very good sound/picture quality
- affordable price
Roku Cons:
- cannot (yet) program all Roku remote buttons on my Logitech Harmony One remote to work correctly (more of a Logitech problem)
- the newer titles not available on Netflix watch instantly (yet)
- not all shows in the widescreen format (with Netflix)
- Would like to see higher quality (480p/720p/1080i) option
- Would like to see more options on the Roku remote (power on/off on remote, BD-Live content/special features, search/add instant content from Roku box)
Customer Review: Great device, but you need a fast DSL connection
Summary: 3 Stars
I won't go into what others have already covered in any detail...it is easy to hook up, and it is a neat thing to have if you don't already have streaming capability in a blue-ray player or a gaming device. Here are a few things to be aware of, though.
Make sure you have a robust internet connection. According to the Roku site:
"You need at least 1.2 Mbps to watch movies instantly on the Roku digital video player. The faster your connection, the better the quality. For high quality video and audio, a connection of least 2.5 Mbps and for HD 4.0 Mbps is recommended."
You can find several free services online that will check this for you. Be aware that if you will not connect the unit directly to the router via a cable and will instead go wireless, it will be even more difficult to hit these requirements. I have one "step up" from standard DSL service (called "ultra") and my connection has a download speed of 1.32 Mbps and it tends to "hang" and reload on most every show we have watched. When this happens, Netflix will lower the quality of the video as it reloads it back to the device. If you plan to upgrade your internet service to a faster speed to accommodate the Roku, you might want to figure that cost into your budget to fully enjoy the unit.
As an example, we have watched a few episodes of "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and this has happened. About five minutes into the show, we sit there and wait while it loads again. The show resumes, this time with a very grainy picture, and the last time this happened, after the reload the sound was way out of sync with the video...the characters lips would move and shortly thereafter you hear what they are saying. Very annoying. The internet speed requirement is even more stringent (as you can read above) for HD video, thus you'll end up watching it (once it reloads) in poorer video quality. But again, if you have a robust connection with very fast speeds, this shouldn't be a problem.
Also be aware that the streaming services do not offer closed caption for the videos. I knew this when I bought it (found out from a reviewer here on Amazon) so I'm not dinging the device for that, but make sure you are aware before you buy if this is important to you. My wife and I both like to have this feature activated when watching movies or television programs.
Also be aware that Netflix has a lot of videos and television shows to stream into the device, all at the same price you are paying now if you are a subscriber, but as of this writing there are a lot, and I mean a LOT, of movies and programs that do not have this option available. Many of these are available here on Amazon, but you'll pay for each and every one.
Customer Review: Roku Box is Unreliable and Support is Awful
Summary: 1 Stars
Roku HD Player
Normally I don't write reviews however I feel compelled to echo the sentiments of many others regarding the quality of the product and its outsourced support. Ever since purchasing the Roku directly from them last October (2009) we have experienced frequent lock-ups and periodic reboots. Early on I realized that the problems were exacerbated by leaving the unit turned on constantly. Since there is no power switch on the device, I purchased a current-sensing power strip that turns the power to the Roku on and off with the TV. This virtually eliminated the lock-up issue when using the Roku shortly after powering it on, however if we watched other programming and then switched to the Roku, many times I would still have to get up and unplug/replug the device and wait for it to restart. Lately it has started rebooting on its own often during a movie. Several times after rebooting itself it would not recover without another power cycle. It is running the latest firmware.
I have sent numerous mail notes to Roku support and have followed each of their recommendations, to the letter, fully knowing that they wouldn't resolve the issues. This is supposed to be a plug-and-play device and should not require all the reconfiguring that they seem to think necessary to resolve "any" issue regardless of what it is. The support staff is clearly outsourced which, in-and-of itself, would not be an issue if they knew what they were talking about and fully understood the problems being experienced. Even after fully documenting the problems we've been having, they seem to zero in on one or two words in the mail note and suggest things like changing the battery in the Roku remote, resetting the device, and completely reconfiguring our ADSL router. The last note was the final straw, I indicated that we have 3 other devices that are capable of streaming video and none of them have problems but they still suggested the problem was related to our primary and secondary DNS addresses and told me that I had to change them to resolve the problems. My belief is that they try to wear you down to the point that you no longer care to pursue the issue. I'm there! We have a Sony Blu-Ray player that now does virtually everything that the Roku player does, so I'm done messing with it. From what I've read in other reviews, even if they agree to replace the unit under warranty, it doesn't appear promising that the replacement will actually occur. It's a shame that they place so little value on customer satisfaction and won't stand behind their product. On the plus side, when it works the Roku is quite nice.