Roku HD-XR Player
by Roku, Inc.
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List Price: 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-XR Player
Customer Review: The beginning of the next big thing in TV, but...
Summary: 4 Stars
Summary:
The Roku is the beginning of the next big thing in TV. I completely dig mine. At its best, the Roku delivers a great looking signal on my modest HT setup; however, if consistently high video quality is very important to you, you will be disappointed.
The good:
The built-in wireless card is a brilliant idea: Connect it to your A/V switch or TV and you're done! Configuration was absurdly easy (it took me 5 minutes, most of which I spent trying to correctly enter my long wirelss access key). Roku XR + Netflix is a hit: I watch it all of the time. I haven't tried Amazon's PPV because I'm too cheap, but the catalog is impressive. At its best, the Roku delivers a signal indistinguishable from my DirectTV satellite dish (which is way better than Comcast cable ever was).
The bad:
Videophiles must shun this device: Forget Blu-Ray. Although you will sometimes see DVD-quality video from the Roku, it is often...something less. Other reviewers who blame this on the Roku video circuitry or its built-in wireless card are fools. If you watch the Roku at odd hours, the video looks great; However, if you are watching in the evening when everyone else is, resolution declines and the picture gets choppy as the frame rate declines.
The brutal fact of the matter is that the internet is in the same place with streaming video that it was in the late nineties with the WWW. Remember the first couple of Christmas shopping seasons you could buy stuff on the internet? Shambolic. I expect network congestion due to the demands of streaming video to get worse over the next couple of years, to the detriment of devices like the Roku.
You do not need the XR model unless you have an all-Wireless-N home network AND one that is busy (e.g., teenagers) while you're watching TV; otherwise, save money and get one of the cheaper models.
Customer Review: The BEST for kids!
Summary: 5 Stars
My husband received a Roku XR as a gift. At first I was thinking "Oh great, more wires and yet ANOTHER remote control for him to complain has gone missing." I figured our TV would be down for a week while he figured out exactly how he wanted to plug it in, and there would be wires draped all over everything when he was done. Nope!! He plugged it in and got it working right away. No unsightly cables all over the place. Then he took another minute to attach it to our Netflix account, and just like that we were watching movies! Later he wanted to move it to a different room, and all he had to do was plug it in and there it goes!
The Roku has totally revolutionized the way our family TV. At our fingertips we have a great selection of movies for kids, teens, and adults. Documentaries, comedies, dramas, TV shows, even Barney and Thomas the Tank Engine! My husband spent a pleasant evening showing the kids his favorite scenes from what must have been every movie he's ever watched in the last 20 years. This would never have been possible without a Roku; we'd have had to rent all those movies one by one. There are no more tears from kids whose favorite DVDs have been broken or scratched beyond reading. We don't need cable because there are so many shows we can watch on the Roku. I would never have thought to buy one, but now I can't imagine life without it! I'm even thinking of giving a Roku to my sister for Christmas, because I know how much she'll appreciate not having to deal with the scratched DVD problem.
The only thing I would change about the Roku would be to put buttons on it so that it can still be used if the remote is lost. That's a feature we usually look for in home audio/video products. We haven't had that problem yet with the Roku, but we have kids so it's only a matter of time. :)
Customer Review: Dont Buy This Video Player
Summary: 1 Stars
I purchased this Video Player direct from Roku. It took almost two weeks to reach me. I tried to set up this player according to the instructions that were included.
My wireless router is a Belkin "N" series router and is one of the routers recommended by Roku. I spent the better part of a day on the phone with Roku's "support Engineers" trying to get a connection between the router and the player. After five or six hours on the phone with Roku support they finally determined that the Roku device was not powerful enough to pick up the signal from my router (which is in my basement)to the player that was in my living room on the floor above (less than eight feet away)
Roku recommended that I return the player and up-grade to a more powerful player ( which I did not know existed or I would have ordered it to begin with)
So I reboxed the player and shipped it off to Roku (at my expense).That was over four weeks ago and I just today received the credit back to my bank card. I called Roku several times regarding the status of my refund. I was put on hold several times while the "Support Engineer" checked on the status of my refund. A couple of times the "Support Engineer" did not come back on the line ( I was just disconnected)
Each time I managed to talk with a "Support Engineer" I was assured that the credit to my bank card would be issued in a day or two. Roku claims that they will refund your money within ten days of receiving the player.
Roku's customer support is extremely poor so if you have technical problems with your player or need to return it to Roku don't expect much help you can understand or a prompt refund of your purchase price should you need to return the device.
In short I will not deal with Roku again. I had almost given up hope of ever seeing my refund.
Customer Review: G VS. N? Who cares...
Summary: 4 Stars
Since most content is being streamed at DVD type rez anyway. The speed of ur wireless network is not as relevant for me. Since the hd model as one reviewer says "streams flawlessly" which it does do by the way....,the wireless standard of my "old fashioned g router" didnt factor in at all...With basically a $30 price point difference on the three models the HD was the obvious choice.... what I liked the most was the many nice connection points..I run hd composite cables to my hdtv...an optical cable into a sony 7 channel. Since I'm in between upgrade cycles on my tv the ability to mix-match connections to various devices is key. As I indicated before, netflix is streamed at dvd quality only (G vs N is irrelevent on pic quality) so u could see a movie in a theatre and it wouldn't look any better. It really depends on ur tv... if u wanna decode audio thru an amp(as I do) u can do that with the hd model or just run a simple hdmi into ur hdtv. Im not expecting an upgrade anytime soon where all nflx will be streamed HD and 5.1 so im getting full capabilty until the streaming market developes... Low pricepoint, flexibility, 720 quality the HD version gets it done for 99 bucks. As for the N version its probably better on the wireless front, but I'm suspiscious of a usb port... I dont want to EVER have to connect this to a computer... the beauty of the thing is it's stand alone capability a nice, small, semi hidden box... routing a usb cable crawling behind ur tv while balancing ur laptop trying to download software is a joke only computer geeks care about firmware updates via usb connections. I would already assume they could download updates thru the cloud since the damn thing is connected to web. If I do have to someday update this thing via usb... I'd immediately scrap it, and move on to a more robust streamer.Customer Review: Glad I bought the XR model
Summary: 4 Stars
Initially I had purchased the only player roku made....so i thought after doing some research on the roku online I noticed the company had come out with a total of 3 players (roku sd, roku hd, roku hd-xr) once I found out that the roku hd-xr comes with wireless N tech I said thats the one I want and returned the original purchase and am glad I did. Roku HD model is only wireless G and older compatable. N is so much better. Setup was a breeze and the interface is so easy a caveman can do it. I have a netflix account and was excited about starting to stream and watch movies on the television untill I relized by browsing Netflix's watch instatnly section how little content netflix has for streaming.....bummer, but if your into movies late 80's and older you should be good to go. the only saving grace on the movie option is that it also has amazons movies on demand which has just about any movie/show you can think of for about a price of free to 5.99 depending on title to rent. Also roku is supposed to be coming out with a roku channel soon (please link to HULU and Youtube atleast!!). The quality of the streaming especially in HD is great (720p) and standard def is about DVD quality or just a little less. I think roku recomends about 5Mbps download speed at minimum for reliable streaming so a broadband connection should be used or else you will get dropped frames and stuttering. So far a months worth of use and no issues to date! The reason why this diddnt get 5 stars is the USB connection on the back of the device does nothing....At least not yet. Roku says its undertermined what its use will be as of now but I assume it will eventually allow u to hook up an external hard drive and play movies or pictures that u allready have. Great product. Thanks Roku....