dernst_ca1 wrote:I cant find anything decent to watch on this thing without subscription services..

Anyone know of any decent channels?

I like the Newscaster channel--it has selected news shows from CBS, ABC, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, BBC and others. Unfortunately the selection is pretty limited from each, but for a free channel, it's not bad.

Can you get all the same shows that Roku offers directly from your laptop or PC hooked to your TV?

Thanks! CC is the only reason I'm thinking about a Roku.

so no USB port?

ellenbhawk wrote:Is this the one that requires you to enter a credit card number to activate?

If you don't want to enter a credit card, you can do Paypal instead.

I have a Roku... but i can only add like 10 channels then it gets slower than Woot's servers when a Barrel of Crops is up....

dernst_ca1 wrote:Course you can watch this until they sell out..

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/jmhsrv-fish

Somebody needs to clean that tank. God! Look at all that fish diarrhea!

wheedal wrote:no, its just a fabric tag. no SD on this one.

So, Is there any to bring in videos via flash?

mothmer wrote:So, Is there any to bring in videos via flash?

Nope

I love the write up. Dig the really old school text based adventure games.

>examine computer:
"You have an old, creaky Dell laptop, but still functional. There is a web browser open"
>examine browser
just firefox 3.2
>update browser
I don't understand update browser
>examine screen
The web browser is open to http://www.woot.com. There are flashing lights and a picture of an item with a price next to it.

I'm confused by some of the comments.

Can this device stream content from elsewhere on my network?

So the Roku site only shows the Roku 2 models, and Amazon's descriptions don't compare...

What's the difference between Roku XD and Roku 2 XD?

dlazz wrote:Nope

is there anything I should keep my eyes out for as far as food is concerned it does play from an sd card or usb drive? I'm looking for a portable solution that my wife to take into work and play for students. right now I have a panasonic 5.1 dvd player that has a usb input on the front of it and it works great at home. it's a little big travel or to go with her to school.

would be great to have something like this with hdmi and composite outs that was capable of playing avi is your mp4s.

Love the shout-out to Zork in the product description! Kids these days don't know what they're missing. When I was their age, we had to use our imaginations to picture strange new worlds with monsters and heroes and villains...and we LIKED IT.

Woot writers rock! (in a receding hairline, expanding waistline sort of way)

The woot kids website has woot shirts for children. I wish they had them for adults too. What do you say woot, can we get some woot shirts during this woot off?

amyrdj wrote:so no USB port?

Correct - no USB port

Very tempting to pick one up.

mothmer wrote:is there anything I should keep my eyes out for as far as food is concerned it does play from an sd card or usb drive? I'm looking for a portable solution that my wife to take into work and play for students. right now I have a panasonic 5.1 dvd player that has a usb input on the front of it and it works great at home. it's a little big travel or to go with her to school.

would be great to have something like this with hdmi and composite outs that was capable of playing avi is your mp4s.

I think one of the newer Roku's can do this.

This one, however, cannot.

Western Digital makes a few devices too, the WD Live Hub being one. It takes USB drives and has a small footprint just like the Roku.

Can anyone clue me into football on one of these--can you get the FOX, CBS, and NBC games live as with over the air reception? How about ESPN and NFL (both of which show up on the Roku channel list). NFL Sunday Ticket available?
Thanks.

dlazz wrote:I think one of the newer Roku's can do this.

This one, however, cannot.

Western Digital makes a few devices too, the WD Live Hub being one. It takes USB drives and has a small footprint just like the Roku.

thanks for the advice. I knew I could find it helpful compadre on the woot forums.

Heads up. If a Radio Shack near you has this item in stock it is on clearance for $28.97 brand new. Do not call stores looking for one because the employee will often pick this up for themselves. It is not advertised or anything like that, just go into a store and ask for item 1601252. If they have it in stock you will get it at that price, if not in stock ask if any stores nearby have it. I had to visit two stores about two weeks ago, but I picked it up for that price. Great fantastic little device!

I was just looking at the Roku site. The 2XD and 2XS models have a micro SD slot, and the 2XS has USB. $80.00 and $100 respectively.

I didn't need the slot so I just bought this woot.

mothmer wrote:is there anything I should keep my eyes out for as far as food is concerned it does play from an sd card or usb drive? I'm looking for a portable solution that my wife to take into work and play for students. right now I have a panasonic 5.1 dvd player that has a usb input on the front of it and it works great at home.

mattaudio wrote:So the Roku site only shows the Roku 2 models, and Amazon's descriptions don't compare...

What's the difference between Roku XD and Roku 2 XD?

Brief differences are:
1) Price
2) Composite output on Roku XD
3) Closed captioning support on Roku 2 XD.

We recently ditched cable at home and have switched to Hulu+ on the Xbox 360. Now I can use this for the bedroom TV so I don't have to move the Xbox back and forth. In for one, WOOT!!

As I said, I would buy another but I already bought my parents two. My mom calls the Roku, "the Netflix," as that is all they do with it. It was confusing when she asked a few months back where she could get a second netflix.

Echoing the RadioShack comment...these are on eBay for roughly the same price (sometimes cheaper...)

I've owned this model for about a year and a half now, and it's a great little box. However, unless you need 1080p or an Ethernet port, I would highly suggest that you purchase a new Roku LT instead. It's the same price, and you'll get a box that's less than half the size, comes with more powerful internals, and supports newer features like subtitles on Netflix. Yes, the purple is ugly, but other than that it's a better device than this one with the exception of no Ethernet or 1080p (it has 802.11n and 720p).

Wish they would have another refurbed Roku HD-XR - which had a component HD output.

We have a 6x2 component video matrix that sends HD signals from Tivo , WDTV, DVD, and HTPC to HDTV throughout the house. Would love to add ROKU as well for ease of use for the wife and kids (when compared to the WDTV) but we were early HDTV adopters and our HDTV in the family room does not have HDMI.

Guess I'll keep trolling eBay for the right deal.

pofigster wrote:
The Roku now has a channel to be able to stream video content from your computer

Can you give me the code?

The Fastest and more powerful video cards ever made is "Imagination". Or it used to be anyway, I guess they had been discontinued since the '80s, all the movie remakes are proof of that.

Text adventures weren't my thing(were not exposed to them growing up), but I know what power nostalgia holds. In a time when there was nothing else they were awesome.

therealjrn wrote:me too. I mean MY roku...not yours...no...you can't have it. I went the additional PlayOn software route and can get regular Hulu and tons of other stuff plus all my own media...Roku Rocks.

PlayOn Software? Regular Hulu?! Do tell! I just got this here last week and have been dying to know how to hook up regular (aka FREE) Hulu to it!

hey Woot!

If you're going to link to a product video how 'bout checking first to make sure the Youtube account where the video was stored hasn't been terminated.

I'll probably still buy one these refurbs from you, just sayin' a little research goes a long way.

ellenbhawk wrote:Is this the one that requires you to enter a credit card number to activate?

YES!

Roku is amazing. I got an earlier version of this model on woot a few months ago and we have entirely replaced our satellite TV service and DVR with it. I get almost every program I watch through hulu plus (less than $10 a month) and watch movies through netflix (also less than $10/mo). We were paying $80/month for HD DVR service. It also offers lots of different content through other channels (google search Roku channels) that you can add, and some are interesting. We have had very few problems, none serious. Sometimes the unit will reset itself, but that is rare. I do wish that it had a way to turn it off, but we have solved this by unplugging the unit when not in use. I cannot recommend this highly enough!

dschneider wrote:I'm confused by some of the comments.

Can this device stream content from elsewhere on my network?

Not natively, but through one of the many add-on services such as PlayOn, Roxbox, etc. Most of these involve transcoding on the fly (unless your content happens to be in one of the few formats that Roku supports), which can be slow and prone to hiccups, especially over wireless.

If streaming content from your network is your primary need, Roku isn't really your best option. Look into a Boxee Box, WD Live, or Seagate FreeAgent Theater+. I have a Boxee and a Seagate, and both are very good, though I use the Roku more often because of the interface.

Someone may find this helpful. Scroll down a bit and you'll see a comparison chart for the LTE vs the various Roku 2 models.

http://www.amazon.com/Roku-2400R-LT-Streaming-Player/dp/B005JACJ50/ref=zg_bs_13447451_1

And better still...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roku#Feature_comparison

pofigster wrote:Charter hates me. No, really they do. I pay them for internet but I get internet, phone and TV. I have a Roku player to stream Netflix and Amazon Prime VOD. I also buy individual episodes from Amazon for the shows I really want to watch (a 1 day delay + no commercials + pseudo-ownership). I also have an Ooma to have a landline to give to people I don't really want to talk to (or who don't have AT&T so it doesn't waste my minutes). They used to call me a couple times a month trying to sell me on cable and phone packages with my internet and I explained how amazing my setup was and the caller from Charter was forced to admit that what I had was in fact superior to what they were offering and cheaper to boot.

The Roku now has a channel to be able to stream video content from your computer so my WD TV Live+ is feeling more and more useless every day.

These are so great I bought one for my brother and one for my in-laws for Christmas last year. My in-laws have some issue with their internet that allows them to stream Netflix to a 360, but not to their Roku. I didn't believe that was possible and so I contacted tech support. After wading through a few scripted responses I got them to ship me a replacement unit at no charge as I believed it to be defective. So, that's a plus. My brother's and mine work great. I've owned mine for nearly two years now and it gets used a lot.

A fantastic little device. Well worth the price.

I Just got one of these from the last woot. I'm interested in the the Roku channel that allows upload of coneent rom your computer. Thanks

I love Roku. I have this XD as well as a Roku 2 that has simple gaming capabilities. My MLB subscription is temperamental, but everything else is great.

unfortunately this modal doesn't have an Ethernet port, I'm not to big on wireless for streaming media. Here's a comparison of the models.

http://www.roku.com/roku-products#3

Our Roku saves us over $1000 a year. We cancelled DirecTv, and subscribed to Hulu Plus and Netflix streaming.

We also subscribe to MLB-TV so we can watch Red Sox baseball from PA, which costs 1/2 of what it cost to get the same thing on DirecTv.

Before I cancelled DirecTv, I went to the MLB-TV site to make sure I could subscribe to it via Roku, and subscribed through that site.

So if you are interested in another sport, such as football, you can go to the website(s) that handle the games to check it out.

We cannot view blacked-out games, but we can listen to them with the MLB-TV subscription.

I think, but I'm not totally sure, that we can watch any baseball game rerun ... but my men insist on seeing the games live, so they haven't tried that.