Roku

[ShinyGreenApple]

Thinking of getting my Dad one of these for Christmas. Does anyone have one or can vouch for them? So far I'm reading they're just as good, if not better than purchasing a whole SmartTV. He has over the air free stuff, so it'd be for Netflix, mostly.

[Ophbalance]

We have a Gen2 HD. We use it mostly for netflix and Amazon streaming. It looks like it can now do redbox as well. The other nice thing is it can play some formats off USB. We enjoy it, but for offline movies (mp4, mkv) a hacked wdtv is better. I've got a wdtv live that's just for backed up movies.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Let me know about those too. I know I'm getting one for Christmas.

[Victory Sabre]

I have one and love it. I don't use it much, because I'm not home much, but it's awesome. I have lots of free channels and also Hulu Plus. I'd rather pay $8 for Hulu than $90 for cable.

[WoodenSunshine]

I wanted to get the Apple TV and my favorite Big Box store employee convinced me to get Roku. It's amazing. I only use it for Netflix and it was worth it.

[kaherbert]

I use mine for
Netflix
Amazon
Hulu
aereo
TWIT
TED
I would never go back.

[42_42_42]

We LOVE our Roku. We have 3 TVs in the house and we have a Roku for each. We cancelled our cable service and just use the Roku and antenna. Don't miss cable one bit.

[Miss Fatale]

We just got a Roku 3. We like it, but a few caveats:

1. It doesn't play YouTube. Using a channel called "Plex" lets us access YouTube.

2. Won't play fox.com, but will play ABC/NBS/CBS.

3. If you want to set up your account online, you have to use a credit card. If you don't want to use a CC, you actually have to call customer service.

So far, we've used it for Netflix, Pandora, and watching Food Network shows. It's nice not to have to either do it through the Wii or hook up a laptop to the TV.

[ShinyGreenApple]

I'm a little confused, I have a credit card I could use, but is there a monthly fee?

[Elspeth]

You have to buy some of the channels. We never have.

We have one and love it. Got my parents one and they love it.

We use it for netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney, Ted, Twit, MLS. Only that doesn't work is HBO Go since we have Directv.

Miss Fatale, did you upgrade to the Roku 3 or is it new to you? I am looking at upgrading and moving the other one upstairs and am wondering if it is worth it

[Miss Fatale]

There's no monthly fee to use it, the CC is for just in case you want to buy a channel.

Elspeth, no, we didn't upgrade; this is our first time using any kind of Roku.

Overall we really like it, we were just a little surprised.

[ShinyGreenApple]

I bought it! Had to wrap it up as soon as I got home though, to curb the temptation to 'give it to him early'. Nothing to do with wanting to try it out myself, oh no . . .

[Spork4pedro]

We have a Roku and I love it! Like another poster we cut out our +$90 directv bill and now we just use hulu and Netflix accounts. Best desicion ever! The only downside for us is that the kid loved Disney jr and there aren't many shows on those channels.

[Javarod]

Bit late to the party i are?

Any how, we've got two here, one we bought last year which is going strong, and we just got another as a Christmas gift from my husband's job. Boy are the new ones small. Both of ours are rebuilt units (cheaper, you can often find them on Woot) and have served us well. We mostly use it for our Netflix account, although occasionally we use it for other stuff. We had tried Hulu Plus and Amazon, but weren't impressed by either, HP was slow to load, had ads, and had little that we wanted that wasn't available on Netflix which is far faster. Amazon was worse, most of what we liked and they had wasn't included for free with our Prime account. Still, it doesn't replace our cable yet.

We also just picked up a ChromeCast to try that, deals.Woot had a posting showing it at $29.99 at Amazon, so we figured we'd give it a shot.