We purchased a Roku over the weekend. The motivator was our cable bill. Our service provider is Charter and they are basically our only cable option in this corner of the world.
Charter provides our internet and phone (via VOIP) in addition to the boob tube stuff. We’ve been very happy with the phone and internet, but we just don’t feel like we’re getting any value from our TV service. And, to be clear, we have just what I’d call a basic service where we get TWC, USA, TNT, Discovery and those sorts of channels. No HBO, no Starz, etc. Charter just instituted another rate hike and we finally decided enough.
Enter the Roku.
The original idea was to nix cable TV entirely, rely on an antenna for the “networks” (ABC, CBS, etc.) and use streaming services for any other needs. In particular, we’ve been very pleased with Netflix. The only piece we weren’t sure about was what network shows we might be able to get via streaming services.
The shows we are mainly interested in, like NCIS and Criminal Minds, are not available via streaming. Even from the CBS website, the options are slim. Further, our initial investigations into reception without cable were bleak, to say the least.
The upshot of all this is that the Roku ended up not being much of a problem solver. That’s not to say it doesn’t show some merit and promise. We established an account and got everything without any problems and we were streaming without issue pretty quickly. But working against the Roku was the fact that our Blue Ray player has several builtin streaming applications, including Netflix. So why did we need 2 boxes for basically the same service? Also counting against it is my 1015PN, which has an HDMI output. I could just as easily hook it up to our TV and stream stuff from any website, not just the ones the Roku allows.
So we’ve packed it up and will be returning it in a couple of days. Even so, I think it’s something to keep an eye on. Somewhere down the road, it seems clear that most viewing content will be available via a stream from somewhere. Perhaps we’ll revisit it then.
One reply on “A Failed Experiment”
You took the words out of my mouth…pretty much every new laptop has an HDMI output, with that, you are golden. Check out Hulu, they have a ton on there, but I know there are no shortage of streaming options.