anyone familiar with roku?

[historian]

I have a new blu ray dvd player with built wireless but its hardly worth the extra money if i dont watch blu ray movies. Most of the blu rays in the market are definitely not films that i watch. However i only got it because of net flix streaming and just found out about roku which is far cheaper for the same results. Anyone familiar with it? any comments will be appreciated. thanks

[Lasher]

1. I've seen roku in the asian food section.

Looks like yucky white bricks. I've never tried it though.

[Betty88]

2. I just got one, I love it.

I got the $99 wireless one, it set up in 5 minutes works great. Good picture, that will depend on your internet connection, I am using the optical audio to my receiver, sounds very nice, and the HDMI direct to the TV. Could not be happier. If I had needed a blu-ray or new DVD player at the same time as the Roku box I would have gotten one with the service built in just so I would have one less thing to hook up. I know what you mean about not using blu-ray much but it does up convert nicely so I kind of wish I had all one unit.

[Betty88]

3. Oh I forgot...

it also lets you connect to Pandora (internet radio, personalized music) it has some other services but the netflix and pandora is what I use most

[historian]

4. thanks much

[Jersey Devil]

5. You might also want to check out Western Digital's WD TV Live

http://westerndigital.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=735

I am looking into the same thing and Cnet rates the WD device highly, as it does Roku. They have a whole section with reviews of Digital Media Receivers.
http://reviews.cnet.com/4566-6739_7-0.html?tag=centerColumnArea1.0

[CK_John]

6. But does it have a netflix channel like iphone has a exclusive contract with AT$T. Roku is ok'ed

for Netflix.

[Old and In the Way]

7. Best investment I made for our movie watching.

No more trips to the store to rent movies or waiting a few days to get one from Netflix. If you have slow broadband, you may run into buffering issues. And the library for online streaming is much smaller than the standard mail service. Hopefully, more content will get released...it's obviously a great business model for Netflix...no more distribution centers and overhead to handle DVD's...just a roomful of servers humming 24/7. It so good, that it probably can't last. I expect the major content providers will begin demanding more $ and the rates will go up from the $14.95/mo., I think. Still, I'd pay more for the service because of the convenience.