- I got it about 9 months ago when I moved to my current apartment - instead of signing up with Comcast. I have a super high speed Internet connection (which I would have needed/wanted anyway) and a land line (love land lines! such high quality connections!) - for a grand total of $72/month.
- On top of that, I sometimes purchase TV shows from Amazon on-demand - e.g. Top Chef.
- Typically, the shows were available within days of being broadcast and cost about $1.99/each (assuming non-HD version).
- An overestimate is that I spend about 10/month on top of the $72 in order to get some entertainment content on my TV.
- Some of them are "private", which means they don't show up in the ROKU channel store. (There is also a single "featured" channel which shows up in the main menu - alongside the channels I've actually added and the roku settings tab. Presumably this slot is a revenue stream for roku.)
- Examples of private channels include: Justin.TV, FilmOn, MummyBox, NowhereTV, livestream.
- Any channel can be added via navigating your computer browser to a URL which looks like this: https://owner.roku.com/add/FNNIGHT where the content following the final slash ("/") identifies the target channel.
- Of course you have to be logged into your roku account (via your browser) when you do this.
- Then magically that channel shows up on your roku box as you're browsing around for something to watch.
- Most of the roku content appears to be playback (versus real-time/on-line). There are exceptions, however. Fox News streams live everyday.
Interestingly, one of the private channels (Nowhere TV) seems to aggregate free video feeds (or specific shows) from content publishers (such as ABC, American Public Media, BBC, CBS, CNN, ...) and so you can watch content from these major networks' via your roku box. Not sure how much work it is for him to update the content there (e.g. when there is a new 60 minutes episode, does he have to go add it to the lineup for the 60 minutes "sub-channel").
- The "interesting" part is that these networks themselves don't have a branded roku channel.
- So they allow someone else to publish their content on roku. But they themselves do not yet have a roku channel. Probably this will change as roku gains market traction (or AppleTV becomes dominant and roku goes by the waste side or...).
- On the flip side, NBC for example has some live streaming content that one can watch via a browser on her computer (namely, Notre Dame home games) BUT not via roku. That is, NBC evidently doesn't allow that very same content to be published via roku (why not?).
- Note that many new TVs these days come with video and audio adapters that can be hooked up to one's PC and enable projecting video from the PC onto the TV. In this case, the inability to directly watch the game via the roku box is pretty silly since I can achieve almost the same effect.
- ESPN does enable watching (some of?) its live streams in real time.
- There is enough high quality free content available via roku to easily satisfy my TV watching needs
Much of the content available via roku is news (Fox News, CBS World news, CNN news, ...), news related (e.g. 60 minutes, Diane Sawyer's show, Nightline, Face the Nation, 48 hours, Meet the Press, Hardball, ...), or otherwise informational (Suze Orman show, MAD money, Today show). There is very little free content in the drama or sitcom category (even when such shows can be watched live via a browser over the Internet). Ditto for major sporting events.
- Much of the entertainment content of the major networks (sitcomes and the like) can be purchased via Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon. Do the networks realize this is a chance to cut out the middle man and sell directly to the consumer?
- hulu plus costs around $7.99/month.
- So, assuming that you have to have high speed Internet streaming (regardless of what TV-related choice you make), you can cut out your cable TV or satellite bill by going with the hulu plus monthly subscription approach OR a la carte (buy one show at a time) Amazon model.
- More and more, the content available via cable or satellite providers (Comcast, DirectTV, XFinity) can be accessed with one of these Internet TV providers (e.g. hulu plus). The exception is real-time sporting events (besides MLS) and real-time news.
