Hmm, I plug it into HDMI port, plug it into power, and then... it worked. Yes, you put in a credit card number. This is for on demand purchases only, just remember to never use it. If you're paranoid then use a pre-paid $10 card then have it expire. For Apple TV, don't you need to have an Apple account? I thought it was heavilly iTunes based?
I suspect (hope?) most people shop at stores in "meatspace", where Amazon doesn't have a big advantage. I mean who goes to Walmart to buy a TV and then decides "hey, when I get this home I need to remember to search Amazon for a streaming device"? No, they're going to buy what's on the shelves.
They're in the stores. Ie, at Target when you look at the TV models, the Rokus are in boxes on the shelf below or to the side. And in larger numbers than the Apple or Amazon boxes. Amazon probably had the marketing advantage if you bought TVs online so that you always saw its recommendations, but not so much if you were buying from a brick and mortar store. Apple and Google don't seem to be marketing their devices much.
Also when I did my research on this (which automatically means I'm not a typical consumer) the Roku was agnostic. At the time the big selling point of Apple TV was the integration with itunes and being able to use your existing purchases, but Apple had let this product languish for quite some time. Amazon was pushing its own streaming service. The ChromeCast was nice, but far too limited without a real remote control or on-screen browsing, it's a very different model of streaming since it relies upon your phone or tablet.
Roku also had the nice feature of being able to search across apps to see who offered a particular movie and what the price was. Roku also has a larger range of products than the competition.
Some TV manufacturers partner with Roku now. For those people who insist on having the streaming built in I suppose. or if you can't find a dumb TV anymore and any new TV is going to be a smart TV you may as well buy one that's actually smart.
Even the Roku TVs have the drawback that you're stuck with the original model for the life of the TV. You can get a new Roku of course, and ignore the one in your TV, just like many people get a streaming device and ignore the TV's smarts.
I agree here. Roku is all about streaming. Many TV manufacturers treat the streaming like an afterthought, just another check-off box on the list of features.
But there are Roku smart TVs, where some major brands embed the Roku as the smarts. Which may be a good idea if you can't find a new dumb TV anymore.
The reason they do videos is because Youtube pays people if enough watch it. So make 10 lines of text and get $0.00 out of it, or make a video and you get a chance of making some oney. If you spend 10 minutes up front describing all your friend's youtube channel and 10 minutes at the end reminding people to click on "subscribe" then you may get even more money. You wouldn't want to force these people to have to get a real job, would you?
Crypto currency means digital currency validated by cryptographic means. It does not need to have "mining", since the mining only exists for the purpose of gaining initial value, and providing early adopters a disproportionate amount of value. Thus you can back up the currency with some value, such as trust that the government will back it, or that there the currency is based on actual value of initial investment, as opposed to being like tulip bulbs or beanie babies or bitcoin.
You can get Game of Thrones via streaming. Even the current season if you pay a bit more. I don't have it, but I suspect the cost of streaming HBO Now is about the same as adding HBO to cable as a premium service.
I prefer the individual shows, not "channels". But I do sort of miss IFC and BBC America, as they tended to have an above average amount of stuff that was decent to watch if you were just browsing. For everything else, I couldn't care less if a show was FX vs AMC vs Scifi or whatnot.
So don't watch the current seasons. Waiting a year isn't that hard, you just have to stay away from fan forum sites (which in itself frees up so much time and keeps the blood pressure down).
I know others who are internet only for a decent price. However cable companies, just like phone companies, will never tell you about the deals and will happily let you overpay for years. I had a friend who every year would complain about leaving cable and then get a reduced rate if he stayed on, or lookup what packages were for new subscribers and demand to get that deal, and I think he kept this going for over 5 years.
Not married and no kids, so hitting the cap on ATT is practically inconceivable for me, there's no way I could watch that much TV. But with kids I understand it's a lot easier to hit the cap. Maybe some of that can be fixed with just training the kids better to watch less stuff and read more.
Also even if you do watch TV, the time pressure is off. Before DVR there was the rush to get home from work on time, or the need to watch the shows recorded on VHS before they overflow. After DVR there was this feeling of freedom, but over time you still got to the need to watch shows before they fill up the 35 hours. With streaming though, just add the show to your list but not much pressure to watch it before it vanishes. And yes, they do vanish but it's not that big a deal most of the time and those that did vanish on me weren't on satellite anyway.
There are many legal ways to get the anime via streaming. Netflix has many, Crunchyroll is free, and I'm certain many other streaming services have anime as well. There's a lot of older stuff to watch, maybe not as cool now but the kids need to be taught to ignore fashion and peer pressue.
For many people I think the boat anchor is live sports. For that group an antenna often serves the job, but there are others who are addicted to ESPN. They're not going to change. For people tired of the ESPN tax, cutting the cord is easy. I suspect most cable subscribers that don't watch sports, they don't realize how much of their bill goes to paying for ESPN.
Also people should learn to do more with their time than just watch TV. For me, Netflix adds more stuff I really want to see than I have time to watch, but for others they run out of it fast because they don't do anything other than watch TV in their spare time.
$10/month with Netflix, plus a one time cost for Roku at $100. Instant savings. If I added both Amazon and Hulu it's a huge savings. I don't care about sports so if poeple want to pay another $100 a month to stick with cable/satellite just to get a few games, then that's their decision. You don't need FX either, any decent show is on Hulu or Netflix a year later, and it's not hard at all to wait a year to save $900 to $1000. And saving that money means you can also drop a lot of mediocre shows off your list as well, in return you get tons of other shows you can bing watch. Sure, you can buy the boxed DVD set of your favorite TV show from the eighties, or you can just binge watch it via streaming for a lot less money instead.
If you've already got internet at moderate speeds (12kbps is good enough) then this is a no brainer.
It's DRM. Hollywood and game makers have so many companies forced to implement their DRM schemes. If you can't connect to the internet then they have no way of proving that you're allowed to play that game at that particular time and in that location. Nothing scares game makers like the thought of someone playing a used game instead of playing full price.
Slashdot Mirror
Hmm, I plug it into HDMI port, plug it into power, and then... it worked.
Yes, you put in a credit card number. This is for on demand purchases only, just remember to never use it. If you're paranoid then use a pre-paid $10 card then have it expire.
For Apple TV, don't you need to have an Apple account? I thought it was heavilly iTunes based?
For twice the cost of Roku.
I suspect (hope?) most people shop at stores in "meatspace", where Amazon doesn't have a big advantage. I mean who goes to Walmart to buy a TV and then decides "hey, when I get this home I need to remember to search Amazon for a streaming device"? No, they're going to buy what's on the shelves.
They're in the stores. Ie, at Target when you look at the TV models, the Rokus are in boxes on the shelf below or to the side. And in larger numbers than the Apple or Amazon boxes. Amazon probably had the marketing advantage if you bought TVs online so that you always saw its recommendations, but not so much if you were buying from a brick and mortar store. Apple and Google don't seem to be marketing their devices much.
Also when I did my research on this (which automatically means I'm not a typical consumer) the Roku was agnostic. At the time the big selling point of Apple TV was the integration with itunes and being able to use your existing purchases, but Apple had let this product languish for quite some time. Amazon was pushing its own streaming service. The ChromeCast was nice, but far too limited without a real remote control or on-screen browsing, it's a very different model of streaming since it relies upon your phone or tablet.
Roku also had the nice feature of being able to search across apps to see who offered a particular movie and what the price was. Roku also has a larger range of products than the competition.
Some TV manufacturers partner with Roku now. For those people who insist on having the streaming built in I suppose. or if you can't find a dumb TV anymore and any new TV is going to be a smart TV you may as well buy one that's actually smart.
Even the Roku TVs have the drawback that you're stuck with the original model for the life of the TV. You can get a new Roku of course, and ignore the one in your TV, just like many people get a streaming device and ignore the TV's smarts.
I agree here. Roku is all about streaming. Many TV manufacturers treat the streaming like an afterthought, just another check-off box on the list of features.
But there are Roku smart TVs, where some major brands embed the Roku as the smarts. Which may be a good idea if you can't find a new dumb TV anymore.
Abuse comes in a soft or hard option.
The reason they do videos is because Youtube pays people if enough watch it. So make 10 lines of text and get $0.00 out of it, or make a video and you get a chance of making some oney. If you spend 10 minutes up front describing all your friend's youtube channel and 10 minutes at the end reminding people to click on "subscribe" then you may get even more money. You wouldn't want to force these people to have to get a real job, would you?
Remember tourists, go visit Russia today before it comes and visits you!
Crypto currency means digital currency validated by cryptographic means. It does not need to have "mining", since the mining only exists for the purpose of gaining initial value, and providing early adopters a disproportionate amount of value. Thus you can back up the currency with some value, such as trust that the government will back it, or that there the currency is based on actual value of initial investment, as opposed to being like tulip bulbs or beanie babies or bitcoin.
You can get Game of Thrones via streaming. Even the current season if you pay a bit more. I don't have it, but I suspect the cost of streaming HBO Now is about the same as adding HBO to cable as a premium service.
I prefer the individual shows, not "channels". But I do sort of miss IFC and BBC America, as they tended to have an above average amount of stuff that was decent to watch if you were just browsing. For everything else, I couldn't care less if a show was FX vs AMC vs Scifi or whatnot.
So don't watch the current seasons. Waiting a year isn't that hard, you just have to stay away from fan forum sites (which in itself frees up so much time and keeps the blood pressure down).
I know others who are internet only for a decent price. However cable companies, just like phone companies, will never tell you about the deals and will happily let you overpay for years. I had a friend who every year would complain about leaving cable and then get a reduced rate if he stayed on, or lookup what packages were for new subscribers and demand to get that deal, and I think he kept this going for over 5 years.
Not married and no kids, so hitting the cap on ATT is practically inconceivable for me, there's no way I could watch that much TV. But with kids I understand it's a lot easier to hit the cap. Maybe some of that can be fixed with just training the kids better to watch less stuff and read more.
Also even if you do watch TV, the time pressure is off. Before DVR there was the rush to get home from work on time, or the need to watch the shows recorded on VHS before they overflow. After DVR there was this feeling of freedom, but over time you still got to the need to watch shows before they fill up the 35 hours. With streaming though, just add the show to your list but not much pressure to watch it before it vanishes. And yes, they do vanish but it's not that big a deal most of the time and those that did vanish on me weren't on satellite anyway.
As long as internet only is $1 cheaper than internet plus cable then why bundle in a service you're not using?
There are many legal ways to get the anime via streaming. Netflix has many, Crunchyroll is free, and I'm certain many other streaming services have anime as well. There's a lot of older stuff to watch, maybe not as cool now but the kids need to be taught to ignore fashion and peer pressue.
For many people I think the boat anchor is live sports. For that group an antenna often serves the job, but there are others who are addicted to ESPN. They're not going to change. For people tired of the ESPN tax, cutting the cord is easy. I suspect most cable subscribers that don't watch sports, they don't realize how much of their bill goes to paying for ESPN.
Also people should learn to do more with their time than just watch TV. For me, Netflix adds more stuff I really want to see than I have time to watch, but for others they run out of it fast because they don't do anything other than watch TV in their spare time.
$10/month with Netflix, plus a one time cost for Roku at $100. Instant savings. If I added both Amazon and Hulu it's a huge savings. I don't care about sports so if poeple want to pay another $100 a month to stick with cable/satellite just to get a few games, then that's their decision. You don't need FX either, any decent show is on Hulu or Netflix a year later, and it's not hard at all to wait a year to save $900 to $1000. And saving that money means you can also drop a lot of mediocre shows off your list as well, in return you get tons of other shows you can bing watch. Sure, you can buy the boxed DVD set of your favorite TV show from the eighties, or you can just binge watch it via streaming for a lot less money instead.
If you've already got internet at moderate speeds (12kbps is good enough) then this is a no brainer.
Why not bing it on yahoo?
I keep some of those emails, the transcriptions are hilarious.
Any battery charger that doesn't monitor voltage and temperature is junk. At the very least there should be a way to restart a training cycle.
It's DRM. Hollywood and game makers have so many companies forced to implement their DRM schemes. If you can't connect to the internet then they have no way of proving that you're allowed to play that game at that particular time and in that location. Nothing scares game makers like the thought of someone playing a used game instead of playing full price.
(2) Idiots pulling cars with hot underparts on grassy areas and starting brush fires.
I misread that as "hot underpants". That was a disturbing visual.