But wait, there's more! It's ROKU TIME
Dec. 1st, 2020 03:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dreamsharkToday's Amazon delivery brought more than just little aluminum nose bridges. I bought a Roku! For the past 10 years I have been using a now very obsolete Sony Playstation 3 as the center of my cobbled together home entertainment center. This gallant and sturdy little device shows no sign of wearing out, but it can no longer do everything that needs to be done.
For one thing, it doesn't support the new 5GHz wireless network that my new router is pumping out, so I really am getting absolutely no use out of the extra 250 Mbps bandwidth that I am now forced to purchase from my Internet provider. I'm not sure if the fast wireless network has enough oomph to make it all the way to the far side of the attic, but if it does that should increase my streaming speed. If not, it's fast enough for an old HD TV anyway, so no big deal.
But mostly, Sony has (understandably) stopped releasing new PS3 apps for new streaming services. I would like the ability to get HBO Max, Disney Plus, and probably more services that I don't even know about because my device can't connect to them.
However... it was non-trivial to get all these pieces of mismatched equipment to talk to each other (at least back in 2010). I finally got everything to come on at all once when I power up the TV and mostly do the things I want it to do, but the wiring was complex and I'm pretty sure that the PS3 is the center of everything. The idea of taking that out and replacing it with a newer, better box was daunting. And then I wouldn't have my PS3 anymore, just in case I actually wanted to play a game on it.
Then, during the Thanksgiving Kahn Family Zoom I heard about the Roku Streaming Stick. It's not a hub, it's just a device that plugs into the TV's HDMI port and supposedly gives you instant access to the whole world of streaming, all without having to recable your soundbar. I am a little dubious about this, given how old my TV is, but the Roku Stick cost only $30 so it seemed worth trying. I am now about to attempt to deploy it. I am a little afraid that it won't work without some newfangled HDMI protocol that my TV is far too old to support, but I figure there's at least a 50/50 chance. Wish me luck!
ETA. Well. That mostly worked! Easily connected to the 2.4GHz network. With a little more effort I managed to connect to the 5GHz network. But because the connection was only Fair instead of Good, the download speed turned out to be faster over the slow network. Oh well. It's still almost 50 Mbps on the slow network, which is considerably faster than the poor little PS3 ever managed. So it's possible that streaming will run a little smoother than it did before. If not, no loss. It was acceptable as is. What is a massive improvement is the slick little Roku remote, which is hands down the best designed remote I have ever seen. Most of the remotes in this house have dozens of buttons which do nothing useful at all and make it impossible to find the button that you actually need - the mute button. This one has a mute button all by itself on the side of the remote, which I heartily approve of. Setup was easy and fun, except that it involved running up and down the stairs a couple of times to do things on the computer and then back up to the attic.
I managed to get signed in to my two paid streaming services (Netflix and Amazon Prime) and discovered to my delight that it is far easier to access them through the simple little Roku remote than through the collection of remotes I have to bring into action to get to them the old way. Now I'm waiting for Amber to send me her login to Disney Plus (which is perfectly legal, at least so far).
For one thing, it doesn't support the new 5GHz wireless network that my new router is pumping out, so I really am getting absolutely no use out of the extra 250 Mbps bandwidth that I am now forced to purchase from my Internet provider. I'm not sure if the fast wireless network has enough oomph to make it all the way to the far side of the attic, but if it does that should increase my streaming speed. If not, it's fast enough for an old HD TV anyway, so no big deal.
But mostly, Sony has (understandably) stopped releasing new PS3 apps for new streaming services. I would like the ability to get HBO Max, Disney Plus, and probably more services that I don't even know about because my device can't connect to them.
However... it was non-trivial to get all these pieces of mismatched equipment to talk to each other (at least back in 2010). I finally got everything to come on at all once when I power up the TV and mostly do the things I want it to do, but the wiring was complex and I'm pretty sure that the PS3 is the center of everything. The idea of taking that out and replacing it with a newer, better box was daunting. And then I wouldn't have my PS3 anymore, just in case I actually wanted to play a game on it.
Then, during the Thanksgiving Kahn Family Zoom I heard about the Roku Streaming Stick. It's not a hub, it's just a device that plugs into the TV's HDMI port and supposedly gives you instant access to the whole world of streaming, all without having to recable your soundbar. I am a little dubious about this, given how old my TV is, but the Roku Stick cost only $30 so it seemed worth trying. I am now about to attempt to deploy it. I am a little afraid that it won't work without some newfangled HDMI protocol that my TV is far too old to support, but I figure there's at least a 50/50 chance. Wish me luck!
ETA. Well. That mostly worked! Easily connected to the 2.4GHz network. With a little more effort I managed to connect to the 5GHz network. But because the connection was only Fair instead of Good, the download speed turned out to be faster over the slow network. Oh well. It's still almost 50 Mbps on the slow network, which is considerably faster than the poor little PS3 ever managed. So it's possible that streaming will run a little smoother than it did before. If not, no loss. It was acceptable as is. What is a massive improvement is the slick little Roku remote, which is hands down the best designed remote I have ever seen. Most of the remotes in this house have dozens of buttons which do nothing useful at all and make it impossible to find the button that you actually need - the mute button. This one has a mute button all by itself on the side of the remote, which I heartily approve of. Setup was easy and fun, except that it involved running up and down the stairs a couple of times to do things on the computer and then back up to the attic.
I managed to get signed in to my two paid streaming services (Netflix and Amazon Prime) and discovered to my delight that it is far easier to access them through the simple little Roku remote than through the collection of remotes I have to bring into action to get to them the old way. Now I'm waiting for Amber to send me her login to Disney Plus (which is perfectly legal, at least so far).
no subject
Date: 2020-12-02 02:08 am (UTC)There are tons of free channels worth watching. Tubi has a few TV series and movies that are worth watching, including the locally made "Transylvania Television" series (with puppets!). CW Seed has bunches of canceled CW series shows, some of which end abruptly without explanation but are still enjoyable. And, of course, YouTube has all of the crappy British TV Panel shows, including "Eight out of Ten Cats Does Countdown," my favorite quiz show.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-02 04:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-12-05 08:06 pm (UTC)Normally, my next recommendation would be the PlayOn Media Library application and Roku channel, which is a free thing that lets you stream video (and audio and photo) files from your computer to your television. However, that service is currently glitching, and Roku and PlayOn each insist that the problem is at the other's end. Very annoying. (PlayOn also has a bunch of for-pay features that I never use.)
So yesterday, I installed Plex. Plex does much the same thing, but the interface is entirely different. The controls to make files available to Plex are much less intuitive than PlayOn, but the the Roku interface is much more powerful and sophisticated.
You might think about trying Plex (or see if PlayOn works for you) if you have stuff on your computer that you'd like to watch on your TV.