Roku 3 - what can I do with it?

[spikerS]

Hey, so I picked up a Roku 3 awhile back from another Beyonder. I am kinda disappointed with it in the terms of what is available, and what it does, and I am thinking I am missing out on a lot of things.

Is it worth trying to mod it? What are key features I should be aware of? Good (free) channels? Is there a way to bypass paywalls? etc?

Nothing is off the table here, school me!

[eblend]

I got 8 of these, and I find them pretty awesome, but I only do three things with them, 1. Netflix, 2. Plex, and 3. Youtube.

Really Plex is the biggest benefit for me. I have a Plex server running (it's free btw) at home which organizes all my media and makes it look pretty automatically, and then I just open the Plex app and watch all my stuff. Beauty of Plex too is that you can watch your shit remotely, so my parents and my sister in vancouver watch all my media all the time remotely, so one central location for everything.

You can also do screen mirroring but I have never tried it. Really, for dumb simple box for Plex and Netflix, it's fantastic. Each remote is also a wireless headphones extender, so can just plug in headphones into it and listen to whatever you are watching without waking anyone up.

Love mine, really have no reason to switch away from them anytime soon. Never really used any of the other channels on this, so can't comment about any of them.

[Buster]

I watch MLB on mine with the MLB app. Maybe I'll watch hockey now, too...but I'm not much of a hockey fan.

edit: quality of the MLB stream on roku is better than Shaw/Telus

[spikerS]

Originally posted by Buster
I watch MLB on mine with the MLB app. Maybe I'll watch hockey now, too...but I'm not much of a hockey fan.

edit: quality of the MLB stream on roku is better than Shaw/Telus

Is there a way past their pay wall? I would love to be able to watch the odd MLB / NHL game, but i wouldn't watch it enough to justify buying the whole subscription...

[dj_rice]

On a side note, I'm looking for a Roku 3 as well. Anyone have one for sale before I go pick up a BNIB

[The_Penguin]

Plex! I've had numerous devices in the last 10 years, 2 Popcorn Hours, a WD Live, and the built in stuff in smart TVs. The Popcorn Hours were good players,but had to manually generate the Media library, and they did have the odd issu. the Roku 3 with Plex is just plain awesome. It can probably do other stuff, but have only used Plex, Netflix, and Youtube.

[mix123]

These two channels are very good.

US TVNow for US TV if you dont want to get cable. No proxy or anything needed it just works.

XTV - Stream live TV, movies etc.

[Buster]

Originally posted by spikerS


Is there a way past their pay wall? I would love to be able to watch the odd MLB / NHL game, but i wouldn't watch it enough to justify buying the whole subscription...

Not really. It's not just a stream, it comes with a bunch of other content, so skipping the paywall would not be practical.

MLB is worth it to me, considering the number of games - and you can usually get the season for $50 on sale each year. NHL is kinda boring nowadays, so I probably won't sign up for it.

[Mitsu3000gt]

A Chromecast can handle Plex and is only $35. I wouldn't bother with any of the "mid range" players personally. Grab either a dirt cheap Chromecast or an Nvidia Shield if you want to do everything and have by far the fastest player along with future compatibility, and be done with it. None of these players are very expensive at the end of the day. If you want to get into Kodi for ridiculous amounts of free content as well you can on the Shield.

The big complaint with the Roku 3 is it's video/audio codec support is weak and future compatibility is very poor. If you only ever use it for Netflix or streaming Channels that's fine, but depending on what else you like to watch, you might find you can't play it. It also has no wireless AC, no 4K compatibility, and no gigabit Ethernet. I find these streaming-centric boxes are usually better for USA customers.

If you want free sports, I think you will find they are difficult to get on any device.

[eblend]

Originally posted by Mitsu3000gt
A Chromecast can handle Plex and is only $35. I wouldn't bother with any of the "mid range" players personally. Grab either a dirt cheap Chromecast or an Nvidia Shield if you want to do everything and have by far the fastest player along with future compatibility, and be done with it. None of these players are very expensive at the end of the day. If you want to get into Kodi for ridiculous amounts of free content as well you can on the Shield.

The big complaint with the Roku 3 is it's video/audio codec support is weak and future compatibility is very poor. If you only ever use it for Netflix or streaming Channels that's fine, but depending on what else you like to watch, you might find you can't play it. It also has no wireless AC, no 4K compatibility, and no gigabit Ethernet. I find these streaming-centric boxes are usually better for USA customers.

If you want free sports, I think you will find they are difficult to get on any device.

My issue with Chromecast is that I don't want to cast all my shit from a phone or a computer. Sure it works and works well, but I prefer a remote, as do my parents and the wife. I find the remote a ton easier to use then having to open an app, and I work in IT and could do all this easily, but don't bother.

As for the video/codec support, it really isn't an issue at all. I watch everything through Plex, it takes care of all of that, have yet to find anything that doesn't work...and I have a 14tb of media. Native support does indeed sucks, but noone uses native support for media on Roku. Roku 3 is pretty damn quick, and has 5ghz wireless N which is more than enough, never had any issues on 5ghz network at home. 4K and gigabit are both non essential for the next little while for most people.

For me, I like the simplicity, sure I can get a box that can play games and all that stuff too, but I like a media player just for media watching, and don't care about android games or old school emulated games, got my xbox one for gaming. To each their own, but just on the remote alone I would take a roku over chromecast anyday. My parents are in their 60s and they use their rokus all the time.

[saiyajin]

kind of noob on this and looking into Plex so really all it does is organize your existing media? as in you have it already downloaded is that how it works?

i'm looking for something more like XBMX/Kodi where i can search for stuff and just watch/stream, kind of like netflix can Plex do that as well?

any info would be great!

[eblend]

Originally posted by saiyajin
kind of noob on this and looking into Plex so really all it does is organize your existing media? as in you have it already downloaded is that how it works?

i'm looking for something more like XBMX/Kodi where i can search for stuff and just watch/stream, kind of like netflix can Plex do that as well?

any info would be great!

Not really no, it's for existing media. If you download lots of stuff, it will organize it all, and it also makes it playable anywhere, so it does transparent encoding ect when needed. Plex is like Netflix for your own media basically. If you have a plex pass you can create profiles just like netflix...and give each profile different library access ect, and then can give access to your media to others if you wish. So not like you are rlooking for.

I kind of wonder....with these other options of just streaming....is it actually good quality stuff and always works...or is it hit and miss....as providers go up and down due to their illigal nature?

[Kavy]

Originally posted by saiyajin
kind of noob on this and looking into Plex so really all it does is organize your existing media? as in you have it already downloaded is that how it works?

i'm looking for something more like XBMX/Kodi where i can search for stuff and just watch/stream, kind of like netflix can Plex do that as well?

any info would be great!

Plex servers are capable of running channels thought their portals like a roku.

For channels there is a huge variety that is very much like Kodi, there is ssplex which works the same as exodus and can search and stream all media just isn't nearly as pretty, there is BitTorrent that streams new movies off of torrents, g2g, let me watch this, movies 2 k which all stream movies as well but tend to be a bit less reliable. Prime wire is just like to Kodi variant in having new movies and tv shows. ishows has tv shows off major networks and houses all seasons of them for streaming, then there is kissnetwork which has any cartoon you could ever want. I use the dedicated south park channel all the time to watch any episode from any season.

[Kavy]

In response to you Chris I subscribe to Game Center so I never looked for sports streaming channels on the roku.

If you setup a plex server I can set you up with a group of channels and an easy way to keep them updated so you can have that streaming capability from the roku beyond the standard roku channels. In addition I'm would suggest setting up a roku account and then downloading plex classic as it allows proper searching within channels versus the new plex channel that only search but first letter.

http://www.rokuguide.com/private-channels/plex-classic

[gpomp]

Originally posted by Kavy
In response to you Chris I subscribe to Game Center so I never looked for sports streaming channels on the roku.

If you setup a plex server I can set you up with a group of channels and an easy way to keep them updated so you can have that streaming capability from the roku beyond the standard roku channels. In addition I'm would suggest setting up a roku account and then downloading plex classic as it allows proper searching within channels versus the new plex channel that only search but first letter.

http://www.rokuguide.com/private-channels/plex-classic

Which Plex addons are you using to get the other channels?

[Kavy]

Originally posted by gpomp
Which Plex addons are you using to get the other channels?

Plex allows you to add channels natively. All you need to do is download one of the channels and put it into your add ons folder in plex. After a reboot it will be active. Personally my two favourites are ssplex and primewire.

[Buster]

Originally posted by eblend


My issue with Chromecast is that I don't want to cast all my shit from a phone or a computer. Sure it works and works well, but I prefer a remote, as do my parents and the wife. I find the remote a ton easier to use then having to open an app, and I work in IT and could do all this easily, but don't bother.

As for the video/codec support, it really isn't an issue at all. I watch everything through Plex, it takes care of all of that, have yet to find anything that doesn't work...and I have a 14tb of media. Native support does indeed sucks, but noone uses native support for media on Roku. Roku 3 is pretty damn quick, and has 5ghz wireless N which is more than enough, never had any issues on 5ghz network at home. 4K and gigabit are both non essential for the next little while for most people.

For me, I like the simplicity, sure I can get a box that can play games and all that stuff too, but I like a media player just for media watching, and don't care about android games or old school emulated games, got my xbox one for gaming. To each their own, but just on the remote alone I would take a roku over chromecast anyday. My parents are in their 60s and they use their rokus all the time.

Good post. I much prefer having a remote. The kids dont have their o wn phones, and the wife prefers remote, etc. I dont mind changin how I do things, but chromecast creates a training problem for me that I dont want.

I do use Chromecast audio with my in ceiling speakers throughout the house - with great success.

[Mitsu3000gt]

Originally posted by eblend


My issue with Chromecast is that I don't want to cast all my shit from a phone or a computer. Sure it works and works well, but I prefer a remote, as do my parents and the wife. I find the remote a ton easier to use then having to open an app, and I work in IT and could do all this easily, but don't bother.

As for the video/codec support, it really isn't an issue at all. I watch everything through Plex, it takes care of all of that, have yet to find anything that doesn't work...and I have a 14tb of media. Native support does indeed sucks, but noone uses native support for media on Roku. Roku 3 is pretty damn quick, and has 5ghz wireless N which is more than enough, never had any issues on 5ghz network at home. 4K and gigabit are both non essential for the next little while for most people.

For me, I like the simplicity, sure I can get a box that can play games and all that stuff too, but I like a media player just for media watching, and don't care about android games or old school emulated games, got my xbox one for gaming. To each their own, but just on the remote alone I would take a roku over chromecast anyday. My parents are in their 60s and they use their rokus all the time.

That's fair - if you must have a 'normal' remote, then the Chromecast is a no-go. I figure most people have their phone sitting beside them at all times anyway, but maybe not older folks.

If you don't care as much and are just watching on a TV or something rather than a full surround setup, then yeah totally the Roku is probably fine as long as you have Plex running on a server somewhere and download all your content. My thought process was that the best isn't very expensive, so I would either go with the cheapest or the best, rather than somewhere in between. The Shield is significantly faster than a Roku 3, it's virtually instant no matter what you do, zero lag loading multiple TB Plex libraries and buffers full HD/4K Netflix before you even click "play". The little things like that have really impressed me. I didn't buy the Shield for games at all, that is simply a side bonus. I bought it for the sole reason of being the best media player to replace my WDTV (which is no longer made or supported unfortunately) and something that will last many years without having to be replaced. Hopefully it will save me money in the long run.

As for simplicity, all these devices including the Roku are equally as simple, there really is no difference there IMHO. You don't have to know a single thing other than how to press a few buttons or identify the Netflix or Plex logos to use either. You can even launch those apps with voice commands from the remote. Setting up Plex for the first time is by far the most complicated thing to do on any of these devices, and that is still easy. I know 4 year olds and seniors that have no problem with Chromecasts, but you do need a phone/tablet to control them which not everyone has.

Chromecasts I see more as a handy addition - I couldn't get away with ONLY a Chromecast for my usage, but since they are $35, I have a couple anyway haha. They are awesome for traveling too. As a dedicated media player I think it's good to have something more substantial as well. Nice to have lots of options these days and not have to rely solely on the WDTV of the past.