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The Kitchen Table

If you have Apple TV/Roku/any other movie-streaming device

12 years ago

Just starting to research this stuff -- my list of 'want to watch movies/tv shows' suddenly seems longer, and my traditional sources (Redbox, my library) aren't carrying some older stuff I want to see.

What do you use, and why?

I have a MacBook and iPod, and I use iTunes for music and really like those 2 pieces of technology, but a lot of the sample movie titles I've searched for aren't in Apple's inventory. So I need to be able to access Netflix and Amazon for the 'see it now' stuff (I did a trial offer for Netflix a year or so ago for the mail-out DVDs; now it seems their trials are for instant downloads now, so I need to catch up with technology!).

Any advice?

I currently have DirecTV (may be switching the phone company's FiOs TV bundled pkg -- internet/phone/tv.)

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Comments (7)

sushipup1
12 years ago
We use a BluRay player that can do the streaming thing from Netflix ($8/month).
jae_tn2
12 years ago
I think you would be happy with Apple TV since it integrates with your other Apple products. I have it and an Ipad that my son configured to be able to watch stuff on the big Tv but I haven't done it yet. I have Netflix for $8/mo. and have found a lot of stuff there. I have also used Amazon for watching on my computer but I haven't tried it on the Tv either.
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You don't really want to be storing all your digital media on an iphone - just the content you may want access to on the phone - drop or lose the phone and well... start over! It sounds like what you may be looking for, at least for the videos, jpegs, and MP3 music, is what known as a DME (digital media extender) that connects to your television and home audio system. It then connects to you home LAN and can access files on your computer, a dedicated home media computer, or other network storage device that contains all your digital media. They typically have USB ports and SD card readers built in as well to read media off other devices. The Apple TV is an example of this but there are also solutions from several other manufacturers, as well. As pointed out, several Blu-Ray players have this capability built-in, as well as some televisions, with local media playback via USB as well as local area network playback. Since capabilities, file formats, and output quality and options can very greatly, you'll really need to do some research. Since you haven't migrated to itunes yet, you may wish to explore the various options first as the itunes format may limit your choice of options. By the way, in looking around, the DME acronym has been made somewhat obsolete by the marketing people and products are often now called things such as Digital Media Players, Receivers, Renderers, and such. You may also wish to check for "DLNA" certification on the product to hopefully avoid DRM (digital rights management) issues.
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Jodi_SoCal
12 years ago
We have a Roku ... the company I work for has a wireless chip inside so a number of us at the office were given the Roku as a Christmas present a couple years ago.

The Roku is very, very easy to use. Setup probably took all of five minutes.

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Jodi-
oldgardener_2009
12 years ago
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alisande
12 years ago
I use Roku because my son-in-law gave it to me for Christmas 2010, along with a Netflix membership. I can't compare it to anything else, but it does everything I want. In addition to Netflix, I could subscribe to a bunch of other things through Roku, but I'm happy with streaming Netflix and listening to Pandora.
Pooh Bear
12 years ago
We just got a Roku 2 XS and we love it. We use it to stream
NetFlix movies and we can plug a flash drive into it to watch
videos from a flash drive. Using the remote for it is much
easier than using the computer we were using to stream movies.
We had a computer hooked up to the TV to stream movies and
watch videos. But pausing and rewinding were not easy that
way. It's really easy to use the Roku device to watch video.
The remote makes it so easy to pause, rewind or fast forward.
We are very happy with the Roku device. Cost ~$100.

Pooh Bear
chisue
12 years ago
I was all excited to set up a Blu-ray and start streaming from Netflix. Then I looked at the offerings. Meh. We've already seen the US and British TV series they offer -- and have seen more recent years than they offer, all from our library. (I'm beginning to think our library is some sort of a rare bird!)

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