Probably my favorite channel is a newish private channel called VideoBuzz. It allows you to view youtube videos and playlists. For best effect, create a custom playlist on your computer and you can now easily view it on your TV. Youtube isn't officially supported by Roku so who knows how long this channel will last.
Among my other favorite channels: NBC News (formerly MSNBC) has a lot of video clips, including the Today Show. CNBC (which has a live stock ticker and newish videos). Smithsonian has some intresting programs. Crackle has some movies and TV shows. KDrama has a lot of Korean Dramas.
[12/3/12 - I wanted to see if Jim Cramer's Mad Money was available on Roku. A google search brought up Viaway. But the video didn't play when I tried it. And the reviewer on Rokuguide was not able to link up the Roku with viaway. So I didn't try to link it. However the review said viaway appears to access the same podcasts as iTunes PodCasts and Nowhere TV. And sure enough, both channels allow you to view the last few full episodes of Mad Money. They also feature the full episode of NBC Nightly news. And lots more. Both now go into my list of favorite channels. Later, I created a Viaway account and activated it, but it still didn't link up with Roku as there was a message saying "Viaway Basic service is not available on your device. We are working hard to offer it you in the near future." (Viaway Basic is the free version of Viaway.) OK, so forget Viaway.
Nowhere TV is pretty cool. It's a channel created by Nowhereman. He had created a youtube channel for Roku which was later nixed by Google. He was so good that Roku decided to hire him. Oddly youtube is apparently officially supported by other devices such as Apple TV.]
There are a few live streaming channels too. Two in my list ares CNN International and Huff Post.
But there's a lot more available on the computer that's not on Roku. Here's some that I have noticed.
Bloomberg [12/3/12 - now I see a private Bloomberg Channel for Roku]
Hawaii News Now (weekdays: 430am-8am, 5pm-630pm, 10pm, weekends 5pm, 10pm)
KHON (no live video, but lots of video clips with closed caption)
ABC Chicago (at certain times)
CBS News (at certain times)
CBS New York (apparently at certain times)
Fox 5 (at certain times I assume)
ESPN
Justin.TV (the Roku channel apparently isn't working any more)
***
Not to mention the many major video sites available on the PC, but not on Roku. Just looking at the list below, tells you how lacking the channel selection on the Roku is in comparison to what's actually on the internet. So I'd say you're be much better off hooking up a laptop to your TV. (Or just don't watch TV so much, which might be the best option.)
Hulu (though Hulu Plus is)
ABC
CBS
NBC
Fox
PBS
(The five just above are available over the air live, if your antenna can catch it in your area. But not live is actually better in many ways.)
Also:
The CW
Comedy Central
CNN
USA Today
National Geographic
Animal Planet
Throw in Netflix and maybe you got something..
What's missing from internet video? Well the NBA game playing on TNT right now. (I see now that the first game was on TNT Overtime.) Other live sports (though a number available over the air and on watchespn.com). UH sports on OC Sports, apparently only available on Oceanic and HawaiianTelcom. [Wait, here it is.] Plus you get HD on cable vs. very mixed quality on the internet. Plus no closed caption.
So if you're not a sports nut, you could be tempted to cut the cable (especially when you look at the bill every month).
more:
Kim Komando
Kevin Sintumuang
Matthew Moskovciak
Barbara Thau
lifehacker (for the techie)
Yahoo! Finance: spreety
***
[3/5/13] The Roku 3
***
[4/17/13] VideoBuzz taken down :(
So I guess I'll either get a laptop or another device that supports youtube. It doesn't appear that roku will be getting a youtube channel any time soon.
[4/18/13] workaround for watching youtube videos. post it to your facebook page.
EDIT (February 28, 2012): While new users can no longer sign up to the Nowhere Man’s channel some commenters on this post have found a slightly complicated workaround. If you have the Facebook channel you can post any Youtube link you want to watch to your Facebook wall and then watch it from within the channel under Newsfeed Videos. If you don’t want to spam your friends with random cat videos just set the post to be visable ‘Only to Me.’ Thanks to Paul and Meghan in the comments!
[4/22/13] or try plex or myplex
plus plex supports (free) hulu and cbs too. ok gotta try this.
[6/3/13] nope hulu didn't work. But what you can do is download with freemake video downloader then watch the video via plex. Or just pony up for hulu+ (though you can't watch all hulu content on hulu+ -- however there's more stuff on hulu+ that you can't watch on hulu).
[6/3/13] VideoBuzz reincarnated. I wonder if they're able to take down private channels? which this sort of is.
[11/16/13] WatchESPN comes to Roku. WatchDisney soon.
[12/24/13] Finally, Youtube has come back to the Roku. Right now it's only on the Roku 3, but is supposedly coming to the older models (Roku 1, Roku 2, Roku LT) sometime next year. I have a Roku HD bought last year, so not sure if it'll roll out on that model.
What's neat is that allows you to pair the Roku to your tablet and phone, so you can "beam" the youtube video to the Roku.
Here's a smackdown between the Chromecast, Roku 3, Apple TV. Notable is that Netflix takes longer to load on the Apple TV.
Buried in the article is a way to watch videos from other countries using a proxy. In particular, Hide My Ass. Tried it on slice.ca but didn't seem to work. Notice they have servers in the US, UK, and NL, but no Canada. So doesn't appear the .ca domains will work on this.
[4/24/14] Hey, noticed youtube as one of the featured channels on my Roku HD. It has finally arrived! It's apparently a pretty big application as it took a while to load. And it's pretty sluggish. After I activated it on my computer and logged in, it takes a while to scroll to my subscription list and playlists. However once it got going, I noticed there is a cc icon toward the bottom right. With the option to customize the captions somewhat. So they're not using the Roku system captions. But it works! So another plus for the Roku. The Apple TV app doesn't support captions for their youtube app. So I assume that the youtube app on the Roku 3 would be the same.
[5/5/14] check out my Roku 3 post for more comments. Summary: Hulu Plus plays much better on the Roku 3, but uses their own captions. Youtube much more responsive on the Roku 3, but captions for some videos are cut off.
No comments:
Post a Comment