[11/6/14] Noticed a Channel called livestream which broadcasts live events. Tried it out. Notice that they have the KHON news live. Well, it's not news time, so they play a repeat of the latest news. OK, I guess this sort of makes up for the loss of Hawaii News Now on nowhereTV.
A few more channels I've added recently:
The Hawaii Channel. Short videos on scenes from Hawaii, featuring Hawaii Underwater, Hawaiian Islands, Hawaii Attractions.
Yahoo! Screen. Lots of categories on news and entertainment. Apparently some duplication with The Scene (see below).
Portico (which features videos from Sports Illustrated, Better Homes and Garden, TIME, People, Popular Science, and more).
The Scene (which features videos from ABC News, PBS, The New Yorker, Variety, Wired, The Verge, Golf Digest, Vanity Fair, Buzz Feed, Forbes, The Weather Channel, and more).
*** original post below
[6/13/13] I noticed Retrovision.TV on my Roku wasn't working. So I figured I'd remove it, but it kept getting an error message that it couldn't be removed.
No big deal I suppose, but it bothered me. Retrovision.TV is a private channel that was removed from Roku, so maybe that had something to do with it.
So I figured I would add it and then delete it.
It added, but then when I went to my channels there were two entries for Retrovision!
I tried to remove the newly added channel and that worked.
But then when I tried to remove the original entry, it still got the error.
Ugh.
Let me try reset the whole thing to factory settings.
So it reset, but when it booted back up all my channels were added back. (Except for my favorite one which is videobuzz.)
So retrovision was still there and I still couldn't remove it.
OK, what this guy did was deactivate his roku account.
So I did that. The channels were still there at first, but when I went to the channel store and back, my channels were blank. Well at least the icons were blank. Then after a while, all my channels were gone except for Amazon Instant Video.
OK, progress. But then I tried to remove Amazon Instant Video and it errored out.
I suppose I could have left it on, but I wanted it completely clean.
OK, let's do another factory reset.
recreate roku account (with the same email address)
It asks you to start with one channel, so I chose crackle.
But I still wanted to see if I could clear all the channels.
First I wanted to see if the remove channels worked, so I added PBS. But then I decided to remove Crackle. And it worked. Then tried to remove PBS. And that worked too! So now I had a completely clean Roku.
Now to add back the channels.
1. I first chose CNBC. That worked, but I have to enter all my stock symbols back in. Maybe I should have written down which stocks I had in there.
Next I was going to add Nowhere TV, but I didn't see it the Channel Store.
OK, how about Bloomberg TV? Not in channel store either. Another private channel.
Surprised that I had so many private channels. Maybe I should have written down what channels I had (I had like 90 in there).
2. My second channel added was 8ctave, since it has Mad Money on there. (iTunes podcasts also has it and I think viaway too)
3. I think I'll add Twit next.
4. Nowhere TV (private) is a must. I think it has Hawaii News Now on there. Also Conan O'Brien.
5. Bloomberg TV (private) [However Bloomberg is also on Nowhere TV, so I might take this off. TWIT is also on Nowhere TV, but the content is slightly different so I'll leave it on for now. See separate post]
6. VideoBuzz (this is actually my no. 1 favorite, but it's a little more complicated to install). We'll see if the old instructions still work. [Nope, didn't need the password.] Dog Whisperer. Three Stooges. Beatles music. Old kung fu movies. Etc.
7. Plex (for my downloaded hulu videos). It works, but misidentifies some videos and gives them the wrong title. Also can watch some network TV. Leno on NBC is kind of fuzzy. Letterman is clearer. The picture that is. [I edited the wrong titles, so it looks better now.]
8. NBC News. With the Today Show clips.
I guess those are the main ones every day ones that I would look at. But here's a few more popular ones.
9. PBS (even though some content is on nowhere TV). Includes Leahey and Leahey.
10. Crackle. For one, it's one of the buttons on the remote control. Number two (or number one), Three Stooges. Even though there's a lot more on youtube. (And I have them all on DVD). I guess there's movies too and a few Seinfeld episodes.
11. CNET. Since I have Twit, I might as well put on CNET which has shorter news and reviews.
12. To round up my first dozen (which nicely fills out the screen), I'll choose Crunchyroll. Tons of Korean dramas, etc. here. Go to drama, then scroll to browse drama. Unfortunately it seems they limited the number of Korean dramas to only 50. So it starts from 90 Days Time to Love and ends at Just Do It. Looking at the website, there are actually 129 episodes. But it looks like you can do a search for episodes that you can access via browsing. Hey, I see Red Trousers which I remember we saw when Robin Shou came to town. Too bad it's in Chinese with no subtitles. Wait now there's subtitles. And now there isn't. They don't subtitle Samo and Robin. But do subtitle some of the others. Maybe one is speaking Cantonese and the other Mandarin? OK, here's an edited dubbed version on youtube. I say it's edited because the verson on crunchy roll is 95 minutes, while the youtube version is 47 minutes. I'll add it to my youtube playlist.
[6/17/13] Now starting to add stuff that I probably won't watch very often (because I don't actually watch that many movies or different TV shows), but these seems to have some good content to browse.
13. Snag Films. Has a lot of documentaries and movies. The categories are Action and Animation, Recent Additions, Comedy (Africa Screams, Groucho Marx in You Bet Your Life highlights), Drama, Health and Food, History, News and Politics, Arts and Culture, Romance, Science and Nature, Short Films. There are 50 entries per category, so that would make 50*11 or 550 films. But actually there are a few less because some films are in more than one category.
The web site actually has a lot more films. For example, they have a National Geographic section that alone has 83 shows. [You can't beat the raw web for content because that's where the content actually comes from. So for the most shows, you should actually just hook up a computer to your TV] From Lionsgate (18 films), I see Hitman Hart: Wrestling with Shadows and Amazing Masters of the Martial Arts (narrated by Ken Howard). I see Super Size Me on their Sundance Channel (25 films). I don't see any of these in the Roku channel. I wonder if I can download these with Freemake? Nope. The Search Box says "Search 3000 Films".
[6/22/13 update] Checking this morning I see a lot less films on the Roku Channel. Still no Super Size Me, but I note it's on Hulu and youtube (for now).
14. Smithsonian is the 25th most popular channel according to Roku (the last entry in the Most Popular category on the Roku). It actually doesn't have a lot of content (in comparison to snagfilms for example). Their full episodes category has only 27 films. But actually that's one more than is on the website. The odd one is the one is the latest one from The Real Story series: The Real Story of Star Trek. So it's actually on the web too, but not yet in their Full Episodes section.
Here's another one that caught my eye: The Real Story: Live Free or Die Hard (since I liked that movie). Unfortunately the full show is not on the web. Hey now I see that's this is the second episode of season 5 and is scheduled to be shown on July 7. The Star Trek one is the first episode of season 5 and is scheduled to be shown on June 30. So is it on the web actually before airing? Checking on my TV, the episodes airing this week are Apollo 13 and Braveheart which are Season 4 episodes.
15. Ted Talks. Interesting talks. Though the talks are also on youtube, I added the Roku channel since they're organized in categories. A couple caught my eye: memory and quadcopters.
16. Dailymotion. This is kind (along with vimeo) is kind of like youtube as it's a collection of uploaded videos. And it's also kind of a work-around to watching hulu videos since hulu uploads a lot of their videos here (for some unknown reason). A major drawback to this channel is it won't allow you to access your playlists. So you have to favorite the shows that you want to watch. But now that I think of it, it didn't work. It's like they're filtering out the hulu videos on the Roku app? Oh well, they have some color Three Stooges videos on there.
17. popcornflix. Has a number of movies, most of which I'm not interested in (so it's like crackle). But there's a few in the documentary section that are interesting and some that I even own on DVD: 10 Questions for the Dalai Lama, Nobelity, One Peace at a Time. Like SnagFilms, there's more on the website than on the Roku Channel. For example, the documentary/shorts category has 67 films in the Roku Channel, while the website has 110. In the Action/Thriller category, it's 139 to 135. Hey that one was close. OK, maybe not so much difference.
18. iTunes Podcasts. For some reason, today's episode (6/19/13) of Mad Money was erroring out. While I could view it On Demand or on the website, for some reason I wanted to view it on the Roku (so I can lay back on my chair and pause and rewind at my leisure). Nope, it's erroring out on iTunes too. They're probably getting it from the same source. Oh well, I'll leave it on anyway as there's a lot of good content on there, though much of it is duplicated on Nowhere TV and 8ctave.
19. AOL.on. AOL brings together videos from various sources/partners in a nicely orgainized interface. They've added a lot more content since the channel launch. They present four main categories: Entertainment, Technology, News, Food & Home. The first "strip" of content is always "Featured". Entertainment sub-categories/sources are E!, ET Online, SplashNews, PopSugar, Movie Trailers, MovieFone Originals, Movie Trailers - in theaters, Movie Trailers - on DVD, AOL Originals. In Technology: AOL Autos, Engadget, Cnet, TechCrunch. In News: HuffPost Live Stream, AP, Reuters, BBC, Newsy, WSJ Live. Under Food & Home: Martha Stewart, Gourmet TV, Le Gourmet TV, Food Curated, YumSugar, AOL Food, AOL Home, AOL Personal Finance, Better TV Food. So lots of content here. [6/22/13]
20. Blinkx is sort of like AOL.on with video organized in categories. But a little different in that they bring content from all over the internet (it seems) instead of from selected partner sites. Actually that sounds like the old Yahoo! They have more categories than AOL.on which are family, tech, sports, news, popular, search, fun, movies, fashion, food. Originally there were only four channels. [6/23/13]
21. Weather Underground. This app is on the most popular list. Just one main page. With some short video of the weather map. [6/23/13]
22. TuneIn. Listen to radio over the internet. Automatically finds many local channels, but not all. I had to hunt for KSSK, which plays over the internet, but not on the Roku. [6/24/13]
23. Revision3. I thought this was going to be like Cnet or TWIT. But it seems like more like a bunch of 9th grade video projects (though created by tech-savvy adults - so the production level is pretty good) featuring not only tech, but game reviews, movie reviews, science reports, and even magic tricks. I saw Brian Brushwood, who's also on TWIT's Framerate, explaining a magic trick. [That's because he's a magician.] I guess this is OK to browse through, when you get bored and are looking for something to look at. (Then again, I'm old.) They also have a youtube channel. [6/26/13]
[7/27/13] A few more channels that I've added (besides Netflix above).
WSJ Live. For financial news and news in general.
Campus Insiders. College sports news.
IT Pro. Educational videos (to prep for the certification exams)
Viewster. Movies (lots of them). Sort of like popcornflix.
The Knowledge Network. Video from or associated with the National Science Foundation
Sky News. World news (originating from Europe).
[11/16/13] Here's a must-have for sports fans. WatchESPN has come to Roku (but you need to be a cable subscriber to access it). WatchDisney coming soon.
*** [5/13/14]
I notice my Roku HD (2500X) has problems with Hulu Plus becoming unresponsive when I turn on the captions. [works better on Roku 3] I know something's wrong when the captions don't change and the Roku doesn't response to the button presses on the remote. I read somewhere (don't know where now) that removing some apps might help (to free up some memory I presume). Let me try it.
I kind of doubt it well help, but it's time for a cleanup anyway. First let me see what's on my Roku.
NetFlix Nowhere TV CNBC
On CBS News NBC News
Blinkx Newsy Sky News
Buzz:60 Yahoo Screen WSJ Live
The Street iTunes Podcasts 8ctave
PBS WeatherNation Weather Underground
PBS Kids Smithsonian History
A&E FOX Watch ESPN
CBS Sports NBA Game Time BYUtv
iEducation TED Animal Planiet
FisHi CNet Revison 3
CNE Twit howdini
ITPro tunein Live with Aaron and Kelly
Pandora Facebook Time Life
Spud's Funny Channel Armchair Tourist Crunchyroll
Film Movement Snagfilms Viewster
My Favorite Movies Flixster Vudu
EPIX Plex Dailymotion
fawesome.tv Portico popcornflix
Crackle Hulu Plus Amazon Instant Video
Instant Watch Browser for Netflix YouTube CNN
Roku Media Player VideoBuzz
***
OK let's remove. But I'll keep a few especially if I have to create a log in again or customize it.
Here's what I kept
Netflix NowhereTV CNBC
CBS News NBC News PBS
Watch ESPN Pandora Facebook
Flixster Vudu Plex
Crackle Amazon Instant Video YouTube
MyVideoBuzz
unplug, replug
add back Hulu Plus, log in
play Dog Whisperer (bad dogs of comedy) with captions
played OK after about 10 minutes, went to commercial,
video plays, now no captions (had the ad playing icon)
then a caption appears frozen on screen and doesn't respond to remote
but video plays on
minutes later it responds and went to home screen
oh well
ok, let's try play the same episode with no captions and see if it locks up.
played about 30 minutes. pause buttton paused, had to press the back button a couple of times then after a few seconds it went back to the screen. so it seems to play ok with captions off
[5/18/14] added the AOL On channel because they featured it on the main Roku screen having the Mansfield Park movie available for free. Not that I'm interested in Mansfield Park, but I added it and went to take a look. They have 19 movies and they support the Roku captions. One interesting one I see is the Japanese version of Shall We Dance?
Roku also automatically added MLB TV (as a bonus?). When I went to take a look, I saw they have a free game of the day. Unfortunately the Dodgers are blacked out in my location, so I couldn't see it.
[7/29/14] Darn, I no longer see KGMB (Hawaii News Now) on Nowhere TV.
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