## hpr0951 :: Roku XD box

 
I recently bought a roku XD box and I want to do a little review for you guys. First I would like to say that we have basic cable, and werent really looking to become "cord cutters". You can check out the roku site at www.roku.com.




First I bought it from Best buy for 79.99 I think it was 84 dollars with tax. First I cant believe how tiny this thing is! When you open the box, you have the device, a remote and some RCA AV Cables. The XD also only works with wireless internet. The one I bought does have a HDMI port on it. It works great and does Netflix and other services like Amazon and Hulu Plus. 


You sign up for a roku account on the website and associate the roku box to that account. Which is close to what you do with most media type boxes nowadays like blueray players and stuff. The only difference is those devices only give you content from a couple places. The roku actually has channels, that you can add to your roku box. I have added many channels on it and I am watching lots of content from the web. With services like Popcorn flix, which shows you movies and during those movies there are some commercials. They arent really that bad its like 1 commercial when they show it. It is always the same commercial though. Which kinda gets annoying. 


I use Netflix, and Crackle on it was well. There are lots of news channels like NBC also I know that MLB and I think NHL have channels too. I was amazed at the selection of channels on the device. It would be nice if the roku site had a listing of all private channels. As it is hard to search the internet to find a list, then add the code on the roku site only to find out that the channel code doesn't work anymore. There really are so many channels that you can add it is hard to explain them all. 


My wife and I both have android phones and we installed the roku remote control app which works great! As long as you are on the same wifi network as the roku you can control it. My wife is using the roku box for netflix and other services more than our blueray players because she likes the interface to netflix better. She says that just getting around the netflix channel is just so much easier! I even found a mythtv channel. All in all I am real happy with the Roku box and would recomend it to anyone to supplement their basic cable package. I think it really goes hand in hand with a basic cable or HD Antenna where you can get your network channels, but still get a lot of the extra content for free or a reasonable price. 

I will say that I would like to try Hulu Plus and see if I can slowly wean myself from Cable or HD Antenna. I really doubt it because of the way the cable companies are in the US. Right now since I get my internet from the cable company (Charter) if I get basic Digital television with it then I actually get the two of them for a cheaper price than if I just got the cable internet from them. I would like to end by saying that I know I have only mentioned a few of the channels that roku offers but there really are so many of them and they are scattered in many places that it is tough to know about them all. So if you want you can email me james.middendorff@gmail.com I am on google+ as well. 


Thanks
