It has been a few months since I last posted about the changes I was making to our home multimedia experience. I went over the Roku last time and will give everyone an update on my thoughts after a few months of usage. I will also be going over the rest of the gadgets I’ve put in place. Nothing too fancy mind you, I am working on a “limited” budget. First things first though, I am still not completely done with the project as some issues have not been easily fixable with minimal cost.
Wow, time really does fly. I have spent the past few months (among other things) catching up on some console games, watching movies and getting in on a few shows that I haven’t seen before and some old ones that are worth a second look. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly things change and yet remain very much the same. I have spent hours on games that are far and away superior to stuff that was available even just a few years ago and yet they remain a huge “time suck” that can easily get out of hand. I spent time watching new and old shows and movies that are not only compelling but also completely unoriginal.
Video games have been like a haven to me for the better part of thirty years since the Atari 2600. This Summer, for me, has seen mainly a change from my usual PC gaming to consoles which was partlybrought on by our recent digital conversion and the fact that I have just gotten terribly burned out on PC games, MMORPG’s really. I’m looking at you WoW. I have a Wii and an Xbox 360 and most of my time has been spent on the 360. I have played Oblivion (for the second time and actually finished before I got bored with it this time), Fallout3 – which is an awesome game but I got bored and switched to Oblivion, Fable II – again an awesome game but I’m fat in real life and I’ll be damned if I want to play a game that makes my character fat if it eats anything other than celery. I have wanted to get some of the addons or other games available on XBL but I refuse to pay those ridiculous prices (a rant /post in the making on that one).
I have given up watching network television recently. The over abundance of shows and commercials that pander to the lowest common denominator in society makes my head hurt. I have been watching stuff on Netflix and Youtube and Hulu along with other sites that offer video feeds of one type or another. I have also been using Boxee which is a great app but I was very sad to see that it has been infected with pornography if the most recent builds (for a group looking for main stream acceptance, a bad decision IMHO). Anyway, Dirty Jobs, Deadliest Catch and Mythbusters are still some of my favorite shows along with a new appreciation for the American version of The Office. I tend to dislike blatant rip offs and shows being redone over again but this time the US version is every bit as good as the UK’s. The reason? Chemistry. The show is populated with writers and cast that work well together. There is nothing original about the story but the interaction of the characters is compelling. Penn & Teller: Bullshit! is another show that, although not terribly original, is very compelling none the less (as long as gratuitous nudity doesn’t bother you). I have been enjoying my Netflix subscription a great deal. I don’t tend to get many DVD’s but I watch the streaming content on a daily basis.
I will be finishing my series on my digital conversion soon. I regret that it has drug on so long after the fact. I certainly intend to be more consistent in writing in the future, not because I feel some sense of obligation to the three people that read this but because it is interesting to me and if someone else gets something out of it, all the better.
Now that I have more bandwidth to play with, we are enjoying netflix even more. The selection of “watch instantly” shows is not wondrous by any means but it is consistently getting better. We have the second lowest plan which gives us one DVD out at a time and unlimited streaming from the netflix website and it costs only $9 per month. As an aside we do not pay the surcharge for bluray disks from netflix (which would be an extra 2 dollars a month) and I am not sure that I am willing to pay that extra when netflix admits that it is an arbitrary charge because bluray has a higher perceived value. Yes, that means it doesn’t cost them anything extra it means they think people will pay it because they want to watch bluray movies more than they want to watch DVD’s.
The issue with netflix is this, you either watch DVD (or bluray) disks on your television or you can stream movies to your computer. I want to make all the content available to us watchable on both our televisions and computers. There are a few ways to get streamed netflix content onto a television but I went with a Roku. The roku lets you stream netflix and also can let you buy or rent television shows or movies from the Amazon Video on Demand website. The clincher for me is that Roku is adding 10 more “channels” to their little box by the end of the year. There have been no real announcements as of yet (except the accidental one by blip.tv) however the conjecture is that stuff like hulu.com and tv.com are 2 of the 10.
The Roku is a really nice device. It has an HDMI port (among others) to connect to your TV and can connect to your home network by 802.11g wireless or by Ethernet. Note that this is not compatible with 802.11n, for those that are looking to squeeze every drop of speed out of their video enabled home network. I have a Belkin router and when I put it in “N” only mode I couldn’t connect to Roku to it. This was a bit of a learning experience for me since I have not played with 802.11n much at all. On the wireless “G” network the Roku worked very well. We have experienced one video interruption during playback in the week that I have had this setup. The netflix stream through Roku seems to be pretty solid. The setup of the Roku overall was really simple. During the connection to your netflix account it generates a code that you need to authorize on the netflix website. There is a similar process for Amazon content. The Roku box itself is very small, about 6 inches square and 2 inches high so I put it right behind my television. The remote is pretty small and has a very simple layout which is also true for the Roku’s UI. All in all easy to setup and easy to use. The one downer for folks who are really big on true HD content is that the Roku tops out at 720p. So if you just have to have full HD everywhere, the Roku is not for you. If you don’t mind 720p and really are into the functionality and currently expanding content, this device is definitely for you. Personally, I love it.
Yes, that’s right. Movies and Television shows are now available on the Internet for free and it’s legal. The website is Hulu.com and it is pretty cool. For a sight that just started its library of stuff isn’t too shabby. It all streams to your computer and can be viewed in the browser window or in full screen mode. Some stuff even has a “high definition” option and looks pretty darn good especially considering it is streamed content. There is some old stuff along with some new stuff, which was a bit surprising to me. Check it out and enjoy.
