Roku HD-XR Player by Roku, Inc.
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List Price: Category: Home Theater See more digital camera details and other models |
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Digital camera reviews of Roku HD-XR Player
Digital camera Review: A must have for Netflix customers
Summary: 5 Stars
I was never sold on the idea of the Roku box. Now that I own one, I love it and want more for other rooms in our house. For us, setup was extremely simple. Plug in, find wireless network, load up. Nothing more. If you have a netflix account, there is no reason why you shouldnt own a Roku box.Digital camera Review: A must have for Netflix subscribers
Summary: 5 Stars
If you have the Netflix Watch Instantly available to you, this enables watching it on your main TV instead of just on your PC. My first Samsung Blu-ray player had this Netflix feature built in, but the player went bad in less than a year and that left us with no way to play discs from my Netflix subscription or Watch Instantly. The ordeal with getting the Samsung repaired is another story, but I bought an OPPO BDP-83 instead.
The OPPO was not cheap at $500.00 and it does not have the Netflix feature, but it is an amazing player for everything from CD, SACD, DVD-A, plus Blu-ray and DVD movies. That too is another story, but I think the improvement in sound quality for movies alone is worth the difference in price.
We have gone for several months without access to the growing list of movies and tv shows available on Netflix Watch Instantly and have many times wished it was in the living room again, where it is much more comfortable to watch a movie. From what I read, it sounded like the Roku was the best choice for a stand alone solution and among the lowest priced options. Of the three models Roku offers, I went with this HD-XR because we have both the HD video and the WiFi N dual-band home network. The box is small and takes up only a small area of the top shelf of my equipment rack below the TV. A 3' HDMI cord was plenty to reach the connection for the monitor's sound and picture and I also ran a cable from the optical out to my HT receiver for surround sound. There are also connections for component video and analog audio/video plus S-Video, if needed. I echo everyone else who said how easy it was to connect to their equipment and wireless network.
The main reason for buying a Roku, for us, is Netflix, but there are other good channels and features. Pandora is excellent for listening to your own radio stations that you create on the PC. It too was very easy to connect. Amazon Video on Demand looks interesting, but I won't be renting $5 HD movies when my Netflix movies come by mail or I can pick up a Blu-ray movie at the local Redbox for $1.50. I can even reserve the Redbox online and know it's there when I want to pick it up a few minutes or a few hours later. Some of the deals on AVOD look ok and there is some free content, but I think they need to be more competitive with some of their pricing considering the options we now have.
I find the Roku easier to use than the Netflix receiver in our former Blu-ray player. There are more players and even some TVs with Netflix built in that were not available when we got our first Samsung player, which didn't come with wireless built in. I recall that wireless adapter we had to buy separately cost almost as much as the Roku. Now, if we have another problem with the Blu-ray player, we will still have access to Netflix movies with the stand alone Roku player.
Digital camera Review: A must-have extra for video & music lovers!
Summary: 5 Stars
I purchased the HD-XR for my son when he was visiting this Christmas. We hooked it up to my home theater & stereo system just to see if it worked as well as many reviewers claimed.
Bottom line, it was plug-&-play love at first sight! The setup took less than 5 minutes and was totally intuitive. We were truly impressed with the seamless quality of HD & SD movies on Netflix & Amazon on my 46" HD monitor as well as how wonderful my Pandora's music selections sounded on our audio system. I'm fortunate that I have a very speedy cable connection and excellent N-band router which probably contributed to the superb overall performance. The few drop-outs I experienced was with Pandora, which is still in beta mode, because that's been my experiences with its PC incarnation. A real bonus and added incentive is that Roku provides Pandora One (premium mode) as part of the package...no extra charges.
What's not to like about this little e-wonder? It's worth every cent! The only downside is that when my son left, I had to order another Roku for myself:) Unless you're a technologically impaired 97-year-old, it's the best entertainment value for the buck I've seen in awhile.
Digital camera Review: A netflicks only box
Summary: 2 Stars
I purchased the HD-XR box hoping that it would have the ability to view Hulu and
a majority of websites that stream T.V. shows and video from the internet.
This is not the case.
It appears to be well constructed but the available sites that you can view are extremely limited.
It's basically a Netflicks delivery system, the rest of the offerings are subpar and a waste of time. I'll stick with cable.
Digital camera Review: A wonderful device for Netflix owners
Summary: 5 Stars
I watched a lot of TV and a few movies on my computer and grew very tired of sitting on a chair in my cold den. No more! Roku was my motivation to purchase and get running a wireless router. What a new world I uncovered. I very quickly became wireless nearly everywhere in the house.
About the Roku. Small in size, complete, super easy to set up, intuitive and a pleasure to watch streaming TV and movies in the bedroom.
The Roku on power up; searches for a router and prompts you for your secure password (you created this upon setting up your router). It then downloads the latest software for the Roku, then gives you a code to active the Roku, that you enter into the Roku.com site (via your computer). And away you go. For Netflix users the Roku will give you a netflix code that you will enter into the Netflix site (via your computer), and again off you go. All in all, about 5 minutes to do, no problems or fussing, as it is all very straight forward.
In exploring this box and its alternatives, I even contemplated running a long ethernet cable thru the house for when I wanted to watch movies. I'm not even sure that that would have even worked, but the cost of the cable was almost the same as this Roku, which I bought (luckily) as a gold box special.