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Ok, still cutting that cable that's been sucking my wallet forever. I got a roku device at an insane low price thanks to a black friday sale and was really surprised(pleasantly, for once) at what it had to offer when i finally got it working.

I say 'finally' because i did run into a problem. it caused me some rage so take heed when i tell you this: Do not, absolutely do not use the hdmi wire (It's too thin to call a cable) that comes with the basic roku device. IT IS $&!#!!! And n this wasn't a 'one off issue'. The HDMI was very thin and made of very cheap materials. I could not get my tv to go past the set resolution stage and wasted an hour struggling with it before replacing the hdmi wire it came with with something that was not made of $&!#, after that it preformed flawlessly.

The roku device is quite small, less than 1x2x3.5" i'd say, taking up a very tiny amount of space. It needs power and can be powered by any usb adapter and comes with a usb cable that actually worked to my mild surprise, and if your tv has a usb plug it can run off it. I actually recommend running it off the tv's usb if possible as it will turn the device off when the tv is off, the roku seems to have no off switch.

Once purchased the roku doesn't need a cent spent on it, asides from the cost of a functional hdmi cable, possible a small usb adapter and the nickle or so a month's worth of electricity it will consume.

the first movie i watched on it was "godzilla, mothra and king ghidorah, whch i could not find on my cable services or netflix. The quality was full 1080 and quite clear, i might as well have been watching a dvd. There were ads fairly frequently, but at least there was a display in the corner telling me how many ads there were going to be . That made them less annoying somehow.

All in all you can walk out of a store with a roku for about 20 USD, less at times, and if you avoid the horribly bad hdmi wire you will get a lot out of it as long as you have an internet connection.

It connects via wifi, and i have a dual speed router, i must say the roku did not detect my highspeed wifi and locked onto my 2.4ghz one. As small as the roku was i was surprised it detected several wifi nodes near me, including the usual "FBI surveillance van #92".

Yes you need an account to activate it, yes it asks for a credit card but you can skip that and access an amazingly vast amount of free viewing thru the roku.

The only real PITA with the roku is the fact it seems to have no option to use a numeric remote, let along an alphabetical one, meaning one must scroll thru channels with arrows and search by selecting letters with the same arrow keys. Bummer. But for free.....

Unless one does something to really bother me, I consider wargamers and 40kphiles to be a sort of family to me, and i can recommend the roku to them without hesitation.

Totally agreed. I got one years ago, and shortly thereafter told cable where to shove it. Lots of free stuff, and also access to stuff like Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon Prime if you have accounts with them.

The only teeny tiny problem is that they can burn out over time. Had one for years (more than five, maybe more than ten) and it stopped working. No biggie, they're not all that expensive to replace and, as I said, I got years of enjoyment out of it. Even at normal price (around $50) every five to ten years- assuming mine wasn't a 'lemon' - it's a HUGE savings over a single month's cable bill.

I can't recommend it enough, if you don't have a smart TV.

I have vizio smart tvs and they came with things like support for a lot of internet channels built in.

Now when i go to access these i get a little message telling me these channels no longer support vizio.

I paid for a tv that could access these channels by itself, and after a while someone in come coprorate office somewhere basically took what i paid for from me, basically robbing me but it's a business doing it so it's all legally fine and dandy.

So yes even with a smart tv you might need one after some corporate gods agree to change the terms on something you bought with no notice or options.

Well, took the plunge. signed up for sling tv blue with the nightmare and monsters add on for 33 a month, it's harder to use and flip channels than cable was but a xxxxton cheaper.

So i got tired of specrum's prices, declared war on it and switched to sling. I guess that makes me a Slingon Warrior....

I now have sling tv, a digital antenna for local stuff and netflix thanks to a family member. plus access to hbo on a family member's account. i will hopefully be good to go.

What's a roku device?

It's a little box that hooks up to your TV and allows access to internet content like Netflix, Hulu, and etc; including some free channels.

It duplicates much of the function of a smart TV or late-generation blu-ray player, so if you're using those you might not get much additional function out of a roku.

On the other hand, the blu-ray I have hooked up to my (non-smart) plasma TV doesn't access Hulu, so for me it's useful. YMMV.

Gotcha. We've got a smart tv and barely use it for anything besides netflix and YouTube (well, my wife and kids do, I barely use it period) anyway, so it doesn't sound like something we need.

https://www.roku.com/products/roku-express

My smart tv's were like one generation below what came with built in roku support. Maybe you wont need a device.

The amount of free stuff a basic roku gives you is amazing. Add in a budget premium package, like sling blue, and you get a lot more value for $ than cable. You also get more choices as i opted for basically no sports channels at all.

I dropped the nightmares and monsters add on.

Crackle is a good free add on.

If you live near a city and can get a digital antenna you get local channels for free.

I had a good surprise on roku just now.

I searched for the quatermass stuff, because i'd never seen quatermass 2, and sure enough, it was there, free, and in a semi watchable state.

One bummer on roku is looking up something, finding it and seeing it's only a rental or requires a pay channel. Still i am saving money off my old cable bill, a lot of it.

Got my first post cord cutting bill from spetrum, os speculum as i called them at times.

75 bucks.

my last bill when i had basic cable, phone and 2 boxes was 192. Of that 20 was the phone, something like 15-20 was 'lease' on the two boxes i had, there was like 15 or so as a broadcast channel fee, so i was paying for channels i could have gotten with a good antenna, and there was the cable, we had no hbo, showtime, starz, cinemax, etc.

We did have a lot of religious channels i never watched and loathed paying for in order to support religious industries.

So they raised the cost of my cable since it was no longer bundled but still i'm better off now.

With magicjack i'm paying like 5 a month for a phone, 40 for the annual magicjack, maybe around 20 in annual taxes for 911, maybe not.

I pay nothing for roku basic stuff and 35 for sling along with the tcm package. I'm still amazed at how much stuff you get on roku for free, even if a lot of it is asylum garbage and old movies in such low quality they're not worth watching, still the amount and specialization is just amazing.

So i'm at like 115 monthly now instead of 192, which they kept creeping up several times a year with fees, adjustments, charges and other things they didn't call rate increases but still showed up on my bill.