Episode: 951
Title: HPR0951: Roku XD box
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr0951/hpr0951.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-08 05:27:46

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Hey everyone, it's Riddlebox again, and today we're going to do a product review of the
Roku XD.
Recently I bought the Roku XD box, and first thing I'd like to say is that we have basic
cable here, and we weren't really looking to become cord cutters.
We were just looking to supplement having basic cable, so if you want you can check out
the Roku site at www.roku.com, that's roku.com.
I bought this unit at Best Buy for $79.99, and I think it was $84 with tax somewhere around
there.
My first thoughts were I couldn't believe how small this unit is for an HD device that
plays tons of stuff, and it's probably like two and a half to three inches by three inches,
something like that.
It's very small.
When you open the box, you get the device, the Roku box.
You get a remote and some RCA AV cables.
The XD also has wireless on it.
It does not have a wired port, but just wireless.
The one I bought does have an HDMI input on it, or HDMI output on it.
It works great, does Netflix, and other services like Amazon and Hulu Plus.
What you do is you sign up for the Roku account on the website, and you associate the box
to that account, which is pretty close to what you do with any type of media boxes these
days, blue rays, and stuff.
Just associate that device to whatever account you need it to.
The difference being that you get content from more than one location.
The Roku actually has these channels that you can add to your Roku box.
I've added many channels on it so far, and what I really like is services like popcorn,
and Flix, which show you movies.
There are some commercials in it, which doesn't bother me.
They're not real obtrusive.
It's just one commercial, and the only issue I have is that it's the same commercial every
time.
Kind of gets annoying, but you get over it quick.
It's a free service showing you movies.
I use Netflix and Crackle as well.
There are a lot of news channels like NBC on there.
MLB has a channel, and I think I heard NHL has a channel too.
Those are of course paid subscription services, so you buy MLB.tv, and then your service works
on the Roku box.
I was amazed at the selection of channels you had.
It would be nice though if Roku's website had a listing of all the private channels.
You can do a search on the internet for Roku channels or private channels, and you find
tons of sites that have what they call lists of channels.
You find channels that you like, and you go take the code and put it out the Roku site
and the channel code doesn't work anymore.
It would be nice if there was one place that had all the codes, and you could just go
to it and add whatever you wanted.
There are so many channels that you can add.
It's really hard to explain.
I mean, you got Pandora, the Disney channel, lots of paid services, even triple X services
I've seen on there.
My wife and I both have Android phones, and we installed the Roku remote control app,
which works fantastic.
It connects to the Roku, and you have your phone sitting there.
You can change channels, fast forward, pause, all that stuff.
You have to be on the same Wi-Fi network as the Roku box, of course, to control it.
My wife is actually using the Roku box for Netflix and other services more than our Blu-ray
players because she likes the interface to Netflix better.
She says that just getting around the Netflix channel is much easier, and we have to kind
of fight for it now.
I did find a Myth TV channel for it that will supposedly play Myth TV content.
Looks like you have to add a Roku folder to your Myth Web folder.
I haven't really looked into it too much because I no longer have a Myth box.
All in all, I'm real happy with the Roku box and would recommend it to anyone to supplement
their basic cable package.
I think it really goes hand in hand with a basic cable package or an HD antenna where
you get your network channels, but still get a lot of the extra content for free or for
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, but I kind of doubt it because of the way the cable companies are
right now in the US.
Since I get my internet from our cable company, which is charter, if I get a basic digital
television package with my internet package, I actually get two of them for a cheaper price
than I do if I just get the internet package, which is just crazy that that happens, but
so right now we have basic cable and the Roku box really does help with other stuff.
So I like to end by saying that I know I mentioned there are a few channels with the Roku,
but there are really, really so many more of them and I know I haven't touched all
of them and I'm sure in the coming weeks I'll find more and more of them.
But if you guys know of any channels or would like to start a discussion about channels,
feel free to email me at james.midendorf at gmail.com.
That's james james.midendorf m-i-d-d-e-n-d-o-r-f-f at gmail.com.
And I am on Google Plus as well, so thanks and if there's anything, let me know and please
everybody, create some HPR content, thanks, bye.
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