I got a chance to play Roku earlier in the week. Roku's UI is very simple to use. Support for NetFlix is awesome. Roku's UI & the "channel store" reminds of iPhone's AppStore (not sure which came first, Roku's ChannelStore or iPhone's AppStore).
Quite a few providers of Indian TV Channels online (YuppTV.com, ChannelLive.TV, Reliable IPTV, Tamil IPTV, etc) are available on Roku (complete listing is here). I got a chance to play YuppTV's test channel. The quality is not bad at all. But, the selection of channels is somewhat limited. Wish WatchIndia.TV (which offers a lot more channels) was available on Roku.
Comments
Actually, most of these IPTV companies charge much lesser than DishNetwork. For about $15/month you can get 3-5 channels depending on the provider (could be even lower with coupons/specials).
<<<
I subscribed to watchindiatv briefly and I found their service to below expectation.
>>>
Can you elaborate? The quality of Watchindia's service is pretty decent. And yes, their customer service is pretty bad.
Some of the issues:
- High quality preference was not saved, so you have do that everytime you start streaming.
- Content was always expanded to 16:9, making every character in the tv look wide. I wanted a control to make it retain 4:3 even when I am on a 16:9 tv. There was no way.
- Same thing with volume, the volume controls are not the windows volume, but something the window.
- There was no way to change the subscription.
- When I tried to get the high qulaity on kannada channels it would just get struck.
- No vod on kannada channels.
And when I called CS, they used just waste my time with, what broadband you have, what is the bandwidth, high quality does not work for you etc(I had 12+ mbps internet).
There were quite a few things that irritated me with watchindiatv. Not sure if they have fixed those (I had their service in sep 09).
>>>
You experience with WatchIndia.TV seem to be with their website?? The UI on the website and the set-top box is very different (this is not say that the set-top box doesn't have any quirks in the UI).
Nice to have a competition for more regional channels.
The same is not true with Satellite and/or Cable TV providers. I pay a one time fee and I could record, I could watch on any TV.
They should do something like Netflix does. Does not matter where you watch (Computer or Roku or Western Digital), you use the same account.
Pros:
1. Best wireless and it is so small that it is not even visible.
2. Quality from channel live is better than comcast.
3. monthly package so i can disconnect anytime.
4. I get so many other channels via ROKU which helps me watch netflix , yupp tv free channels , you tube etc.
5. Channel Live Tv provides online DVR so I never miss any shows or channels.
6. The remote I get from Roku lets me rewind and play back the same content if needed.
Cons
1. Price ( First I need to pay for the box)
2. The channel live is little expensive than most of the current IPTV available but the quality is worth spending money.
Overall I have never faced any buffering issue or quality degration. Customer service is not great but good. They respond and help.
Did you mean for Roku netflix has limited movies and for others it has more movies? Or is it that Netflix has limited Indian/Hindi movies?
>>>
I think the point was that Netflix itself has limited Indian/Hindi movies.
Can anyone suggest me the best & economical IPTV that provides Hindi Channels (Movies, Music & News Channels) and also the Cricket channels?