Beginning the day before Thanksgiving, I love my Roku player more than ever.
You may know the device as a way to stream Netflix movies to your TV over your home wireless network. By itself, it’s worth the $99 to be able to sit down and watch any movie in your streaming queue whenever you like. The middle Netflix plan allows for an unlimited number of streaming hours per month. Awesome!
Beginning a few days ago, however, Roku introduced a Channel Store that expands the reach of existing Roku players beyond Netflix. Conveniently, it includes many services that I already use via other devices.
Chief among the additional services are free hooks into flickr, Facebook photos, Twit.TV, Revision3, and Pandora.
There are links on this blog to our flickr photo stream and our Facebook profiles, but now we have the ability to view these on our TV. So much easier than dragging out a laptop and having people crowd around the small screen.
Likewise, I already subscribe to various audio and video podcasts on Twit.TV and Revision3. My Twit.TV favorites include TWIT, Security Now, MacBreak Weekly, and Windows Weekly from Leo and his friends. Revision3 shows to which I subscribe include Diggnation, Scam School, ROFL, the Digg Reel, Tekzilla, and the Totally Rad Show. Instead of watching these shows on my computer or on my iPod, I can put them on the big screen whenever I like. Shweet!
Although I’m not familiar with it, Mediafly is another service that is available. It looks like a podcast aggregator which makes it useful for shows that aren’t available through the above services. I’ll definitely check it out.
If you know me at all, you know I rarely watch live TV. I prefer to record shows when they air, then watch them on demand when I have time. This new feature of the Roku box plays right into that philosophy.