Roku 2 Media Player - thoughts as I unbox and setup

It's not often I'm buying myself tech these days. Ever since my two children have came along, being at the cutting edge has taken a backseat. I find myself only willing to spend time and money on technologies that will benefit both me and my family. My son has reached the age where he has become fascinated by Disney cartoons and animations, due to this I've built up a rather large media library for both his and my own personal usage.

Since 2011, I've used Plex media player to play all my media. I own a 2011 LG smart TV which has an inbuilt app called "Medialink" which is essentially a Plex client. After discovering this I setup my plex media server and haven't looked back since. It's only recently that perhaps my TV is showing it's age as the medialink app seems to no longer be getting updated by LG. Due to this I'm having difficulties playing back some video files, it tends to be media at 1080p and of a higher bit-rate. The playback on the TV either results in a choppy video experience, or the TV screen goes blank and "resets". After evaluating the Plex app on my Nexus 7 and testing on my PC I found the same videos playback fine. I can only reach the conclusion that the LG's medialink app is to blame.

Last month I purchased a "Now TV" box for my son's bedroom. For the meager sum of £9.99 I was able to side-load a Plex client and now he can watch all of his movies from his bedroom at the maximum supported resolution of 720p. It's great for his bedroom as he only has a small 26" TV. For my own usage in the living room I wanted to be able to stream at the full 1080p and wouldn't mind a few more app choices. Roku had me curious if they could replace my ageing smart-TV app, with this in mind I went online to see what was on offer.

Comparison of features across models

I checked out ebuyer.com to find out the cost in the UK, they are usually pretty reasonable. I found them selling the Roku 1 for £59.99 or the Roku 2 for £79.98. That seems pretty pricey to me considering I had found a NowTV box that "almost" did all I needed for £9.99. I checked eBay to see what the prices were on offer. This is where the confusion started a little - I found more models available for sale there including a Roku 2 XS which seemed to be the same device a  a Roku 2, but with a different casing and the addition of an Ethernet port. "An Ethernet port does seem like a worthwhile feature to me" I thought. Roku 1's were going for about £45 odd while strangely the LT was going for £55 - £60. The older generation "Roku 2 XS" going for £70. Then I saw it, a Roku 2 priced at £49.99 - It was an ex-display model (which probably just means a customer return)  I decided at that point I would live without the Ethernet jack as I had a decent wireless connection anyway. I can honestly say that cost heavily influenced my purchase here.

I received the package and opened up to find a box in nice condition, as I opened up the box I seen that the Roku and remote control were in fact still in plastic. It didn't look like it had been used at-all to me.

It's here, and it's shiney! Yay!

Don't need you.. hahah

Initial thoughts are... "that's a manual, I don't need that!" (throws to the side). As I removed the Roku and remote I noticed the included batteries weren't sealed up."It must have been used or at least tested."

Ah, that new plasticy smell

The lot out of the box

"hmmm,  hello old composite cable, what are you doing here?" A strange one this. Why would this be included in this day and age? 1995 is calling and they want their cables back.  A very odd choice for Roku to include this in my opinion. Even the NowTV box I purchased for the princely sum of £9.99 saw fit to include an HDMI cable. "Just as well I've a spare HDMI laying around." I thought as I found my ASDA purched £1.29 HDMI cable - well, there really is no benefit of paying any more for a HDMI cable and don't let anyone else tell you different!

Next I saw what looked like a pretty poor excuse for a set of headphones. "well, you won't be seeing much usage" I thought to myself. It's beyond me why anyone would use such a cheap set of headphones.

Thanks for the composite jacks Roku, these are sure to be more useful than an Ethernet port ;)

Next I set about getting it all hooked up to my LG TV. It looked so small and insignificant next to 55" TV. Surely this little box won't offer a better experience than my TV?

It's only a little thing... awww

Once I got it powered on I hit a small snag. The remote control didn't seem to work. The Roku logo was showing, but I couldn't do anything. "the batteries must be drained" I thought to myself. I should have known better than to try to use the supplied already-used batteries. I changed them out and tried again.. Still not joy. "hmmm... broken remote?" I snagged my son's NowTv box controller and tried that - It worked no problem.

I used this for the intial setup, getting connected to wifi, after this I was surprised to see that I had to go to a computer to enter a link code to continue. I proceeded on my phone, I was then forced to setup a Roku account, enter my name, address and phone number. Since I've just moved house and couldn't remember this it was a real pain in the ass. After this hurdle they made me setup some kind of payment method, you either have to register a debit/credit card or a paypal account. Again, since I was lazy and couldn't be bothered going to get my wallet to find my card I went the paypal route. I was forced to enter my paypal username and password and setup an agreement which means any apps I purchase in the Roku store will automatically be taken from my paypal account. Not entirely happy with this in all honesty.  Only after completing the paypal screen was I taken by to "My Roku" homepage, which prompted me to add commonly used channels. I added these and within seconds my Roku box completed the setup. Crafty gits.

At this point I'm still frustrated to be using the NowTv controller and go poking around in the settings. I found a remote control setup page and in there find instructions on how to pair a new "Roku enchanced remote". I'm such an idiot. There is a small "pairing" button under the battery cover. After pressing this for a few seconds it kicks into life. I've now learnt my lesson and shall endeavour to always read the manual in the future... naaa who am I kidding. I won't!

So, all working nicely, I find the screen setup page and set the display to 1080p. It's strange why they don't have method for detecting if your TV supports this, or at least some kind of prompt to tell you it's running a t 720p and can go higher.

With it all setup I investigated the app store and soon found my Plex client under "popular" apps section.

With that downloaded I decided to test it out. A nice clean interface, much better than my smart-TV and also much quicker to load, and generally a slicker experience.

The app has it's own settings which allow you to set the resolution output, transcoding options and you are able to adjust the bit rate. I couldn't do any of these options on my smart-TV. I did find it worrying that it said 1080p at 8Mbps was "pushing the limits, requires a fast connection" and this was the lowest setting for 1080p. I was starting to worry that maybe that Ethernet jack may be missed after-all.

My worries were soon put to rest as I tried many different movies, some of a very high bit rate and found the Roku was able to handle everything without stuttering. I even tried to playback some 3D movies at high resolutions/bit-rates and found that the Roku was able to handle them well.

Yikes.

You can't tell, but it's the opening to Avatar in 3D.

I tested out the headphones that attached to the remote control port, one of the main selling features of the "2" vs the "1" model. A very worthwhile feature when you have young children in the house asleep and fear waking them up in case you never get them back to sleep. The supplied headphones weren't great, the sound was rather "tinny" for my liking, but they would do in a bind. I haven't had a chance to assess how quickly using this feature will drain the batteries.

That remote control headphone jack.

I've now started to explore the Roku app store and added in a few free channels such as "Hoopla for Kids", and "Angry Birds Toons". I'm sure the kids will enjoy them and there is loads of free content available to explore.

All-in-all, I'm very pleased with this little box. My initial concerns about the lack of Ethernet port were unfounded, It's not really that important these days as long as you own a decent router and don't keep it too far away from your Roku. For £50 you can't really go wrong here.