Here's Why You Need A Roku Box
Do you want to be your best self? Sure you do. Here's how to start. Buy a Roku Box. Wait, what? Your life plan for being the best you can be didn't involve a small $100 box that would allow you to watch Netflix Watch Instantly and all sorts of other online streaming television AND media files from a portable hard drive via USB directly on your TV? Well, that's why you're letting us—me, your parents, everybody—all down with what you've done with yourself thus far.
It's fine. You're behind the curve. You were under the impression that nerds who could setup a modded out XBox (cool job nerds) were the only ones who could watch the best in streaming online video content and not not-pirated and illegally downloaded media. I'll be honest, that's what we'd suspected you'd think. You haven't so much let us down as continued to meet our managed (read "lowered") expectations of you.
But enough about you failing the people who care about you most in life, here's what's great about the Roku Box: You just get it, plug it into your TV, connect it to your Wi-Fi, and then you're ready to go. Everything on Netflix Watch Instantly is right there! Boom! Hulu Plus! Boom! Let's kick it up another notch: Plug a portable hard drive into the USB port and, just like that, you can watch all of the episodes of the Korean soap opera "Secret Garden" that you downloaded off the really cool Korean soap opera messageboard just a few days prior! BOOM! It's really that easy.
So stop trying so hard to be someone you're not by "going out" and enjoying an "active social life." You're just disappointing everyone! Stay at home, watch Korean soap operas on your Roku Box, cool guy.
This content is brought to you by the new Hyundai Elantra which helps you "Snap Out" of your routine to live your best life.
Sponsored posts are purely editorial content that we are pleased to have presented by a participating sponsor, in this case the Hyundai Elantra; advertisers do not produce the content.
My sister has one. It kicks yards of ass.
I am standing here with a Roku and a cast iron skillet. I am stark naked and hungry and my lips are chapped.
I think you skipped over some of the things I need.
Have no fear, the next installment will address the wide array of Defonte's hot hero sandwiches.
NOT ANYMORE.
too 2009?
I've got one. And a Boxee!
But until someone comes up with a solution for streaming live sports (AHEM), it's going to be hard to position these things as worthy of dropping cable for. Yet.
It can do MLB.tv, which is the main reason I bought one. Adding ESPN3 would go a long way, but yeah, getting sports online with all those individual college conference cable networks is the hard part.
And, really, who cares about hoop?
Why is this a Hyundai supported post?
Shouldn't it be Roku sponsored?
And Clarence is correct – live sports!
Let me guess. The damn thing doesn't work in Canada
Or, you could get one of those Blu-Ray players that does all of that and also plays your Blu-Rays and DVDs.
Oh yeah, I have one of those too.
Or, I could just steal a cable from work and connect my laptop to my TV. The remote control makes the Roku attractive, but one can't overlook the thrill of petty theft.
And now, unlimited streaming from Amazon with Amazon Prime: http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/22/amazon-launches-prime-instant-videos-unlimited-streaming-for-pr/
Days like this I regret spending all that money building a Boxee machine.
"Your life plan for being the best you can be didn't involve a small $100 box that would allow you to watch Netflix Watch Instantly and all sorts of other online streaming television AND media files from a portable hard drive via USB directly on your TV?"
should read "what kind of niche idiot are you that you read the Awl but don't already have a device that that would allow you to watch Netflix Watch Instantly"
Whoa. Hey. 5 digit commenter numbers. I feel old.
Whoa!
It must be Gawker fallout.
Get this guy a column, stat.
How do I sign up for home help from The Awl Technology Squad?
I can pay in martinis and/or word count.
Tell us more about this "Secret Garden"
Maybe I'm just a grump, but I think the fact that this is a sponsored ad should be above the fold, not at the end. If the prevailing opinion is that the Hyundai click ad and the title of the post is enough, that's fine, but this makes my worry pants, well, worry.
I have a Micca, a device that weighs about as much as a croissant, that cost me a little less than $30. It plugs into a TV, either flatscreen or old-school, and you can stick in it a flashdrive or scandisk with video on it to play on your TV. And where you got that video is your own damn business!