When last we left our heroes, they were worried about the ramifications of cancelling their cable subscription: being without the content they knew and loved. With the help of Netflix and Amazon, those worries may be cast aside:
Back to the content. For those looking to “cut the cord” from a Pay TV service but don’t want to lose out on their favorite movie channels (e.g., HBO, Starz) or VoD shows, you will be quite pleased. We found TONS of content options for our family.
Cutting the Cord Part 6: Roku Review— Simple and Easy OTT Video Device – Trender Research™
Roku is a nifty, inexpensive ($99) appliance originally marketed specifically for Netflix. Since its introduction, it has added additional internet streaming services
- Amazon Video on demand
- MLB.com
- and the always popular: more coming soon
Given Brian’s original concern over missing out on the Red Sox play off run, it was surprising to see him refer to MLB’s blackout restriction that was recently lifted for the new Postseason.tv. Brand new for this October, the $10 offering should exceed, not only meet his requirements.
He did mention three different services, all with their own authentication (for you to use the service) and authorization (for you to use it with Roku). Without having completed the process, it would not be fair to state how well the two phases are or are not integrated. However, from reading Brian’s post, it may be inferred that after establishing the three accounts, it was required for each to then be informed to allow the Roku player to receive the content. A good bet that each has a subtle difference to complicate matters.
Roku as well as boxee’s should work with MLB to make linking those ID’s a little easier. Boxee already has a nice way to tie in the open authentication of web 2.0 services, such as
- Google address books
- Yahoo address books
- twitter accounts
If enough vendors ask MLB to have a more user friendly sign up program that would lead to more sales, you can be sure they will listen. In fact, someone may have already posted a postseason.tv comment on his blog if it didn’t require joining a new social network. How about adding support for
- Facebook connect
Quickly a few things that did not appear to come up about the new setup with Roku:
- HDMI tops out at 720p
- there would appear to be no storage on the device
- fancy as it may be, the Roku remote is a standard NEC and can be replaced with a universal remote
Without spending too much time to identify exactly what type of HDTV the Mahony “flat panel TV on the wall” is and researching the scaling capability, they may want to start investigation 1080p Over the top (OTT) options. They seem happy un-tethered, so more power to them. This revolution will most definitely not be televised.
Tags: Amazon, Boxee, Cable, Entertainment, Facebook Connect, HDMI, HDTV, Netflix, OTT, Postseason, Roku, social media, Sports, Technology, television, video, web 2.0
After the Transition 
Leave a Reply