CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 7097 Location: Fort Collins, CO

Actually, all the Roku players have wireless, including the $60 Roku HD. So no problem there. I just need to decide if I want to bother paying maybe 50% more for BD capability.

**ecrabb** · Posted: Mon Nov 22, 2010 3:40 pm Post subject:

The $60 Roku HD has wireless.

AppleTV has built-in 802.11b/g/n, too.

SC

**ecrabb** · Posted: Mon Nov 22, 2010 3:41 pm Post subject:

Why would you, Gary? Do you really see yourself watching a lot of BD's in the living room on an SD TV? I guess the only thought would be if you upgrade the TV at some point, you'll already have a BD player. Of course, it'll be obsolete and unsupported in a year or two, so...

SC

akajester · Joined: 09 Jul 2008 Posts: 927 Location: Wisconsin

Roku comparison chart;

http://shop.roku.com/Roku-Streaming-Player-Options-W5.aspx

My mistake, the $99 has N wireless, but yeah, they all have wifi. excellent.

Dale

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 7097 Location: Fort Collins, CO

Yeah, that's my thought too. The $60 Roku box is probably a good bet.

Although, hmm, looks like Walmart has a wifi-capable Magnavox MBP5120F player on sale this weekend for $69, usually $120...

greg_mitch · Joined: 03 May 2006 Posts: 5198

akajester · Joined: 09 Jul 2008 Posts: 927 Location: Wisconsin

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 7097 Location: Fort Collins, CO

Hm. The Walmart site says it works with "Vudu, Netflix, Blockbuster."

But the manual says nothing about Netflix.

I assume it needs specific support for Netflix, and if the manual sez it ain't there, it ain't there?

akajester · Joined: 09 Jul 2008 Posts: 927 Location: Wisconsin

The manual is from August 2010 and they put out a firmware update October 2010. Perhaps that added netflix support but they haven't updated the manuals?

Walmart is usually really good with returns. I'm sure they'd take it back if it didn't work as advertised.

Dale

greg_mitch · Joined: 03 May 2006 Posts: 5198

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 7097 Location: Fort Collins, CO

I don't think you'll get the LG 550 for $10 more than the $69 Walmart deal. Cheapest I see it is $93 at Amazon, $120 or more everywhere else. Plus I can't find anything that says it supports wifi.

greg_mitch · Joined: 03 May 2006 Posts: 5198

Spanky Ham · Joined: 22 Mar 2006 Posts: 3910 Location: Comedy Central

Greg makes a good point about BR players. Even if one doesn't have a HD TV, you can still watch BRs on it. I assume most here are now buying mostly BRs.

On the PS3 vs Xbox battle, I must say that I prefer the PS3. I always thought I couldn't play non-PC games, because I looked like a spaz with the Xbox. I tried out my friends PS3 with Batman and was like WOW. It wasn't me, it was the freaking Xbox. Of course, Sony did drop Linux support for the four people in the world who cared.

greg_mitch · Joined: 03 May 2006 Posts: 5198

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 7097 Location: Fort Collins, CO

Is that a Black Friday deal?

Still no wifi though, so that's a non-starter for me.

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 7097 Location: Fort Collins, CO

Well, I picked up one of the $69 Magnavox players at Walmart this morning.

And the Walmart ad was wrong. It does NOT support Netflix.

So I got up at 4:30am for NOTHING. Grumble

Unless I see something better, guess I'll look for a Roku box...

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 7097 Location: Fort Collins, CO

Hah! We stopped by Walmart this afternoon to return the player. We discovered a huge pile of the Magnavox players. I.e. I didn't need to get up at 4:30 to get the damn thing. Evil or Very Mad

BUT we also noticed two of the next-up model on top of the pile -- which supports Netflix -- at the same $69 price!

I see some problems with this, though. My son is not impressed because Netflix apparently doesn't carry TV episodes until the season is over. And his two favorite shows aren't available for streaming.

Bigger problem, though, is the flexibility of playback. We try really hard to limit their screen time, which gets harder and harder all the time. Turns out you can get Netflix on an iPod Touch. So now they have unlimited "TV" time (until their wifi shuts off at 9pm), and Netflix doesn't seem to record their viewing selections very well. Not too comfortable with that...

WanMan · Joined: 19 Mar 2006 Posts: 9668

FYI: Sony brand BD players were going for $97 at Costco all week, plus several models were going for $79 on Amazon this week.