Despite how much I dislike Google, I’ve resorted to using a Chromecast because it’s quicker, less of a hassle, and gives me the option of forcing stereo audio instead of the faux surround sound. I can also use JustWatch on my phone, tap the service that a movie/show is on, and directly open the corresponding app to cast from. It’s also nice being able to type directly on my phone instead of using the Roku remote, especially since many of the available Roku apps don’t support keyboard input from the mobile Roku remote app. Finally, I like that I can cast directly from my computer as well.
I also have an Apple TV, but its touchpad remote is annoying and it provides less value for me since I’ve moved away from Macs.
I currently have a really nice Sony with Android TV, but I had so many problems with the built-in Android that I plugged an nVidia Shield box into it instead and all those problems went away.
The other OS's all had their own issues, but the worst part of them was, like your Roku, the slowness. Everything is massively underpowered. Nobody wants to wait for the TV to slowly load apps when they want to be watching something.
In addition, other than Android, all of them tend to lag behind on updates after the initial launch of the each app.
So now I ignore whatever is on the TV and use an external box. I've considered FireTV and Roku again, but every time I look into them, I read about problems that I don't want to have (like this article) and so I stick with nVidia Shield boxes.
Can confirm. I tried a bunch of different things (even the OUYA), went to support smaller companies (Wetek) but it was all one big mess and impossible to have a couple of days pass by without a crash of either the viewer programs or just the complete OS getting stucked. I feel sorry for them, but really this thing should be like a plain analog TV which worked (in my area) fine every single day for decades. The Shield does this for me. Think I had one crash of the local TV streaming app in the past months, for the rest it has been working flawlessly for years and didn't even have to replace the remote's batteries yet. That is how such dedicated hardware should just work.
I have a Roku at home, but also an nVidia Shield. The Shield is fast, but it has a lot of problems. First is that you must install an app to disable the Netflix button. If you enter Netflix, it does not easily let you leave the app and the button makes it far to easy to accidentally enter it. Second, the YouTube app on the shield has a weird problem where it goes into some kind of stagger mode where it updates the screen only every few seconds (maybe it gets into this mode if the bandwidth is temporarily too low). You need to rewind the video to get it to play again properly. Finally the triangular remote is terrible- it's falling apart.
Roku has none of these problems. I should say I have the older RF Roku remote, not the newer cheap LED one.
Not sure who’s to blame here.
I haven't noticed any differences in color though, so I can't speak to that. Maybe the HDMI input has different picture settings set than the base Roku? I'm sure you've tried that though, so I don't know.
That being said, when I first use a new input on my TV, I sometimes forget that each input has its own profile on my TV, and have to shut off the stupid smooth motion modes and adjust colors, etc. Are you sure this isn't the case on your TV?
Maybe try swapping the inputs and see if that makes a difference?
Chrome cast is also greatly affected by what your casting with, VLC, Videostream, chrome can all produce very different results depending on the content
Indeed, one of the nice things about Android TV is that from a content protection point of view you don't really need to trust the OS at all as it's all abstracted down to the hardware.
Outside of the TVs with Roku built in I wonder how many people will buy Roku devices in the future. It will be hard for Roku to continue to compete if they have say, 10-20 percent market share.
I use a Roku now, but I don’t think I will in the future. My tv is older, so no built in apps. Roku was a cheap way to add that functionality without a big box. With that said, I am regularly disappointed with the performance of Roku especially with Plex. I am considering an Apple TV because I know IOS devices work well with Plex and there is a more robust app ecosystem available.
The entire smart-tv space is definitely fractured, and trying to develop for so many platforms all at once can be frustrating, especially when you're doing so in your spare time. Thankfully, at least in my case, I've had someone more experienced step in recently to help with a side-project on AndroidTV, but I digress.
Honestly, if I had a dongle for my Chromecast that supported ethernet, and I weren't too lazy to order one, I wouldn't really use the Roku anymore. With the removal of the Twitch channel, Spectrum channel, and others, I'm becoming more and more disenchanted with the platform.
Fortunately there's an unofficial "uncertified" third party channel you can add to get back basic Twitch support: https://www.fanbyte.com/guides/how-to-watch-twitch-on-roku-d...
I haven't found anything similar for Reuters, so I just have their YouTube feed now, but I still miss the nicely packaged 15-30 minute segments.
I've seen audio stutter on a smart TV running the Netflix streaming app, and similar stutter on a network-enabled Blu-Ray player running the Amazon Video streaming app. I've seen 4K playback cause occasional stuttering in the Amazon Video app on a smart TV. Disney+ group playback is currently unsupported on PS4, but is supported on Xbox One. A few years ago, the PS3 Netflix app supported 1080p, whereas the Xbox 360 Netflix app only supported 720p. I've also seen the Xbox One YouTube app insist on playing a video at 720p or lower, despite that Roku will play it at 1080p (perhaps an issue with only a certain codec being available at that quality?). I've seen a paid video service with an iPhone app with completely broken Chromecast support (they fixed it a few weeks after I filed a bug report).
I'm struggling to understand the claim made by this statement. Maybe I missed something? What does HTML have to do with serving video over the wire? Underperforming on which metrics? What's the time value of "these days"?
LG is the only one that could be said to have sufficient marketshare to justify that investment for any but the largest VOD providers now. The revenue generated from those platforms once rights holders are paid is a fraction of what it costs to maintain them simply through testing overhead. Android TV and Tizen's marketshare has increased rapidly over the last few (read three-ish) years, and when you often need to account for international rollout or repurposing in your cost analysis it's even stronger (Roku has zero marketshare outside of the US, many large cable companies outside of the US have Android TV based set-top boxes with multiple million installations).
This generally also applies to browser based streaming, with the added bonus that is where a bunch of piracy comes from.
This is actually a declining trend. LG and Samsung do but Moore's law has gotten it to a point where Android TV and, in fact Roku's platform are becoming much more prevalent on TVs, particularly some of the newer lower end devices. There's a large cost to maintaining your own HTML based platform (which is what most 3rd parties are) and the HTML platforms pretty radically under-perform these days.
Android TV could win but much like the US cable operators the large CE providers aren't too excited about getting so closely tied to Google. Roku's continued independence is cool in a space where there is so much consolidation, and attractive to some CE manufacturers.