For Netflix users - Roku XD review

shop deals on amazon
Shop deals on ebay
Advertise with us
Ford SportTrac Forum

Help Support Ford SportTrac Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
TJR is correct,

I bought the newer Roku XDS box because it is tri-band and I have N-band wireless router....I am assuming that the XD would work just as well since I have a netbook (b/g band) and an older notebood (b band only) and they both work just fine since the router can the older b/g bands.



As for the Roku box going dead in a few days or weeks? That probably happens to a some electronic items from every manufacturer. My theory is that electronic items with a weak component will usually fail rather quickly so I will burn them in for about 24 hours just to stress test them early while the warranty is in effect and you have a more liberal replacement policy.



In the case of the Roku box, there is no on/off power switch, so it stays on as long as the power is connected. I have watched about 4 movies in the first 24 hours and it has performed flawlessly.



TJR,

I got my Home Theater system connected and running and it sounds great. I also switched over the cable box to HDMI (still left the old component cables connected) and the the sound from the TV speakers is much better now but I am currently using the audio coming from the Home Theater 5 speaker surround-sound system (1000 watts), but I have noticed that TV shows that are not broadcast in HD seem to only have mono sound (only the Center speakers are active??) But movies from Roku are full 5-speaker surround sound.



...Rich



 
Richard L,



Yeah, I've noticed some time ago that much of TV simply is not even in stereo, but in center-channel only.



Do you have your Netflix subscription yet?



TJR
 
TJR,

Yep, I signed up for NetFlix while installing my Roku box, and I have watched about 5 movies already. I also have the 5 channel home theater system hooked up and running, and all is working fine. I still have not placed the rear speakers where I want them since I cannot get the the wires tucked into the crack between the capet and baseboards and the carpet and tile at the kitchen..:angry: I guess its something I can do later when I have more patience.



I have been playing with my Logitech Harmony One programmable remote to control all the functions of the TV, Cable box, Home Theater, and Roku box. You can program it for Activities that turn on and configure the settings on multiple components at once. The Roku box is not listed on the website so I can't do anything with it except to swtich the TV input to to HDMI2 and turn on the Home Theater and set the input to D-In. You can train the Logitech to learn the commands from the other remote, so I will probably have to do that. I just hate having 4-5 remote controls cluttering up the place.



...Rich



 
I have the Logitech Harmony 880 in use in our home theater.... It is great.



Let me know if you need a link to all the station images that you can use to apecialize the fave buttons on your remotemmm or just Google for them.



TJR
 
TJR,

Unfortunately my Time Warner cable box does not have a true Favorites list or menu. Their Fav button only cycles thru the channels numerically that you have marked as favorites. So I do not have any direct access to any specific favorite channel unless I key in the channel number. Of course, they keep changing the channel line up and I have to constantly keep updating my favorites, and rescanning on my other TV's (no Cable box).



One of the things I have noticed is that when I connect my TV to the cable box with HDMI cable, some channels have a slight sound delay...not all channels, just a few? When I switch back the the Component1 connection, there is no audio delay? Have you experienced that?



I suspect it may be caused by the cable box taking a little longer to process the digital sound

since the analog sound is fine, but that does not explain why the audio is not delayed on all channels. ie: NBC audio is delayed via HDMI, but not CBS, ABC, FOX or PBS nor most other channels. Perhaps the NBC broadcast station has a slight delay in their digital audio signal?



Some days the audio delayis very noticable and other times it's only a very slight delay, or not even detectable. I don't know who to complain to since I don't know the source of the problem?



Other than that, everything is working alright and I got my Roku keys programmed onto my Logitech Harmony One remote.



Do you know if it is possible to force the Home Theater to control the audio volume while the cable box controls the TV channel selections without having to switch between the devices?



...Rich
 
RichardL,



I mentioned the favorite channel icons because my Harmony 880 remote has an LCD screen and two pages of favorite buttons, and those can be programmed and include logos of the channels you set up (HBO, NBC, etc).



As for the sound delay, it could be your box, but if it were the box it would more likely be a more uniform delay across all or most channels. Since it is just a few, I suspect that delay is introduced back in TW's systems.



With my setup I have the home theater's AV receiver in use for volume adjusting, and channel selecting is through the cable box. Both (along with the TV and DVD player) are controlled through the single, Harmony 880 remote. It can be done.



TJR
 
Both devices need to be part of an "Activity" then you tell it to control channels on the cable box and audio through the receiver.
 
TJR & JDBoxes,

I have the LCD panel and the ability to support favorite channels on the Logitech Harmony remote, but my cable box does not support direct access to specific Favorite channels. Pressing the Favorite button just advances to the next numerically sequenced Favorite channel on your Favorites list. If I have 20 channels on my Favorites list and I am on the first channel, i must press the button 19 more times to get to the 20th channel on my Favorites list. Does the Logitech Harmony allow you to program a Favorite channel with the specific channel number? Then that may work...I just have not looked into that yet.



I have programmed the devices linked to each activity. It asked me which device I wanted to use to control the audio volume and I selected the Home Theater system. However I have to select the Home Theater system device on the remote to control the volume. If the active device is the cable box, the cable box controls the volume, and if the TV is the active device, the TV controls the volume. So, to change channels I have to select the cable box before I can change the channel. If I want to change the volume, i must select the Home Theater. I thought this Logitech Harmony remote was capable of programing these crossover functions to a specific device based on the activity?



...Rich
 
My Logitech Harmony 880 allows two LCD panels of favorite channels (8 per panel, 16 in all) to each be configured with an image and a channel number, any channel number.



The harmony remote that I have allows for a given activitiy to orchestrate one or more different devices, and then specific functions (like volume, channel switching, etc), be assigned to a specific device for said activity. An activity is like: "Watch TV", or "Watch DVD." It works for me.



TJR
 
You need to make sure the activity is active and not a specific device for crossover functions to work.



If the harmony is setup correctly you should never have to use device items unless you are into weird menu items on the device that isn't used day to day. I don't mean correctly in that it works, I mean you might have to program a few additional commands and fiddle with it to make it "correct" so that device items aren't required to do typical tasks.



I can't comment on the favorites, I don't even have cable or an antenna hooked to my tv anymore, and I've never used them in the past.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
TJR & JDBoxes,

Ok, I got the Harmony set up correctly now. I found where you can assign the volume or channel changing to a specific device and now I have my volume and mute controlled by my Home Theater System, and the Channel changes are controlled by the Cable box.



I also found the screen that allows me to setup to default screens of Channel icons and it does allow the entry of the channel number...I have set up one screen so far, and my model Harmony has 3 screens with six channels per screen for a total of 18 channels.



TJR,

OK, let me have the link to the station Icons. Do I have to download the icons, one at a time, or can I download all of them and pick the one I need for a particular icon in the Harmony software when I set up that channel?



...Rich
 
RichardL,



The zip file I used is linked below, and it has a folder that has most of the common USA broadcast and cable channel icons in a folder: h800_060124/USA
 
TJR,

Thanks for the icons. It contained nearly all the station icons I needed. I think there were only two channels that it did not have an Icon for..."Create", and "Versus".



I also found that I can load 24 Favorite channel icons. My Harmony has 4 pages with 6 icons per page.



I have got all the volume controls and channel changing assigned to the correct device based on the Activity and everything is working perfectly except for the delayed sound on some channels...I will probably contact the cable company and see if they can explain why that's happening.



Thanks for all your help.



...Rich
 
Richard L,



Glad we could help. Sounds like you have almost reached couch potato nirvana.



The Harmony remotes kick some serious butt. Probably not for the technical faint of heart, though. Still, if you are "the guy" in the house that always has to listen to the complaining about multiple remotes, or the does the training and retraining of people in the house as to how to set up the HT, then they are for YOU!



TJR
 
TJR,

I am a bachelor, so the only other creatures in my house are my two dogs...and they don't watch TV...lol



I have had my Harmony over a year, but in that time I changed TV's, and changed cable services and cable boxes due to my moving to a new house. I never had the harmony completely set up and I only had my old Sony TV programmed.



Before I retired my office was moving, around the same time I was moving to my new house, so the Harmony got packed up and left in a box for the better part of a year.



After I dug out the Harmony and got it charged, I discovered that the old Sony Home Theater system I had for about 9-10 years and never used was only setup for Component Audio/video:angry:. So I ordered a new Samsung Home Theater, and that's when I saw an article about the Roku box. After you posted, I ordered one from Amazon and got it 3 days before the original scheduled delivery date (great service:grin:)



Of course I lost the owners manual for the Harmony and downloaded a new one, but I did have the Logitech software installed on my computer and it was already registered, etc. Anyway, it's amazing how much you can forget when you don't use something for a year !!:grin:



Anyway, thanks for all your help and getting me pointed in the right direction. :haveabeer:

I owe you one. Perhaps this summer I may go up to eastern Ohio and visit my daughter and I might drive over to PA to say hello and have a beer...If you're up to it.



...Rich





 
Richard L,



I know what you mean on the Logitech Harmony. I changed computers and had to download the software, again, just the other day to update my favorites (channel #s changed), but luckily it keeps your config in the cloud.



As for that beer, sure, hit me up. We live about 20 minutes off the northeast extension of the PA turnpike.



TJR
 
TJR,

I thought you lived in western PA closer to the Ohio border?? Not sure why I thought that? Not sure if I will drive that far for a beer? :grin:



Anyway, I am familiar with the area around where you live. Back around 1997 I was a Hospital Information Systems Consultant, and I had a client in Doylestown (Bucks County) Doylestown Hospital. I would fly to Philly every Sunday afternoon and arrive in Doylestown about midnight, then fly back home to Waco every Thursday afternoon and arrive home about 11:00pm after putting in 44-45 hours of work in 3.5 days. I did that every week for about 7 months....what a drag! The pay was great, but I was spending a lot of time traveling and my company only paid me for Billable Hours and not for my travel time which was about 16 hours a week not counting the late flights and weather delays.



I know what you mean about the cable companies changing their channel lineups. I just got a notice that TW cable was making some channel changes effective May 10th. Some standard cable-ready TV channels were moving and would require a cable box to receive them, but never officially said what was moving where>



...Rich



 
TJR,

Is Doylestown Hospital the nearest hospital and the one that you use?



The hospital is really nice and I'm sure they have a good medical staff, but their IT department management had their heads up their asses (at least they did back in 1997).



They imposed a 3 year pay freeze on all employees, then wondered why people were leaving. Then to really piss off the other employees they hire consultants like me and pay them $85-$120 an hour plus all travel and expenses. There were two consultants from my company working in the IT department and while we were there at least 4 more people left.



They hire new people who have no expirence with computers, IT or Hospital Information systems. At that time I had over 30 yrs of IT experience and 10 years experience in that specific HIS but they expect me to train the new hires in everything I know in 2 hours??? I was given the new hire for 2 hours to train them on everything I did in the previous 7 months I was there, all on the very last day I worked there...what a joke. Give me a break!!!



I hope you don't have any friends or relatives that worked at Doylestown Hospital or in their IT department. :cry:



...Rich











 
RichardL,



No Doylestown is not the nearest, but we have used it. Grand View is closer, and we use that more. Had one kid born there, one had an appendectomy there.



We moved to this area summer of 1998, just at the start of the end, so to speak with the IT "gold rush". It took until 2004 or 2005 until we started to see a good, solid recovery, and then that was short-lived due to the '08 recession.



I was an IT consultant for years and years, so I understand that hostility towards them from the full-timers, and I don't blame them for the hostility.



Still, this market and region has fared better than many.



P.S. My sister is head of risk management for an upstate NY hospital. She paints a pretty bleak picture of medical IT in general, from the hospitals she has served.



TJR
 

Latest posts

Top