Roku 2 Brings Casual Gaming to TVs

by Ganesh T S on 7/19/2011 11:34 PM EST
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  • dac7nco - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - link

    Sweet, now I can watch a horribly boring sport and get my neocon news with the same device. In all truthiness, I haven't played Galaga since 1984, and I want to on the big screen.

    Daimon
  • webmastir - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - link

    LOL @ foxnews. Ouch..
  • randinspace - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - link

    You took the Ls right out of my mouth.
  • dac7nco - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - link

    Anyone who agrees with me MUST be intelligent.

    Daimon
  • Justiciar - Friday, July 22, 2011 - link

    Except for the fact that libtards have no clue about anything really.
  • Impulses - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - link

    Meh, if I wanted to play old school 8-bit games on an HDTV I could just use ZSNES or SNESoid (netbook/phone) and an HDMI cable... Truth be told, they play better on smaller screens at this point, where the pixels aren't the size of your eyeballs. :p
  • Impulses - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - link

    Actually, that'd be 16-bit I guess... Substitute for NESoid or an Atari emulator, same deal. :p Dr. Mario or some other competitive multilayer old school games are still enjoyable on a big screen even if they look like crap tho.
  • Metaluna - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - link

    Wow I almost bought a Roku last weekend. Glad I waited.

    No pricing listed for the XS, but I assume it will be around $99 if it's in keeping with their current pricing. It looks like that's the only model with wired Ethernet too.
  • danjw - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - link

    They are available through Roku's website, and yes they are $99.
  • Aquila76 - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - link

    Same here! I came oh so close to pulling the trigger, but then the wife's car decided to need repairs. Maybe it's not so bad a thing now...
  • Camikazi - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - link

    *sigh* Mine arrived in the mail today :P Ordered it maybe 2 days before the Roku 2 was released and I didn't even hear about the new one till just now.
  • Ratman6161 - Thursday, July 21, 2011 - link

    You really are not missing anything if you (like me) don't care about the "casual gaming" aspects. I've had the previous generation XD for a couple of months now. It is 1080P capable so there is nothing new about that. Also, my older generation XD has a wired Ethernet port which in the new generation you have to go up to the more expensive XS to get.

    Now as to the HD capabilities...forget about it...at least so far and for me. I've got an older 720P/1080i Sony TV so I set my XD for 720P. I was constantly having the playback stop and reload. Basically 720P was unusable most of the time. This is on a 18 Mbit cable connection where speedtest.net regularly reports > 40 Mbit. The Roku always reports the wireless signal strength to be Excellent. I have not tried the wired connection as its not conveniently located to my router. I've ended up dropping it down to 16:9 non-hd and there it works well.
  • gwolfman - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - link

    I've been looking at getting a media streamer lately, but I think I'll need something more universal than the Roku 2. Can anyone help point me in the right direction? Here's what I'm hoping to support:
    * Play Blu-ray iso's (yes, in .iso format)
    * Menus from within Blu-ray iso's (is this possible on a media device yet?)
    * Support HD audio codecs (DTS-HD, DD TrueDH)
    * Play DVD iso's
    * Menus from DVDs
    * FLAC support
    * MP3 support
    And some added bonus features:
    * Netflix
    * Amazon Video on Demand
    * Pandora

    Lastly, I need a transcoder/media server for my Windows machine that allows me to stream the iso's and audio files. Any suggestions? Thanks!
  • Hubb1e - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - link

    Check out the comparision table at MissingRemote.com

    From what I know none support everything you want. BD Menu and Netflix support are not both available, but the WD live supports netflix and BD lite and the Netgar Neo550 supports BD menus

    http://www.missingremote.com/guide/media-players-c...
  • ganeshts - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - link

    Check out either the Dune series or the PCH A-210. It does everything you want except for the bonus features.

    For those, get the Roku 2.

    Basically, there is no way out right now except getting 2 devices if you want the best of both local streaming and OTT streaming.

    With the Dune / PCH A-210 you don't need a transcoder or media server on your PC. With other media players like the inbuilt DLNA facility in TVs and other skimped Blu-ray / media players from companies like Sony, you will need to get one though.

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