How to Upload Your Own Theme Roku
(Pocket-lint) - Roku has refreshed its Roku set-summit box lineup and with it announced the launch of the Roku 3, a £100 flagship box of tricks that promises to turn your Telly into something considerably smarter.
Merely does the Roku iii make sense given that you could purchase the company'southward rebadged At present Television set box for a mere tenner instead, and is it besides express in content terms in the UK?
What is information technology?
Roku is ane of those companies that needs a bit of introduction. For some it's a household name, for others yous'll exist scratching your caput wondering what the heck it's all about.
Roku 3 is the company's top-spec set-summit box that plugs into your TV and enables streaming of content. Whether films, Goggle box programmes, music or games, the interface opens y'all upward to plenty of content direct from the internet - whether by Wi-Fi or Ethernet. You tin also handle your own content via USB or microSD should you have files you want to get to play back on your TV.
Just the company has American roots and, as such, it's taking a little fourth dimension for UK support at every given angle. For example you can open up up BBC iPlayer to catch upward on services, merely there's no iv On Demand or ITV Actor just all the same. They'll come along at a later date, nosotros believe, but for now it'due south all about playing the waiting game.
Design & setup
The Roku iii box devices measures in at 89 x 89 ten 25 mm in size and weighs just 170g, non that you'll be carrying it around. That makes for a diddy little box that, from the outside, doesn't really propose the power that information technology contains within. More than on that later.
The black box features curved edges giving it a somewhat pebble-similar look and feel and is everything the Apple TV's blackness-cake design isn't. It is finished with a piano gloss black paint job with the merely distracting detail beingness a purple fabric characterization saying Roku on information technology.
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The side sports a USB port, while the back hosts an HDMI, a somewhat hidden microSD slot, and an Ethernet socket. A lot of that hard-wired connectivity is what puts Roku 3 steps ahead of its Roku 2 XS predecessor. But information technology's non all about difficult-wiring - Wi-Fi b/g/northward is available too for those that want to stream over the airwaves. The box itself is discreet, and tin can be easily lost at the back of your TV as the included remote doesn't need a directly line of sight to work.
READ: Roku 2 XS review
Setting it upward is incredibly like shooting fish in a barrel likewise. Plug in the Roku 3 to your TV via an HMDI cablevision and get through the setup pages. Once you've continued to your wireless network you are asked to then validate the box via Roku's website on a separate device like your laptop, tablet, or smartphone.
This is to ensure you've got a Roku business relationship, a requirement of getting everything to work. Yous'll also need to part with your credit card details even though there is no subscription or cost to pay - such ongoing payments will only come into play if you want to download certain subscription-based apps.
The remote
I up and running your quondam-vanilla Telly is transformed into a channel-capable hub, complete with included remote control. It's comfortable in the hand, well congenital, and reminds is of a variant of the Nintendo Wii Remote in a piano gloss blackness end. It's powered by 2 AA batteries and feels well idea out - this is no afterthought thrown into the box.
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The button configuration includes an array of buttons to help speed up your navigation effectually the Roku's on-screen menu system and that includes a d-pad, domicile push button, back button and play/break, fast forwards and rewind. There is also an A and B for gaming, and the Wii reference adds further credence when you detect out that the remote also offers motion control for games like Angry Birds.
There is no number pad or keyboard, but you don't really need aqueduct numbers like a regular Television receiver here as it's based around your own apps. If yous really desire to outset searching for a lot of shows you tin can download a defended app for Android or iOS to use on your smartphone instead.
Probably something you aren't expecting or familiar with on a remote is a 3.5mm headphone jack. You can plug in a pair of headphones to mute the noise coming from the television and listen from distant, with a dedicated book switch to control simply how loud you can become. It's an amazingly elementary idea, but one we love, especially if you lot are a regular tardily night Tv watcher one time the rest of the household has gone to bed.
Interface
Using the remote makes information technology easy to chop through the Roku'south on-screen interface which, for the Roku 3, has been completely overhauled.
It'southward now based around two panels that you can coil through or beyond. On the opening screen you have My Channels, Channel Shop, and Settings on the left. On the right you accept a grid of nine channel spaces to let you lot go directly to your favourite channels. Scrolling to the correct gets rid of the first menu and instead of revealing more than channel options a huge advert - either for Roku or Netflix or someone - appears, which is not only a bit naff but a huge waste of screen real estate.
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You can move channels into the order y'all want them past pressing the asterisk button on the remote just you lot can't ever get more than nine tiles on the screen at whatsoever i fourth dimension. To view more than you have to whorl downwardly.
There is some customisation, merely non to fix the above nine tile problem. It'due south more than cosmetic stuff: Roku allows you to change the look of the carte interface, swapping out the regal colour scheme for diverse seasonal themes or 1 of five presets that go by names such as "Daydream" - it'south got clouds on it - or "Decaf" - it's brownish.
The interface, although wasteful in utilize of space on screen, is easy to use and straightforward - but one thing to bear in mind is that because there is no overriding menu arrangement forced on to app developers every app looks and feels different. That's either smashing or poor depending on how you await at these things.
Channel Store
The cadre arroyo to Roku is that y'all can expand it by adding more "channels" via the Aqueduct Store. Dissimilar Apple TV you lot don't have to wait for a system update to add together more content or for more content to get available. But wait for developers to get on and develop an app for it. Here in that location is plenty of choice and plenty being added frequently.
READ: Apple Telly (2012) review
Large hitters already available include BBC iPlayer, Netflix, Now Tv, Demand 5, Sky News, Crackle, Vevo, Plex, Spotify, and TuneIn Radio. In that location are also games like Angry Birds and Angry Birds Space, but those two really are the cream of the crop, while other apps like a tertiary-political party Dropbox app allow you to share your Dropbox-based photos on your Television. You can as well become apps like Flickr, Facebook, and Picasa.
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Equally with all app stores there are some good apps and services and a lot of rubbish, and it's the same hither with Roku. Of the hundreds that are bachelor you'll probably only be interested in the handful we've already mentioned. However, the good news is that they are present and that if a new hot service launches it tin can very easily be added - none of this waiting for Apple to do add them equally is the case with Apple TV.
What you don't go however is the risk to hire or buy content in the same way as the iTunes store, although with Now Goggle box covering all the latest movies, and Netflix covering a large chunk of TV shows you should be pretty well covered. There are, as we mentioned earlier, some omissions still: no 4oD and no ITV Histrion might exist a adequately big deal for you, but one we believe will be "plugged up" in the nearly futurity.
READ: Now TV box review
Specs
Roku 3 is more than powerful than its Roku XS predecessor; it'south got a similar spec to the iPad 3 when information technology comes to what'due south under the hood. And that means better games support - although we don't anticipate many will buy it for that reason.
When information technology comes to games similar Angry Birds Space the Roku 3 work well, but so Angry Birds isn't very demanding. Loading times are kept to a minimum and everything runs smoothly rather than beingness laggy at any bespeak.
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But it'south format support where the Roku 3 shows off its stuff. At that place's back up for 480p, 720p, and 1080p resolutions along with 7.ane and 5.i surround audio passed through the HDMI cable. Via the USB - which wasn't available in the Roku XS - you can play H.264 MP4 and MKV formats for video and AAC and MP3 for music. The Roku also supports playback of images stored in JPG or PNG formats. That's bang-up if you have local files.
In exercise, unless you are using some random video streaming codec, you should notice those to embrace the primary bases. Failing that you can either side-load your content or stream it from your PC with apps like Plex.
Verdict
The Roku iii is a decent Boob tube-top box that will offer plenty to nigh people looking to "cut the cablevision" as Americans would say. While there are some annoyances with the interface layout and a lot of dross in the app store - practise you actually want to pay £one.49 for a puppy screensaver? - the main grab-up Telly services are here.
There are noticeable omissions - four On Demand and ITV Player beingness two - simply the important ones similar Netflix, Now, and BBC iPlayer are hither. Does that arrive worth the £100 asking price?
Nosotros retrieve so, yes. The Roku 3 costs £xxx more than the Roku XS, but adds the USB socket for localised file support, Ethernet port for speedy streaming support, and is a smoother, more deeply invested service than before. Information technology might non be possible to download and store local content, like with Apple tree TV, but the added microSD carte slot, the motion controller and faster processor make Roku 3 a worthwhile upgrade that fills in some of the omissions of its predecessor.
If, however, your plan is to just stream catch-upwards services then you lot will exist more than than happy with the Roku XS for less greenbacks. If y'all don't care about Neflix then save yourself a lot of money and go for the Now Boob tube box instead - although that's limited to 720p streaming, not 1080p support equally establish hither - which might be nowhere near every bit powerful, but does deliver a lot for the outlay.
Source: https://www.pocket-lint.com/tv/reviews/roku/124516-roku-3-review
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