Does anyone have a Roku player?

[Drachen]

I was at best buy buying my wife a nook for our first anniversary and I needed to spend about $60 more to get the 0% interest (yes I know that is how they hook you). Anyway, I needed an additional digital media player for the TV in the bedroom (currently have a wdtv live in the living room), and all they had was the netgear Roku XD. I had read many good things about the Roku and it was only 80 dollars, so I picked it up. I got it home, set it up, and .... It looks like it is not a digital media player, but somehow gets lumped in with those. Does anyone know if there is a way to easily get the Roku player to play my local media? This is the main reason I have digital media players.

I can see the value in what the Roku does, but that is something I will explore at a later time. My primary objective is just to play what I have.

If I have to take it back to trade it in for another WDTV Live, I will. Problem is BB only has the Plus and it is $30 more with no built in wifi (have to purchase a dongle).

[leemajors]

I was at best buy buying my wife a nook for our first anniversary and I needed to spend about $60 more to get the 0% interest (yes I know that is how they hook you). Anyway, I needed an additional digital media player for the TV in the bedroom (currently have a wdtv live in the living room), and all they had was the netgear Roku XD. I had read many good things about the Roku and it was only 80 dollars, so I picked it up. I got it home, set it up, and .... It looks like it is not a digital media player, but somehow gets lumped in with those. Does anyone know if there is a way to easily get the Roku player to play my local media? This is the main reason I have digital media players.

I can see the value in what the Roku does, but that is something I will explore at a later time. My primary objective is just to play what I have.

If I have to take it back to trade it in for another WDTV Live, I will. Problem is BB only has the Plus and it is $30 more with no built in wifi (have to purchase a dongle).

i heard there is supposedly an update coming next month that enables local media playback. it will enable USB input and media play, but their website doesn't have many details.

[Drachen]

i heard there is supposedly an update coming next month that enables local media playback. it will enable USB input and media play, but their website doesn't have many details.

The model I have does not have a USB port so that is out. I was hoping to stream it from my NAS over my wireless (N) network or in a worst case scenario I will drill a hole through my wall and put up a Network cable plate to wire it to the network. I guess no one here has had much experience with ROKU, I may end up having to return it. This is sad because the features it does have could prove very valuable if (when) I cancel my cable subscription, however its inability to play local media is a deal breaker for me (I have a 2 TB NAS drive for cryin out loud).

[NASpurs]

Is this what you're looking for?

http://roksbox.com/home/

Doesn't seem to difficult to set this up. Just add the Roksbox channel, set up a media server on your PC, start the Roksbox Channel and tell it where your media files are at and then just play your media files.

Just a tweak here and there wit setting up your media server but you should be alright. Only part that sucks is if some of your media isn't supported, you might need to convert some of your video files, etc.

[MannyIsGod]

Damn, if the Roku plays media server files then I'm interested in it for the bedroom. Probably my favorite part of the PS3 is its ability to do this.

[Drachen]

It ends up that I found this. I am going to try to set up the web server on my NAS. The problem is that most of my files are in .avi format (if I remember correctly). I will decide soon to either spend the extra 30 on the live plus, or to figure out a way to batch convert all of my files to a roku supported format (I will have no problems with the wdtv live I have in my living room, it plays just about every legitimate format outside of .flv that exists).

[robino2001]

I hear nothing but good about the WDTV... coworker has one hooked up to a 2TB drive as his blu-ray player type deal. I'm interested (as I mentioned in the netflix thread) about getting one of the roku boxes solely for the netflix streaming for our living/family room as I'm moving my game systems to another room and I want something small/easy to hook up to the main tv - especially for the kiddo with all of the kids stuff they stream now. Anyone know of any cheaper/different alternatives to a Roku...? It seems to be the cheapest/easiest thing out there right now.

[Heath Ledger]

Id wait for the Boxee box.

[leemajors]

Damn, if the Roku plays media server files then I'm interested in it for the bedroom. Probably my favorite part of the PS3 is its ability to do this.

manny which dnla do you use? my buddy started having issues with ps3 media server then it crapped out entirely for him and won't work. he's using mezzmo now but it doesn't do subtitles, which is weak.

[MannyIsGod]

I use PS3 MS - I've never had problems with it other than like one or two mkv files it wouldn't play.