My First Roku TV box

My wife and I decided to break down and finally get a TV in our bedroom.  For the first 8 years of our marraige, we had a "No TV in the Bedroom" policy, worried that it would hurt the romance, or destroy our sleeping habits.  But after enjoying some lazy mornings in hotels watching TV from bed, we decided we couldn't live without the TV anymore.  Don't worry the romance is still there (our first baby is due in September), and our sleeping habits were destroyed by our annoying cat anyway.  So the TV hasn't been a problem.

Anyway, we have had a DVR in the living room for years and I can't imagine watching regular TV anymore.  But the Cable company was going to charge us another $10/month to put a DVR in the bedroom and that wasn't going to happen.  So we decided to try one of these new internet TV boxes.  I first looked into the Apple TV because everything Apple seems to touch turns to gold.  I did like the size of the Apple TV and I heard good reviews, but the content didn't seem to be full.  So when my brother-in-law told me about Hulu-Plus, and how I can watch TV shows through that, I figured it would be the answer to the content dilema.  But wait, Hulu Plus isn't yet supported on the Apple TV.  So then I found the ROKU.

We decided we would get the highest end Roku for our bedroom because the wireless router was in a different room and the ROKU XD|S had the better wireless capabilities with the dual band N.  Although I have later realized our router is too old to support dual band or ever Wireless N.  Oh well.

When the Roku came in the mail, I was really glad to see how small it was.  It takes up almost no space and really goes unseen when sitting next to the TV.  And the setup was really easy!  I plugged it into the wall outlet, and plugged it into the TV using the HDMI cable that I purchased through the Roku website for less than $10 (a better deal than Wal-Mart has).  The box was already on, as it appears to stay on all the time because I have never found an on/off switch.

After a few short setup steps in the software, like setting the time, I was ready to view my first Channel.  I started with the Netflix Channel since I already had a Netflix account.  I started with an episode of Monk.  Finding the show wasn't hard and I got 4 quality bars (out of 4) and it said it was in HD.  The quality was great.  It's not quite DVD HD, but it's still really good.  You would never know you were watching TV over the internet.