Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater roku anybody?

I saw a flyer from future shop and best buy about Roku, a device that allow your home receiver to play itunes etc from your computer wirelessly. This seems like any excellent idea since i have tons of itune songs. Anybody with experience with Roku?
Thanks

Not sure if any memebrs are using the Roku brand or not. A few of us are using the Squeezbox and are happy with it. I had checked out the Roku, seems to be good, I just went with the SB becasue I had friends that recommended it.

Nhan, unfortunately i'm really going to be of no help to you. I received the M1000 for Christmas, have it hooked up to my system, but have yet to download the software to link it up to the PC. About all i can say about it is if it works half as well as advertised, it'll be a thing of beauty.

I actually did some more research and it seems most reviews favour the squeezebox over the roku plus the software the roku use is actually from the squeezebox. So I put in the order for the squeezebox so we'll see how it works.

I also put in an order for the vp150 to go along with my m60 and qs8 so now I'm living on bread and water for a while.

Congrats on the SB and the 150, in my opinion you will have two winners.

Nhan, out of curiosity, where did you order the Squeezebox from?

Saw this thread from a while ago...

I'm using an M1000 and really like it. I'd say the only drawback is the small display - maybe the 1500 would be better, but scrolling thru the library is kind of like looking at the phone book a line at a time. But the seamless connection to Windows Media Connect and the wonderful sound (via optical or coax digital) is wonderful. I do NOT miss messing around the CD's anymore!

-Brian

I'm debating on whether to get this or the Squeezebox. Can you atleast do a 'search' of your cds with the Roku, or do you have to scroll through all of them until it shows up on the display?

Thanks!
Mary

OK, I have a kind of vague idea what Roku and the Squeezbox do but I have no experience with wireless networking. Do these include the necessary equipment for the wireless networking or do you have to purchase that part separately?

Mary, Yes, you can search. It has a clever navigation mechanism where you can move about alphabetically thru your albums, artists, genres, and playlists. In adidtion, you can search with parts of words, etc. Not too bad.

Lorenzo, it comes with a wireless card but I don't use it, it also has an RJ45 jack which I use instead. I intalled a Cat5e jack behind my ent center before it arrived, along with phone and all the other audio jacks I anticipated needing.

-Brian

Lorenzo,

You would have to purchase a wireless access point (wAP) to use the wireless feature. If you can feasibly use CAT5/5e to wire it directly I would suggest you do so. These things can be pretty herky when the wireless gets interference (@2.6GHz it is on the same band as wireless phones and other gadgets). Some people have either no choice or no problem using wireless. I ended up installing a second WAP on the HT side of the house anyway because my laptop kept dropping connections.

I was told that you could go peer-to-peer with the unit (the Squeezebox, that is) by just installing a wireless card in the pc. Now I'm confused.

I went through the Roku/Squeezebox debate a few days ago and I went with Squeezebox for a few reasons...
1. I feel it looks better then the Roku
2. The display is bigger, easier to read from the couch.
3. The wireless model also will function as a bridge, this will allow me to plug my xbox 360 into the ethernet port on the box.
4. Slimserver open source software. Many cool 3rd party plugins ie; the display can show weather, news,sport scores, caller ID, time of day, games, etc. The list is long and cool
5. Squeeze network, extensive internet radio support. Can play even with computer turned off.

The unit arrives tommorow I'll let everyone know my thoughts.

The squeezebox was waiting for me when I got home and here are my thoughts.

1. Initial setup had a minor hiccup. I'm using it wirelessly and entered my SSID and WPA2 info. I still couldn't connect. Disabled WPA on my AP and still couldn't connect. Turns out I needed to enable my SSID beacon on my AP. Even though I manually entered the SSID the device wouldn't connect. After I had a connection I was able to again disable my SSID beacon without any issues.

Another point here I'm not sure what dBI antennas are in the unit but it's working flawlessy in the my basement and my AP is on the 2nd floor. So 2 floors and many walls between the AP and the Squeezebox

2. The unit looks very sharp, if you have an HK receiver it would look like it's little brother. Also relatively small, I would estimate about the size of a VCR tape.

3. The unit sounds fantastic but that is going to be a matter of how you ripped your music. I've recently begun the fun task of re-ripping everything at 256kpbs and those sound perfect. It has a burr-brown DAC. I'm connecting to my Pioneer via digital optical.

4. Bells and whistles galore. It has out of box support for hundreds of internet radio stations. The squeezebox network can be used w/o your computer being on. A large collection of live recordings from hundreds of artists. Alarm clock, nature sounds, news, sports headlines.

5. The unit is fully ip addressable. I'm able to open a browser put in the IP address over port 9000 and manage playlists, update artists, install plugins, etc. Very nice option since I be in my basement managing the slimsever on my desktop on the 2nd floor.

6. Seamless integration with my current iTunes music and playlists. The slimsever interface is a breeze to setup and can support mulitiple units all playing different songs or the same. I will be getting another box and will use it in my garage/yard for yardwork, garage tinkering, etc.

Overall I'm VERY happy with the unit. I highly recommend it.