[NBLUG/talk] Streaming Web Sites under Linux

Troy Arnold troy at zenux.net
Thu Mar 18 13:20:04 PDT 2010


>  On Thu 18/03/10 11:42 AM , Barry Stump barry.stump at gmail.com sent:
> > I just use a Roku box for streaming Netflix.  No computer required,
> > and the thing only draws 5 watts.
> > 
> > http://www.roku.com/roku-products
> > It's a little embedded linux system, though you can't access the
> > internals, as far as I can tell.

On Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 12:11:20PM -0700, gandalf at sonic.net wrote:
> I'm not really sold on those. I don't see that they can do anything but
> their pre-programmed "stations". A cheap used laptop can handle anything
> on the web. We mostly watch Hulu, Youtube TV, the channel streams
> themselves and Netflix. It's somewhat better if you have a dedicated
> laptop, but I generally use my laptop in the bedroom and can watch many
> shows while checking my email, reading manga or otherwise poking around. 


For < $100 those little roku boxes are pretty neat. They're small, quiet
and efficient and they'll stream netflix, which you can't do on your own
under Linux.  And I can send one to my mom 4,000 miles away and she can set
it up on her own.  That's no mean feat.  I once "fixed" my mom's Internet
by swapping an ethernet cable for the single pair-phone cable she had been
using.

-t




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