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schnapps
Legend 5
Legend 5

New Roku Players Hitting the UK 18th October 2017

According to this Engadget article, Roku will be officially offering to us in the UK two new players from the 18th of October 2017 Smiley Happy

 

There will be the Roku Streaming Stick + with 4K & HDR at RRP of £80, together with the Roku Express for a RRP of £30 Smiley Happy

 

Not sure how accurate the article is, if so i might be purchasing a Roku Streaming Stick + to replace my ageing Roku stick Smiley Happy

 

https://www.engadget.com/2017/10/11/roku-uk-4k-streaming-stick/

265 REPLIES 265
RoyB
Legend

On TV, I’ve never noticed the iPlayer to be of lower quality when set to a region; as @Anonymous User says, the default is London, and the iPlayer always promises best available quality if you make that setting. And we set ours to West, where we live, anyway.

 

It comes out, for us, as better than SD, but not as good as HD.

 

But experimenting on my Mac, which shows me stream details, I can see that when set to England, I get 1280 by 720, and a 5166kbps stream designated bbc_one_hd, and when set to a region, this drops to 960 by 540, and a 1700kbps stream designated bbc_one_[region]

 

So yes, as @Anonymous User @observes, and not good, I think.

Set a Payment PIN on your account so that no-one but you can buy memberships on it. Check your bank accounts monthly for any other unexpected payments to Now. That way you can at least nip them in the bud, while you and Now figure out whose fault they are.
Anonymous User
Not applicable

Tried the TV wired and wireless...sometimes BBC HLG worked, sometimes it didn't, so I don't think it's a TV issue  No logic to it. The Roku just worked more consistently, but I can't explain the difference. Maybe a different CDN or BBC server for TV and Roku, maybe the way the streams are encoded, who knows.

RoyB. Thanks for investigating. If you look on the beeb iplayer website, it explains that regions only show BBC2 in HD, not BBC1, and to get BBC1 in HD you MUST set your location to England, Scotland, Wales or NI. I've emailed them about the issue, and the fact England is not even a choice for most platforms...I'm still awaiting a reply, but I'm not holding my breath...

Anonymous User
Not applicable

@Anonymous User 

 

I think there were limits to how many people were allowed to access the HLG Wimbledon feeds at any one time as this is still a testing phase for the BBC. That may explain why you were having problems accessing the streams at times, it may just be there was heavy demand at those particular times. If however you were able to get access immediately on trying a different device then it may still point to a tv compatibility issue, especially so as your particular model isn't listed on the BBC site as being compatible with their HLG trials. Sadly our shiny new TVs can become outdated and not supported very quickly these days as standards change fairly regularly. If I were in the market for a new tv I think I'd hold out for a year or two until standards become more 'standardised' (for want of a better word).

RoyB
Legend

@Anonymous User 

 

We’re holding out until the 2020 models for a 65” set to replace our 55” 2015 Samsung.

 

HDMI is still evolving, as are HDR ‘standards’, and indeed the sets themselves. The TV is still pretty much up to the mark, but our soundbar got a bit left behind not having HDCP 2.2, so we have to split the audio and the video from our UHD Blu-ray player.

 

I lean towards OLED, but worry about screen burn; we’d get LG if we went OLED, as even though Sony are supposed to be better, the software on their sets blows chunks.

 

Samsung keep improving QLED, and you have to look hard to see OLED is better, but it is. But every day, I bless the One Connect box that means there are just two wires going up to the Samsung - and just one on the latest sets - and I can plug and replug stuff to my heart’s content without ever scrabbling round the back of the TV.

 

So If next year’s QLED can get even closer to OLED, it will be a no-brainer for Samsung again.

 

My wife does like Philips Ambilight, but I reckon I could rig something to make a non-Philips set appear to do it; matter of fact, I can do it now, but my arm gets tired holding up the mobile phone whose camera is driving it 🙂

 

I remember the early days of computing at home though; always the choice was get it now, have it to use, get left behind sooner; or wait, not have it to use, but have it faster and cheaper when we got it.

 

But we still got left behind - even though we bought a 386 to future-proof ourselves a bit, look how well that turned out 🙂

 

Nowadays, all we have to contend with are the smarts on a Smart TV expiring. But when we added an extra room, I got the superannuated 2012 32” Samsung down from the loft and put it in there. Picture as good as ever - quite as good as our latest 2018 32” Samsung - but most of the smarts had died, and even those that were left were dog slow. But no worries - a NowTV Stick has ridden to the rescue, and the combination now has more and faster smarts than in did originally.

Set a Payment PIN on your account so that no-one but you can buy memberships on it. Check your bank accounts monthly for any other unexpected payments to Now. That way you can at least nip them in the bud, while you and Now figure out whose fault they are.
schnapps
Legend 5
Legend 5

I have noticed that Roku UK are offering some cracking prices pre Black Friday Sales on their Roku Stick Plus £29.99 and Roku Express HD £17.99 from places like Argos, Currys etc.

 

I own both devices and they are decent streaming player's (especially the Roku Stick Plus).

 

Also noticed that there is 3 HD movies that you can redeem from Rakuten TV.

 

More information here on link below about the Rakuten TV movie offer.

 

https://www.roku.com/en-gb/offers/rakutentv 

 

Screenshot_2019-11-15-15-02-51.png

 

schnapps
Legend 5
Legend 5

This doesn't interest me, but might be useful to someone out there,where Roku UK devices will be soon getting Alexa & Google voice control.

 

https://www.whathifi.com/news/roku-devices-in-the-uk-will-soon-support-alexa-and-google-voice-contro...