Category Archives: Streaming

Keeping It Straightforward with the Roku Streaming Stick

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Here at Geek News Central, we’ve always been fans of Roku and with the latest pair of devices, I don’t see any reason to change my opinion. Roku continues to provide a convenient way to make older TVs smart and offer additional content that’s otherwise unavailable. It’s also a great solution if you are travelling and want to have access to streaming content without having to risk putting in your credentials into a hotel TV everywhere you are staying. Finally, a real bonus is the clean user interface that isn’t always trying to sell something.

The folks at Roku’s PR firm in UK kindly sent me one of the new Streaming Sticks for review, specifically the 3840EU. This is the HD model (in comparison with the 4K Streaming Stick Plus), which comes with an affordable RRP of £29.99. That’s £10 cheaper than the competing Amazon Fire TV Stick and there’s a similar price difference at the 4K level too. I’m going to be trying out the Streaming Stick with an old Samsung TV that doesn’t offer anything by way of apps or streaming services: showing photos from a DLNA server is about as sophisticated as this TV gets, so it’s an ideal candidate for a Roku upgrade.

The first thing to notice is that the box is much smaller than previous ones and appears to be all cardboard: this is a good thing saving both on trees and transportation costs. Inside an inner box, there’s the Roku Stick itself, a voice remote with batteries (yay!) and a 1.5m USB A to C (power) cable. There’s no power supply as the expectation is that you can run it from a USB socket on the TV or you’ll have a spare one lying around. There’s no HDMI cable either as obviously the Stick should plug straight into a socket but if there’s a problem with space or access, a free HDMI cable extender can be ordered. Nice touch.

The remote itself is in the usual Roku-style with the purple four-way pad towards the top. It’s smaller than a normal TV remote and lower down there are shortcut buttons for Netflix, Disney+, Apple TV+ and Amazon Prime Video, with the volume controls on the right side. As this is a voice remote, there’s a mic button just below the four-way pad. During the initial configuration, the remote can be setup to control the TV’s volume and power.

Getting the Roku up and running is straightforward though it takes a little time to run through everything. Physical installation is simply a case of plugging the Stick into a free HDMI socket and then powering it from a spare USB socket on the TV. My ancient Samsung had no problem providing enough juice. The cable is a decent 1.5m long which is great, though I’ll probably order a shorter cable for a tidier installation as my USB and HDMI are close together.  Owners of previous generation Sticks will notice that while the device itself is the same size, there’s no need for the cable with the chunky in-line unit which tidies up the installation. Finally, pull the plastic tab out of the remote, turn on the TV and change over to the correct input, if it hasn’t done so automagically.

For now, it’s a case of following the prompts. The first step is to connect to the Wi-Fi and that can be a bit laborious if you have a long password. Fortunately, once you get past this bit, the voice features of the remote kick in and you can talk your way through subsequent screens. One thing I did notice was that the Stick doesn’t appear to pick up 5 GHz Wi-Fi signals in the higher bands around 150. If you are down in the usual 34 to 68 or even the low 100s, it seems to be fine.

If you have an existing Roku account you can login via your smartphone, give the Roku a name and location, and the install process will load existing apps (channels). If you don’t have a Roku account already, you’ll be prompted to create one. Finally you’ll be dropped into the Roku “Home” screen which has app tiles on the right and a short set of options on the left. Here you can use the four-way pad to choose what app you want to start, such as BBC iPlayer.

The “What to Watch” area is largely what it says. Rather than promoting apps, this offers films and TV shows that might be of interest. If you’ve used any kind of streaming service before, you know the drill. You can also save content to watch later and if you have done that, the programme will be listed here. There is separate “Save List” top level menu as well that will take you to only your saved programmes. If you find the duplication annoying, the available menus can be edited in the “Settings” area.

Next is “Search” and this is by far one of Roku’s best features. Roku’s search covers almost anything you can think of to do with film and even better, it’s voice activated. Say “Scooby Doo” and it will show you all the Scooby Doo programmes it can find. Say “Cary Grant” and it will show films that are available through the apps featuring the suave actor. Say “Steven Spielberg” and it will offer films he directed. Jaws anyone? It’s really good and one of the best features.

“Streaming Store” is where you find the apps to install on your Roku so they’ll show up on the “Home” screen. For UK folk all the terrestrial broadcasters are here: BBC iPlayer, itvX, Channel 4, 5 plus the likes of Now and Sky Store, and then there’s all the big streaming services: Netflix, YouTube, Paramount+, Disney+, Apple TV+, Prime Video, Spotify.
And that’s before we start on the thousands of other more specialist or niche apps. There’s everything you can imagine from travel, fitness, games, news, religion, space, sport, weather….Some of it is really good. Some less so. Roku have their own channel too, which has a range of programming from TV series to films and sport. All the available apps and channels can be reviewed at Roku to see if there is something of interest

Finally, the “Settings” menu lets you change various elements of the Roku to your own taste, such as 12 or 24 hour team, or which menu items are shown. You get the idea.

Three other points of note….first there is the truly awesome Roku City screensaver (and season variations) which is an homage to Hollywood with film Easter eggs galore. Avengers Tower – check. Ghostbusters fire station – check. Dr Who’s Tardis – check. It’s all there and if you are a film buff you’ll enjoy picking out the references. If it’s not setup by default, pop into the “Settings” and change the “Theme”.

Second, Roku has a complementary app that kind of combines a remote with the “Home” screen, so you both launch apps directly or move round the screens and apps on the Roku itself. It’s pretty handy.

Finally, it is possible to cast from a phone or tablet to the Roku so you can show off your photos. You can do it with AirPlay if you have an iPhone, but on Android you have to mirror your screen to the Roku which is a bit tricky as it’s done through Android Settings and isn’t terribly obvious. If I had one suggestion it would be to build the functionality into the Roku Android app so that it’s as easy to use as a Chromecast.

As I said at the beginning the benefit of Roku is the simplicity of the user interface combined with the wide range of apps or channels at a good price. While the obvious use of a Roku is to update an older TV, it can still bring improvements to smart TVs through the extra apps. Roku isn’t tied to a vendor or ecosystem, so isn’t always trying to sell you something and at £29.99, this really is an easy purchase compared to the cost of a new TV.

The new Roku Streaming Stick and Streaming Stick Plus are available from today at Amazon and in-store at Asda. Coming soon to Argos as well.

The Roku Streaming Stick was provided for review by Roku at no cost.

Made in the USA….or not

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With all the talk of tariffs and Canadians boycotting American goods, it got me thinking about how US-centric our technological lives are. I wondered, for those not resident in America, if it would be possible to live a tech life without help from across the pond and what other options for software and hardware were available? First, before anyone gets hot under the collar, this is purely an educational look out across the market to see what else is out there: I’m not suggesting or recommending anything anti-USA here. Chill, folks. Second, I’ll be taking companies at face value and not digging into their ownership or where they manufacture. Third and finally, this is not an exhaustive list of alternatives – I’ve simply picked up a few examples here and there to show possibilities. Let’s take a look and see what’s out there.

Smartphones and Tablets
As mobile devices dominate our days, let’s check out smartphones and tablets first. Obviously if you are part of the Apple flock, you are plain out of luck as there’s no alternative. Apple make the hardware and write the operating system. It’s as American as mom’s apple pie (sorry).
On the handsets themselves there’s some good choices. The big name is obviously Samsung which is South Korean, then there’s Sony’s Xperia handsets from Japan, and HTC is in Taiwan plus plenty of Chinese firms like Hong Kong-based Lenovo and Shenzhen’s OnePlus. If you’re looking for something European, check out Nokia HMD and Nothing. There’s a handy reference here if you want to see what’s available by country.
When it comes to Android, Google is the developer of the OS and there’s no getting away from that even taking AOSP into consideration. There are a few other OSes out there on smartphones such as Huawei’s Android fork HarmonyOS and variants of Linux though I’d leave that to the specialists.

Search
Search is another big part of everyone’s day and if you want to move away from Google or Bing, there are some options. Ecosia is a German search engine that supports the planting of trees as a reason to switch over. If concerns about privacy are more your issue, there’s French engine Qwant and, well, Swiss outfit Swisscows. I tried Qwant and wasn’t too impressed with it as it seemed to prioritise older news over newer events until you reduced the time window. YMMV. All of the above search in English.

PCs and Laptops
As with mobile devices, unless you are in the Apple camp, there are plenty of manufacturers outside of the USA to choose from. Both Acer and Asus are Taiwanese firms and from Japan there’s Sony and Fujitsu. Most countries seem to have specialist PC assemblers like FiercePC in UK who tend to cater to the gamers rather than office buyers. Support a local supplier if you can.
When it comes to the desktop OS, there’s limited choice as Microsoft Windows is dominant. However, there are Linux variants such as SUSE which is headquartered in Luxembourg. If you are feeling brave (or mad), there’s Huawei’s HarmonyOS for PCs or the FreeBSD-based Kylin from China. I’ll pass, thanks.

Office Apps
If you are looking to move away from Microsoft Office, the closest is perhaps LibreOffice. Open source, it’s a successor to StarOffice and OpenOffice, and is based out of Germany. It will read most Microsoft standards like doc and xls in addition to the ODF formats. LibreOffice is limited when it comes to mobile apps, though Collabora in England offer compatible mobile apps. WPS Office is another popular choice by Chinese company Kingsoft. They’ve been around for ages…

Email
There are hundreds of email providers out there if you don’t want to use Gmail, Yahoo! or Outlook.com. I’m sure you can find one that’s local to you. Personally, I use Proton in Switzerland as it offers quite a nice little secure package of email, VPN, storage and password management. It’s a paid-for service but you don’t have to worry anyone snooping around in your business or adverts popping up in your email.

Social Media & Messaging
When it comes to social networks, companies from USA and China occupy the top 5, but there are some popular options from other countries. Mastodon was created by a German developer, Eugen Rochko, and the company is still based in Berlin.  Telegram is currently based in Dubai but has historical links with Russia that it has actively tried to shake off. Yubo is a French social media app with over 85 million users. Moj hails from India and is a bit of a TikTok clone but allegedly has around 120 million active users.
Obviously the problem with social media and messaging is you need to bring your friends with you.

Music Streaming
The biggest name in music streaming is Spotify and it’s from Stockholm, Sweden. There are other streaming services from local broadcasters, such as the free BBC Sounds, which offers radio and podcasts. Look for similar services in your area.

Video Streaming
All of the big names in video streaming – Netflix, Disney+, Paramount+, Prime Video, YouTube, Apple TV+ – are US based and it’ll need sacrifice to give them up as there’s no easy direct replacement. There are plenty of specialist video streamers out there, from those that focus on production from a particular country, e.g. BritBox, or those that go for a specific genre, such as Sony’s anime powerhouse Crunchyroll. Of course, most terrestrial broadcasters offer catch-up services so you could save some money by only using their services. As examples, the UK has BBC’s iPlayer, in Ireland there’s RTÉ Player and in France, France Télévisions.

Conclusion
If there’s one takeaway from this review, it’s that you often don’t need to stay with the default and you can be more assertive in your choice of technology. Want  more privacy? Pick Proton. Worried about WhatsApp? Try Telegram. Don’t like Twitter’s toxicity? Move to Mastodon. Just because it came “out of the box”, doesn’t mean that you have to stick with it, and while free-of-charge can be tempting, it might not be the best option, though terrestrial broadcasters can offer great value in their catch-up services.

Be brave and try something new.

Refresh your TV with a new Roku Streaming Stick

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It’s been awhile coming but today Roku has announced updates to its streaming product line with the new Roku Streaming Stick and the Roku Streaming Stick Plus. These will be coming to the UK in early summer which is great news for Roku fans on this side of the pond. For those who don’t know about Roku, the company offers both streaming players that plug into an HDMI socket and Roku TVs, which builds Roku’s streaming experience into smart TVs. Don’t get confused by the Japanese gin of the same name.

The Streaming Stick provides HD resolution and the Streaming Stick Plus delivers up to 4K with HDR. Both models will come will with voice remotes which means you can simply talk into the remotes to start playing a show or open a channel. Rokus support all the major streaming platforms such as Netflix, Disney+ and Paramount+ along with all the terrestrial broadcasters such as BBC’s iPlayer or itvX.

The new models replace the Roku Express and Express 4K+ in the product line which means that all models in Rokus portfolio are now of the stick variety. The Streaming Sticks are both only a little wider than the HDMI socket meaning they’re not going to block any adjacent HDMIs if it’s all a bit tight round the back of the TV. Further, the Sticks will happily power off a USB port, so if the TV has a spare one of those, it’ll reduce the cable clutter without the need for a power brick or wall wart.

Both models will be available on 2nd June from all the usual retailers in the UK. Pricewise the Streaming Stick will come in at £29.99, with the Plus version selling for an extra tenner at £39.99. As far as I can tell, the existing Roku Streaming Stick 4K remains in place at £49.99 and offers Dolby Vision.

Rokus are a great way of continuing to use older TVs or where an existing smart TV is missing certain otherwise-expected apps (I’m looking at you LG). They have a  really great user interface that’s very simple to use (and there’s a complementary Roku smartphone app), so it’s much easier and cheaper to upgrade a TV with a Streaming Stick than it is to buy a whole new TV, plus you’re not contributing to e-waste, which is definitely a good thing.

 

Walmart+ Members Will Receive The Paramount+ Essential Plan

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Walmart announced it is adding a new streaming benefit for Walmart+ subscribers. The Paramount+ Essential subscription is an added bonus at no extra cost.

Walmart+ members will be able to stream premium entertainment as a benefit for the first time as part of their membership starting in September. The Paramount+ Essential Plan will give Walmart+ members access to Paramount+’s breadth of hugely popular content from acclaimed original dramas such as “1883” and “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds,” to the most popular preschool franchise, “PAW Patrol,” to recent blockbuster films such as “Sonic the Hedgehog 2,” to live sports.

According to Walmart, the Walmart+ subscription will remain at $98 a year or $12.95 a month and include the Paramount + Essential Plan subscription with an added $59 value.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Walmart has been exploring a subscription video-streaming deal to draw more people to Walmart+ as it seeks to challenge Amazon.com Inc., which has grown its own Prime membership program to about 200 million global members.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the companies agreed to a 12-month exclusivity agreement and a two-year deal that would give Walmart+ members access to Paramount’s ad-supported streaming service, according to people familiar with the deal. The perk will be available starting in September, Walmart said.

The Wall Street Journal also reported that the deal between Walmart and Paramount is the latest tie-up in the fast-changing streaming industry, where a growing group of companies are looking to bundle content to draw viewers or customers. YouTube is planning to launch an online store for streaming video services, and has renewed talks with entertainment companies about participating in the platform. YouTube, which is owned by Alphabet Inc., would join Apple Inc., Roku Inc., and Amazon, which all have hubs to sell streaming video services.

The Hollywood Reporter provided additional information. The Walmart+ membership program gives subscribers unlimited free deliveries of groceries and other household items, mobile scanning options in stores and gas discounts. The partnership with Paramount+ will provide Walmart+ members access to the entire Paramount+ streaming service under the ad-supported tier, which does not include live coverage from users’ local CBS stations.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, existing Paramount+ subscribers will not be given access to Walmart+ in return.

Personally, it bothers me when large companies hoard digital media and stick it behind a subscription “pay wall”. Doing so makes it much harder for consumers to access to the media they want to watch. This situation either forces people to pay for subscriptions that they cannot easily afford, or to miss out.

Paramount+ Arrives in UK on Roku

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Months after launching in USA (and the subsequent Star Trek Discovery PR disaster), Paramount+ finally arrived in UK today. Priced at £6.99 per month, the crown jewels are undoubtedly the Star Trek catalogue, but with ComedyCentral, ShowTime and MTV, there’s over 8000 hours of premium content including classics like Cheers! and Frasier. The new Halo live action series debuts on the service bringing another dimension to Microsoft’s long-running game series. It really is a golden era for television.

If you want to watch Paramount+, there are apps available from the app stores for Apple and Android devices as you’d expect. For the big screen, it’s bundled with Sky’s Cinema subscription but if you’re not a subscriber, a media streamer like a Roku is likely your best bet for now. The Paramount+ channel can be loaded from the Roku store and it’s then just a case of logging in with your credentials. I’m assuming Paramount+ will come to smart TVs and consoles soon but it’s not yet showing up on my LG TV or Playstation.

If you don’t have a Roku and want one, I’d recommend the Express 4K model which offers HDR and 4K output (if supported by the programming). It’s easy to use and is way less confusing that the Fire TV. Crucially, the Roku comes with a remote control so there’s no need to find your mobile phone to get going. Priced at GB£39.99, there are sometimes discounts for special events like Father’s Day so keep an eye out for those.

If you want to know more about the Roku Express 4K, check out my fairly comprehensive review below.

 

CNN+ Streaming Service Will Shut Down At End of April

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CNN+, the streaming service you probably never heard of, is going to shut down at the end of April 2022. I’m not certain what content it provided, but that doesn’t matter anymore.

CNN reported that CNN+, the streaming service that was hyped one of the most significant developments in the history of CNN, will shut down on April 30, just one month after it launched. The decision was made by new management after CNN’s former parent company, Warner Media, merged with Discovery to form Warner Bros. Discovery.

According to CNN, David Zaslav, the chief executive of Warner Bros. Discovery, has said that he wants to house all of the company’s brands under one streaming service. Some CNN+ programming may eventually live on through that service. Apparently, hundreds of CNN+ staffers were notified of the decision on a meeting on Thursday afternoon.

What happened? Variety reported: The decision puts an abrupt end to an ambitious and aggressive venture that people familiar with the matter say rankled David Zaslav, the new CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, from the start.

According to Variety, Zaslav was annoyedly the decision of Jason Kilar, the former CEO of WarnerMedia when it was owned by AT&T, to launch CNN+ just weeks before Discovery was set to take over operations. But he was unable to communicate with WarnerMedia management, owing to legal boundaries surrounding the merger process.

Variety also reported: Andrew Morse, the CNN executive vice president who oversees the newly-launched streaming-video outlet, as well as CNN’s digital and Spanish-language operations, was told of the decision ahead of time and is expected to depart after a period of transition. Alex MacCallum was named to oversee digital, and CNN+ employees will be paid for the next 90 days and be given opportunities to explore other positions around the company.

The New York Times reported that the abrupt demise of CNN+, as well as Netflix’s projection that it will lose two million more subscribers over the next three months, has raised questions about how many people are willing to pay for numerous streaming services, as well as how profitable these businesses can become in the next few years.

I think that is a very good point. People might happily pay for one streaming service, especially if that specific one includes a lot of content that they know they will enjoy. As an example, Disney + has a wide variety of content from various beloved franchises, as well as some of Disney’s movies. I don’t think most people want to pay for every streaming service that exists, even if it means missing out on some of what they could be watching.

Perhaps deciding to launch a streaming service, while CNN was about to become part of Warner Bros. Discovery, was not the best timing. Especially since there were a lot of tweets included the phrase: “I’ve never heard of CNN+” in them (along with a few variations of that same phrase), when the shutdown of CNN+ was announced.

Netflix Wants You To Pay To Share Netflix Outside of Your Household

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It probably should not be a surprise to anyone that Netflix is aware that some people share their Netflix subscription with people who live outside of their household. In response, Netflix is in the process of cracking down on that practice.

Soon, Netflix users will be required to pay more to share their account with a person who doesn’t live in their household. That cost is on top of the person’s Netflix subscription.

Netflix provided the following information on their website, in a post titled: “Paying to Share Netflix Outside Your Household”. It was written by Chengyi Long.

We’ve always made it easy for people who live together to share their Netflix account, with features like separate profiles and multiple streams in our Standard and Premium plans. While these have been hugely popular, they have also created some confusion about when and how Netflix can be shared. As a result, accounts are being shared between households – impacting our ability to invest in great new TV and films to our members.

Netflix continued by clarifying: “So for the last year we’ve been working on ways to enable members who share outside their households to do so easily and securely, while also paying a bit more.”

This new “pay more” effort is going to be launched and tested out over the next few weeks for Netflix users in Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru.

One new “feature” is called Add Extra Member. “Members on our Standard and Premium plans will be able to add sub accounts for up to two people they don’t live with – each with their own profile, personalized recommendations, login, and password.” Netflix listed the prices for people in each of the countries they are starting with.

The other new “feature” is called Transfer a Profile to a New Account. “Members on our Basic, Standard, and Premium plans can enable people who share their account to transfer profile information either to a new account or an Extra Member sub account – keeping the viewing history, My List, and personalized recommendations.”

Variety reported that, in the three test markets, Netflix will start notifying members who share their account outside the household about the new options. Netflix will notify members who share their account outside their household to verify their account if a device outside of their home logs into the account. Netflix will then ask the user to verify the login from the device by sending a verification code.

To me, it sounds like Netflix is about to push people who are sharing their account with someone whom they don’t live with to make some tough choices. Some friends and family might be understanding, and transfer their profile to a new account (which they will pay for). Others might hold a grudge when their “freebie” Netflix subscription becomes inactive.