Roku XDS user reviews (2100X)

Pros Does Netflix really well. Easy to add USB-connected playback and even playing videos from networked drives. Plugs into the ol' SD tv with included compositie cable. Easy to set up.

Cons The main downer really is that Netflix instant streaming catalog is somewhat limited. Playing videos from drives works okay but it's a bit clunky to fast forward--no chapter recognition either.

Summary Although the USB feature hasn't been official enabled, it's so easy to turn it on. In fact, Roku has the instructions right on their support page. Within a day I was playing back movies off a USB stick and even from a networked hard drive. These features are enabled via private channels and instructions for this are all over the web. I was surprised by how easy it was to do.

Pros Low cost. Simple Plug and play. Great quality video and sound.

Cons Would have liked component video. Looking forward to additional stream providers

Summary I was paying comcast $120.00 a month for cable that I rarely watched. Looked at all the options from wifi blu-ray players, PSP3, X-Box 360, to upgrading laptop. Blu-ray with a wifi streamer looked attractive. When we consideredg the limited Blu-ray content. We are also resistance to another new technological investment that requires building a new video library.

Roku was the easiest and most cost effective solution. We bought one for each of our 3 TVs and get the local stations out of the air with a digital to analog converters.

I just hooked to XDS to my ceiling mounted HD DLP projector this week. The HD video quality is there. The picture is crisp and sound is 5.1 surround. For our purposes the Roku XDS does the job. Now with Netflix and Hulu Plus we watch what we want to watch when we want to watch it. All trends indicate that the future is streaming programing.

We would like to see the NFL enter the stream market like MLB and NHL.

Instead of paying Comcast, my local cable company, $120.00 a month, I'm paying Netflix and HuluPlus a total of $17.97 which is a significant savings with a kid about to start college.

Pros its easy to setup. we mostly use netflix and pandora and it works great for the price.

Cons its a bit slower to respond if we are doing any uploading on our pc at the same time.

Summary overall, its very easy to set up. Has some useful apps and our kids love it, but can be a bit slow to respond when you're also using the pc heavily.

Pros You can get YouTube (it's a private channel --which opens up a lot of additional possibilities) and Hulu Plus is now available. You can easily cut the cable/sattelite bill and not miss anything.

Cons Can't think of anything

Summary Well worth the initial investment, you'll cover the cost in savings from you cable bill.