Streaming Boxes Yearly Review

Once again, I'm kinda 'in the market' for a decent streaming box; there are lots of players in this market now, but the main one I've been watching for a while has gone backwards in what it does (WDTV), by dropping Netflix in their newest box (although they have gotten their wifi up to snuff and other things are still good, like direct SMB support and such.

So I'm in the market for something to be the 'netflixable' replacement for my collection of PCH (Popcorn Hour) boxes that I've been using for years to stream my NAS media around the home. Yes, I have several Bluray players (Sony, Samsung) that do netflix, but I'm searching for something that does all the popular streaming services (pay and free), maybe has the ability to 'plug up' (wireless or otherwise) a qwerty keyboard, and maybe have some path to SMB connectivity without having to run a (to me) silly DNLA server 24/7. I've just got too much on my NAS array's to spend the next couple months setting up DNLA even if I did it on like, a Rasberry Pi or some other micro-computer.

There seem to be (trolling Amazon) lots of streaming boxes out there that are a bit 'off-brand' that do SMB but how much of the pay and/or free services is a good question, but if someone out there has experience already with one I'd take a look, so speak up please.

Must have: Netflix and other pay services
Must have: dual-band AC WPA2 Wifi and wired ethernet
Must have: smb direct support
Nice to have: Keyboard support of some kind

The Roku boxes (the series 4 is just about to come out but the 3 looks really good EXCEPT no smb streaming support) are at the top of my list but I'd really like easy local streaming if at ALL possible.

Ideas, questions?

Here's a wiki on some of those out there:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compar..._media_players

but it doesn't list a lot of the 'off-brand' players.

When one has 8 (EIGHT) Set-top boxes already in my living-room 'stack' so anything I add is going to have to do more than just 'one' thing.

Additional:

For those who might think that either Roksbox or Plex is a potential 'work around' with the Roku players, they kinda are, EXCEPT that only the small(er) NAS boxes support either of them (most seem to do Plex), and NONE of the large scale units (>8 drives or thereabout) that utilize top tier (and multiple) CPU's. So that route doesn't work for those of us with large scale systems.

can i suggest the fire tv. has most popular apps on it and you can easily sideload kodi for streaming SMB, keyboards bluetooth and wired also work.

It's at the top of my current 'list', as the older WDTV (all WDTV models do SMB) that still has Netflix is available 'refurbished' through Amazon, and 'Fire' is the first of the 'new' 2015+ crop that does 4K (not a biggie now as my current plasma is only 3+ years old so swapping it out for a 4K/8K set is in the very future) and has the newest/fastest chip set. The Roku4 specs have somewhat been 'leaked' so I'll wait until it actually ships and make a determination then.

If I don't go with the old(er) WDTV's and have to run a 'Plex' server, I've got my eye on a high-end Intel "NUC" box running an intel dual-core I7, 8gb ram/128gb M.2 SSD Storage, so that's an additional $800+ on top of the (2) or more streamer boxes.

I'll be 'beta-testing' PLEX on one of my older (but high powered) Vista machines in the next couple of weeks and see how it manages to stream to my current crop of 'smart phones/tablets' and likes my rather complex/over engineered LAN/WAN system (over 15+ devices from PC's to Linux to a host of current STB's).

UPDATE:

Come to find out, for whatever stupid reason, Amazon and the 'programmers' of FireTV decided not to include the top video format, MKV, as included in their s/w. Folks with it have run into major problems with the so-called 'work arounds' that Amazon has promoted, in lieu of full support 'sometime in the future' (lots of folks reporting major problems with 1080P in particular). As someone who has 80+TB of MKV's (99% HD) on my NAS array, this is a non-starter.

Been a while since I started this thread, but have been putting off a bit of a review as to what I went with and how it's running.

I decided to wait until the Roku4 came out, so I did, and got (2) of them.

A few things (mainly s/w) to watch out for on the boxes.

First, no ability to put in a static IP, so they will rely on whatever DHCP mechanism (router or otherwise) you have the DHCP server running on. If your router has decent controls (my asus does), you can 'grab' the MAC address and force the IP assignment that way, otherwise you'll need enough 'pool' addresses to properly assign the boxes. Kinda the same with the wireless (A/C mode so the newer wifi boxes, again my asus is, are usable on either 2.4 or 5Ghz).

Lots of apps on Roku, both 'approved' and not. I was able to get most of the 'subscription' based things working fine (since I have DirecTV as my 'cable' provider) except for one glitch which I'll list below. HBOGo, Starz, all the rest of the 'movie' channels that have smartphone apps (EXCEPT for MaxGo for some unknown reason) and the 'basic' cable channels like TNT, Comedy Central, and the like. Missing are AMC, TCM, and a few others (again, that are available as smartphone apps but not on Roku).

Newer additions (last month or so) have been CNN (but without CNNInternational which again, the Smartphone app has), and USANow. CNN had tons or problems the first week or so (da*n programmers, I won't get on a rant on them quite yet), but has worked fine since. Same with USANow, probs in the beginning but it's settled down.

In both of those cases, it really appears that the folks at Roku don't do enough testing before letting the app onto their platform.

Which brings us to the worst case I've run into so far. Right about Jan1, 2016, the Showtime Anytime cable subscriber app got 'improved' by the 'programmers' at Showtime. It was one of the first apps, along with HBOGo, that I had added, and had no problem doing so (running the verification that I was a subscriber through DirecTV) or running for the 2 or so months prior to Jan 1.

Then Showtime decided to change how the verified things, and the app went to H*LL. They apparently are requiring that one verify you are still a subscriber just about every week (they 'kill' your access), including making you install the Showtime App on either your smartphone or desktop, to allow you to send your verification credentials through to them to allow the Roku app to keep running. Also, one has to delete the app on the Roku box, reboot the thing from zero, and reinstall the app to get things running again. In short, 2-3 hoops to jump through. Every week.

As you can imagine, Showtime is being bombarded by tons of nasty emails (I've sent a couple) as to why they have to be different than every other Roku app, and I've also complained to Roku that they ought to pull the app from their 'approved' list, but no real response from either company.

So if they don't 'see the light' fairly quickly, I'll do the only thing I can, pull my subscription. So if there's something important on Showtime you can't live without (either as a cable subscriber or buying a OTT subscription directly) be prepared to suffer tons of abuse.

There's a few other things as to add-on s/w, but I'll wait a bit before going into that, as it's something that most Roku users won't delve into right away.

what punker101 said