Hi,
Now we finally have a decent internet connection (80mb fibre) I'm finally becoming more interested in a media streaming box for our second TV.

I have a few questions (if you'll indulge me, as I have found some answers but they appear to be quite old, or more relevant to the US market)..

1. Given this will be predominantly for our children to watch, are the parental controls still only to the level of not adding new channels? It concerns me if I added a pay per view channel, that there are no additional controls to prevent inadvertent purchasing of rented films (for example). I'm assuming there are content filters that can be set and overridden (this is of lesser concern as it's in a shared room)?

2. We have a sky subscription (sports and entertainment). Does this mean we can subscribe to the disney channels for free? The channels page doesn't make this clear at all to me.

3. We have a lovefilm by post and instant subscription. I read that this is going over to Amazon instant (i.e. Rebranding). Does this mean the Amazon instant channel will then be available to us? Is the quality acceptable, given i've tried using the HDMI out on the lovefilm iPad app and the quality was awful compared to the iplayer app (and just running it on the iPad)

Given I'd wire this in with a spare Devolo homeplug I have, I presume I will be looking at the roku 3 for the ethernet connectivity.


Thanks in advance!

Aniseedvan wrote:

...
1. Given this will be predominantly for our children to watch, are the parental controls still only to the level of not adding new channels? It concerns me if I added a pay per view channel, that there are no additional controls to prevent inadvertent purchasing of rented films (for example). I'm assuming there are content filters that can be set and overridden (this is of lesser concern as it's in a shared room)?...

There are no Roku parental controls. There are PIN preferences, but that's not quite the same thing. It has three settings, the most stringent of which is "A PIN is required when using your Roku account to make purchases or add any item from the Channel Store." This is for exactly that: adding channels or purchasing Channel Store items. Content within a Channel would not generally fall into this category.

The channel themselves would be where any parental controls lie. I can't speak to UK channels, but here in the US, Netflix has parental controls that are set when managing the account via the Netflix Website. Amazon Instant Video, too. Hulu Plus, though, has no parental controls.

So, it's up to the channel to choose to institute parental controls.

Your second question about Sky is a no, unfortunately.

Thanks both.

Anyone know about the Amazon instant film question please?

Aniseedvan wrote:

Thanks both.

Anyone know about the Amazon instant film question please?

i don't know the answer, but this site is a great resource for UK specific roku info
http://ukrokuchannels.blogspot.co.uk/

Amazon Instant Film, or LoveFilm as I still know it as, is not available on the Roku in the UK. There has been talk of this coming to the UK Roku store since the device was launched in the UK some two years ago, but it has yet to make an appearance.

As i have said before on this forum, given Sky's heavy investment in the Roku i would be surprised to see it. However,if it did, along with ITVplayer, then the Roku would corner the streaming market in the UK imo.