Review on 📺 Roku 2 XD Streaming Player 1080p (Previous Model) by Marco Carpenter

Other reviews of RoKu products said enough. This overview focuses on the distribution of RoKu programs throughout the home. This works with RoKu-2XD, but not with RoKu3. NetFlix and Revain Prime movies FOR THE WHOLE HOUSE: Add a modulator and the RoKu Remote Control phone app and you're done. Like most houses we have a main TV and some old TVs in other rooms. Coax wiring for cable TV and our old antenna is already in the house. Being able to watch RoKu broadcasts from the kitchen, bedroom, or anywhere else is very important to us. If you like it, this is a guide to the main points of this setup.1. Get a good modulator. The $58 ChannelPlus CHANNEL PLUS 5415 Single RF Modulator offers MUCH better picture quality than a cheap modulator. We started with a $28 RadioShack modulator, which works well for older analog TVs, but not so well when tuned to a HiDef TV.2. Plan to use the RoKu remote control app on your phone. . that works great. This is necessary because the RoKu2 remote control is infrared and therefore does not work from other rooms. The RoKu phone app uses Wi-Fi, so your phone must be connected to the same Wi-Fi connection as RoKu. The only problem with the RoKu phone app; If your phone is ringing, you cannot reach the RoKu controls to pause RoKu before answering the call.3. One complication: The RoKu-2 doesn't support both HDMI and RCA outputs at the same time. So when the RoKu is connected to your main TV, you cannot modulate the RCA outputs. To solve this problem, we connected the RoKu-3 to our main TV via HDMI and connected the RoKu-2XD to the ChannelPlus modulator via the RCA output only. Sure, you can unplug the RoKu2's HDMI cable to watch in other rooms, but the HDMI sockets don't hold up well with frequent plugging and unplugging. Depending on the quality and length of your COAX cable, you may need a COAX amplifier to boost the signal from the modulator. This is another benefit of ChannelPlus blocks. Cheap modulators have a much weaker output signal intended for a single TV rather than being distributed throughout the house. In most cases, the ChannelPlus modulator works without an amplifier. If you see "noise" in the picture, get an amplifier. We used an amplifier left over from our Comcast cable TV setup. . which has just been replaced by DishTV. In addition to better picture quality, the need for a coaxial amplifier may justify the additional expense of using a ChannelPlus modulator, which will likely not require an amplifier. If you try this. . Enjoy. PS: RoKu's 16x9 aspect ratio makes people look skinny when you turn on an old 3x4 TV. If you have a HiDef TV in another room you will get a well formatted 16x9 picture.