mesiah

September 28, 2010 at 11:54pm

While the htpc has its place, I would not give my TiVo up for anything. It is always on, always recording, never crashes, and just does what it is supposed to do very well. While I could get more functionality out of an htpc, the ease of use just isn't up to par with TiVo. Now, I see TiVo specifically, as cable company dvrs are garbage. There is only two things that TiVo is missing in order to be the total package. One is the ability to be a regular media extender. It can already stream movies from your computer with TiVo desktop, but it requires the use of the desktop program, which is junk. The second is hulu. It would appear that this second issue is being remedied, except that $10 a month is too much to ask for the service TiVo provides. If they don't price themselves below netflix they won't have a chance.

maxuh

September 28, 2010 at 5:47pm

I agree that nobody really cares about Hulu's $10 plan.  But as for Roku with Netflix, I really like it.  Yes I have done the TV-out from laptop to the HDTV many times too, but it isn't very convenient since I can't use my laptop the same time as the HDTV is getting the video from laptop.  The resolution of my laptop has to change just to accommodate for the TV-out.  Also depending on the cable being used from laptop to HDTV, the sound is coming out of laptop and not as good sound as if it were coming out of the TV external speakers and not quite in-sync with the picture.  So this is why I like Roku.

If you have a DVR that has Hulu and Netflix capability, then sure that is a better option than Roku anyday.