have roku ??

cb

Member
I have a Roku tv given to me with all the extras..can I connect to a pc and watch old movies, if so how thanks
 
(quoted from post at 09:01:58 06/22/17) I have a Roku tv given to me with all the extras..can I connect to a pc and watch old movies, if so how thanks
you need to connect thru the router for the computer. just enter the settings in the roku to connect.
 
From what I know about Roku, all of their products require that you provide them with your credit card info before you can start service - you know, just in case you want to get something that's pay-per-view. :shock:

I've avoided Roku for that very reason!
 
I have had a Roko box on my tv for over ten years, never gave any channel a credit card number. There are channels you can pay to receive, like Netflix. Tubitv and Crackle are two good free channels, they have commercials, but they are free. They have a pretty good selection of movies and tv shows. You can watch YouTube , Cowboy Classics, Saddle Up Westerns, Pop Flix, Popcornflix, Viewster, Ovguide, Vevo, plus many more that are free. You can also get music channels like Slacker, Pandora, iHeart, and more that are also free. Just connect to the Internet, no computer needed. As I have said no credit required to watch many channels. I bought an add on box for my tv to watch Netflix, and was surprised at all the free channels. Did I mention it's free for alot of channels.
 
Nice thing about a Roku, if you do want some channels that you can't get for free, you can usually find a service that carries them at a price lower than what you'd pay a satellite or cable provider for a huge package that includes that one channel you wanted.
 
I have the wireless router, comes with my internet service, and I am assuming that the tv is a smart tv and should have a built in wireless system???, I am asking how to connect the tv to my computer, I enjoy watching old b movies..computer has a greater varity thanks for the replies
 
If it is a laptop usually you only have outputs not inputs. If you are talking about using a computer with a separate monitor, some of the new ones have hdmi inputs so you can hook a Roku to that.
The Roku needs an internet connection either wired or wireless (if your Roku supports it). However, just because both are on the network won't show the video on the computer.
 
I bought a Blu-ray player with built in Wi-Fi mainly to play movies from Red Box. Was playing around one day and managed to get it connected to my wireless router. Signed up for Netflix because they had some stuff I was interested in and discovered the player has a bunch of built in channels. I don't think we have rented a movie from a Red Box since.

Not difficult just follow the set-up but you do need a wireless router so your box can connect to the internet.
 

The Roku works with Wi-Fi. You CAN rent movies directly from Roku, and for that reason you do need to provide your credit card, but if you never rent any movies, your card will never be charged. I HAVE subscribed to Hulu and Netflix. Hulu is about $10 per month, and Netflix is around $9 per month. Both have a LOT of TV show reruns as well as a vast selection of movies with no additional charge. Hulu has "The Rifleman", "Bonanza", "The Cisco Kid", and a bunch of others. When there is nothing worth watching on regular network TV, which is most of the time, we just go to the Roku.

As a sidenote, getting it all registered and setup took some real patience for me. A grandchild could probably make it easy.
 
(quoted from post at 13:12:56 06/22/17)
The Roku works with Wi-Fi. You CAN rent movies directly from Roku, and for that reason you do need to provide your credit

I have two Roku's in the house and have never provided them with any CC information.
 
Some body please chime in if I'm wrong but I always thought you didn't need a roku on a PC to watch Netflix etc.
 
(quoted from post at 17:21:00 06/22/17) Some body please chime in if I'm wrong but I always thought you didn't need a roku on a PC to watch Netflix etc.

The Roku is completely separate from your PC, the only thing it shares in the Wifi internet.
 
You do not need the Roku to watch TV on your computer. If your TV is a "smart" TV then you might not need the Roku. You can add apps to your smart TV which will give it all the same capabilities of a Roku. The Roku is simply a device which you can put apps on that will go out on the internet and get you TV shows and movies but a smart TV will do that for you without the Roku. I guess in a sense, the Roku IS a computer that you connect to your TV if it doesn't have "smart" capability.
 
(quoted from post at 12:15:11 06/22/17) I have the wireless router, comes with my internet service, and I am assuming that the tv is a smart tv and should have a built in wireless system???, I am asking how to connect the tv to my computer, I enjoy watching old b movies..computer has a greater varity thanks for the replies

You say your computer has a greater variety. What exactly do you mean? How are you watching/getting to these movies? Are they saved on the computer? Are you watching them by putting a disc in the DVD drive? Are you watching them by going to a certain website?

You can connect your tv directly and use it like a computer monitor, depends if your computer has the right plug. Or, some tvs have an older computer monitor plug built in. You can wirelessly view video files from the computer to the tv, but that depends on answering the questions above, what version of Windows or whatever you have, etc.

You could google something like "mirror computer to roku tv", that should come up with guides, throw in your version of Windows or whatever into that search as well.

What people are saying, website stuff is built into the tv itself. It can view Internet stuff, like Youtube, and more.
 
(quoted from post at 11:43:49 06/22/17) I have had a Roko box on my tv for over ten years, never gave any channel a credit card number. There are channels you can pay to receive, like Netflix. Tubitv and Crackle are two good free channels, they have commercials, but they are free. They have a pretty good selection of movies and tv shows. You can watch YouTube , Cowboy Classics, Saddle Up Westerns, Pop Flix, Popcornflix, Viewster, Ovguide, Vevo, plus many more that are free. You can also get music channels like Slacker, Pandora, iHeart, and more that are also free. Just connect to the Internet, no computer needed. As I have said no credit required to watch many channels. I bought an add on box for my tv to watch Netflix, and was surprised at all the free channels. Did I mention it's free for alot of channels.

Ok, I'll add to this a little more......just in case. In the above post by dlbuck, he mentions several sites online where you can watch TV shows and movies. Most folks know that for Youtube, you type in www.youtube.com. Likewise for any of the above. Netflix is www.netflix.com, Saddle Up Westerns is www.saddleupwesterns.com, and so on. You can bookmark these sites for quick and easy reference. What makes these Roku and other online streaming devices so nice to some is that folks don't have to mess with the web address, and instead just click on a logo or icon for that site.

I've tried a couple of these such devices, but not Roku. I accidentally got sent a Roku and thought I might try it out just to see, but it required a credit card number regardless of whether you planned on going to any pay sites or not. Again, my experience with Roku is EXTREMELY limited, but that's what happened in my instance. The other box I ordered was supposed to be top-of-the-line and the price reflected that. It had a small remote, plus a mini keyboard. Sad thing was, it actually took both to use the box, and there still was no <back> or <return> function. So sent it back and bought the wife an old PC that had been updated with Windows 7, 4gig RAM and I think a 250gig hard drive. As it was bought SOLELY for online streaming, I have to say it was about the best $60 spent in a long time. For other surfing, forget it - it doesn't process fast enough, even though the processor is ranked as fast as modern processors. It's meant for a different era of computing. However, it works great for streaming.

Now, what about hooking up to a wireless router? That's easy. You can buy USB antenna's that work well. Some can be as small as a thumbnail and just barely big enough to plug into a USB port. The best one I have is this one, and I cannot speak highly enough about it!!
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BDE4IUK/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
It's a little on the large side, but it works fantastic! I keep it on the floor behind my PC and out of sight (the PC I'm on now) and it connects to the modem in the next room. Originally, I used it with a laptop in town. There would be times when we didn't want to go into the library, so I'd park across the street and have this antenna in the dash. Got a blazing-fast connection! Now that we have internet at home, library trips are no longer necessary. However, during our last trip to Arkansas after Mom passed, I asked our friends across the street if we could piggy-back off of their internet and, like I expected, they were OK with that. Without this antenna, we simply couldn't connect. With the antenna, it was like we were sitting in their living room.

Going back to the older PC we have for streaming, we "do" have to turn the PC on manually, but can turn it off using the wireless keyboard. Rather than also messing with a mouse, I got a keyboard that had a mouse-pad so that everything was together. The keys are bigger for easier viewing over that mini thing from before. The TV remote works the TV, and the keyboard works for everything else. It may not be "ideal", but it works far better than the other more expensive routes we have tried.
 

I assumed in my previous post you were referring to a tv with roku built in, since some are available (roku branded interface built in instead of whatever a regular smart tv from that manufacturer uses). Not that you had an addon Roku stick/device. Either way, both would have wifi capability, so you wouldn't need another adapter.
 
If you just want to watch your computer using you TV just get a long hdmi cable. Will work on any HDTV. Roku or Smart not needed.
Do you want wireless between your computer and your TV?
 
thanks for all the info..the pc offers several sites for movies and each site has bunches of movies.. partial to black and white B movies .westerns and police/detective shows. as I
said the computer has a wireless modem, I run the laptop from it...i'll try your sugestions
 
Some desktop PC's do not have HDMI output, but there is an adapter that can correct that problem. In fact, I'm using one of those adapters as I type, as the "monitor" is a Vizio LED TV. My adapter is this:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006FILNV6/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Have been using it for a couple of years now and seems bullet proof.

And again, USB antenna's can make your PC connect with a wireless router/modem. Just don't expect the little thumbnail-size units to work as well as the larger one I showed earlier.
 
(quoted from post at 17:14:00 06/23/17) thanks for all the info..the pc offers several sites for movies and each site has bunches of movies.. partial to black and white B movies .westerns and police/detective shows. as I
said the computer has a wireless modem, I run the laptop from it...i'll try your sugestions

If you have the full roku tv, with what you say here, the suggestion to search mirroring is what you want.

You can add channels to Roku, if you haven't looked through them, examples. https://channelstore.roku.com/search/western

https://support.roku.com/article/208756388-how-to-add-channels-to-your-roku-streaming-device
 
IF you mean you have a TV with Roku built in, it's a fairly new unit. Please give us make & model, it'll be easier to get more specific. But if you have a newer computer with HDMI output, the TV is likely to have a HDMI input--all you need is one cable and you're gold. If you can't get make/model, post pics of the jacks and plugs on both the computer (back side of course if it's a desktop) and the TV. Shouldn't be too hard to figure out.
 

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