Roku vs Apple TV? Thoughts?

[IndyMLVC]

Has anyone here owned both devices? Likes? Dislikes? Opinions?

[doctor_who]

I own both. The Apple TV 4K is much better. Quicker, more fluid, smooth AirPlay from Apple devices, amazing picture quality. Has amazon prime now. I own the most recent roku as well but don’t really use it. My wife does like the Vudu app on the roku more than the Apple TV, but that’s about it.

[jgo435]

I've owned different Roku models for about 5 years and I've own the 4th Apple TV for about 6 months and also have the Apple TV 4K. I think it all depends on what you plan to use it for mostly. Roku's UI hasn't really changed at all in several years and it looks a bit dated (IMO). tvOS is definitely more pleasing to the eye. Once you get into the apps/channels, they more or less look the same and the user experience is pretty much the same. I will say that I had a really hard time adjusting to Apple TV's remote. It's just very small and thin and there's a bit of a learning curve with the swiping. Even now sometimes I still find myself swiping in the wrong direction. Maybe it's just me. I prefer Roku's remote even though it looks and feels a bit toy-like. If you already have a lot of digital media through iTunes, the Apple TV is probably better for you just because it'll be easier to view all of your media. To view any UV movies, Amazon Prime Video and Vudu are available. If you go for the Roku, you might be able to to view some of your iTunes media through Movies Anywhere, but all of the studios aren't part of MA so not all movies will be there. Also, Movies Anywhere is just for... movies, so if you have purchased any TV shows through iTunes, there's not an easy way to watch them on Roku. There are some workarounds, but it's not worth the trouble IMO. If you're already heavily in the Apple ecosystem, I'd go ahead and go for the Apple TV.

With regards to 4K and HDR... I consider myself a pretty tech savvy guy, but for the life of me, I can't get HDR to work properly on the Apple TV 4K. The colors just look really washed out. Playing video in just 4K looks great though. I haven't tried out the 4K Rokus.

[njdevil254]

I think the best way to look at it would be which ecosystem you're more invested in. The Apple TV is great, but only if you're invested in Apple products and buy most of your movies through their service. I don't own one, but from what I've heard they've added Vudu and possibly Amazon recently, but now that MA exists that's pretty much a moot point.

I have owned a Roku stick for years now, and it's never let me down. I love that it was the only machine that has Vudu, Amazon, and Google on one device. I do own a few unique movies on iTunes that moved to the other services through MA, so I have pretty much my entire collection of digital movies in one place.

Again, I don't own the Apple TV and won't get one until I upgrade my projector to 4K down the road, but the sheer amount of content on the Roku gives it the edge to me for versatility. I do think most of my digital purchases and redemptions will be through Apple now to take advantage of the 4K upgrade, but for now the Roku works great with my current needs.

[Greyman]

Originally Posted by njdevil254

I think the best way to look at it would be which ecosystem you're more invested in. The Apple TV is great, but only if you're invested in Apple products and buy most of your movies through their service. I don't own one, but from what I've heard they've added Vudu and possibly Amazon recently, but now that MA exists that's pretty much a moot point.

I have owned a Roku stick for years now, and it's never let me down. I love that it was the only machine that has Vudu, Amazon, and Google on one device. I do own a few unique movies on iTunes that moved to the other services through MA, so I have pretty much my entire collection of digital movies in one place.

Again, I don't own the Apple TV and won't get one until I upgrade my projector to 4K down the road, but the sheer amount of content on the Roku gives it the edge to me for versatility. I do think most of my digital purchases and redemptions will be through Apple now to take advantage of the 4K upgrade, but for now the Roku works great with my current needs.

The fact that Apple TV now has Vudu, Amazon and MoviesAnywhere means it is also good for people that are not tied to the Apple ecosystem.

[Fiffy]

Originally Posted by njdevil254

I don't own one, but from what I've heard they've added Vudu and possibly Amazon recently, but now that MA exists that's pretty much a moot point.

The main draw of the Amazon app for me is access to movies and TV shows that are free with Amazon Prime (i.e. Amazon's Netflix equivalent). These are not accessible through MA. I recently disconnected my Roku that I had basically only used for Amazon lately.

[IndyMLVC]

The apple ecosystem doesn't have as much of a draw for me as the idea that moviesanywhere has made a lot of my movies available there and it's better to have more of a choice in encoding. In addition, I really like the idea that my HD titles will be upgraded. I already have a Roku 4k and i'm just wondering if I should sell that and move over to Apple.

My biggest concerns are:

1) channel availability - is a channel on Roku that's not on Apple?

2) are there drawbacks to the apps that I love on Apple as opposed to Roku?

3) is there any issue with displaying the frame-rate that the master is encoded with? I'd prefer to have 23.976 than 60fps on everything.

[master gandhi]

VUDU on Apple TV 4K doesn’t actually do 4K, so that’s my only real gripe with it compared to the Roku. Hoping they either add 4K to the VUDU app or all the studios join Movies Anywhere, so all the 4K movies I own on VUDU can just transfer to iTunes in 4K (and hopefully Disney adds 4K to iTunes).

[PCFan]

Originally Posted by master gandhi

VUDU on Apple TV 4K doesn’t actually do 4K, so that’s my only real gripe with it compared to the Roku. Hoping they either add 4K to the VUDU app or all the studios join Movies Anywhere, so all the 4K movies I own on VUDU can just transfer to iTunes in 4K (and hopefully Disney adds 4K to iTunes).

Vudu on the Apple TV does not stream in HDX for some movies and TV episodes that I own in HDX quality and it's been this way ever since the app was released on the Apple TV. So if you mainly use Vudu and don't use iTunes then I think the Roku Ultra is the preferred device over the Apple TV 4k just because of the limitations of the Vudu app on the Apple TV. The Apple TV 4k does make sense if you mainly use iTunes or don't use Vudu. There are better devices than the Apple TV 4k for Vudu at this time.

[IndyMLVC]

Originally Posted by master gandhi

VUDU on Apple TV 4K doesn’t actually do 4K, so that’s my only real gripe with it compared to the Roku. Hoping they either add 4K to the VUDU app or all the studios join Movies Anywhere, so all the 4K movies I own on VUDU can just transfer to iTunes in 4K (and hopefully Disney adds 4K to iTunes).

Hmm...that's a definite negative. Why is that?
Also - a thought: not all movies that are in 4k on Vudu are in 4k on iTunes. So simply joining MA doesn't change everything.

Originally Posted by PCFan

Vudu on the Apple TV does not stream in HDX for some movies and TV episodes that I own in HDX quality and it's been this way ever since the app was released on the Apple TV. So if you mainly use Vudu and don't use iTunes then I think the Roku Ultra is the preferred device over the Apple TV 4k just because of the limitations of the Vudu app on the Apple TV. The Apple TV 4k does make sense if you mainly use iTunes or don't use Vudu. There are better devices than the Apple TV 4k for Vudu at this time.

Hmm...that's super strange. How do you know if it's not streaming in HDX? Do we know why that is?

Thanks for the feedback!

[PCFan]

Originally Posted by IndyMLVC

Hmm...that's a definite negative. Why is that?
Also - a thought: not all movies that are in 4k on Vudu are in 4k on iTunes. So simply joining MA doesn't change everything.



Hmm...that's super strange. How do you know if it's not streaming in HDX? Do we know why that is?

Thanks for the feedback!

I know it's streaming in SD after I swipe down the remote's touchpad and it does not show the letters HD in top of the plot description and it also looks blurrier. If something is streaming in HDX it will show the letters HD at the top of the plot description. This issue is well known in the Vudu forum and I read that it has something to do with the file.

[Zu Nim]

Originally Posted by IndyMLVC

Hmm...that's super strange. How do you know if it's not streaming in HDX? Do we know why that is?

Vudu has to convert their content library to a format compatible with Apple and they seem to do this on the basis of popularity. If you own a title in HDX but it's streaming in SD on an Apple device, it's not popular and/or they haven't gotten to doing it yet. Limited time and resources when you're a minority provider, I guess.

[bubba111]

I'll echo everything jgo435 said.

Also, if you have small children, the Apple TV remote can be pretty frustrating. It can even be frustrating to me, and I'd consider my finger dexterity quite good. The Roku remote is just easier, especially for kids.

While the overall interface is definitely more dated than Apple's, I'd also consider some of Roku's apps more user-friendly. For example, I love how easy it is to seek in the Roku Netflix app. The Apple Netflix app is good, but not quite as easy to use as the Roku.

[KenHurd]

I have the original Roku Ultra (2016 model), and for right now, I am happy with it. However, I do want to mention a few things about my experience using it this past year. I bought it in December 2016, and for the first few months, it worked flawlessly. I previously had the Amazon Fire TV, but I was redeeming the digital copies that came with my Blu-rays, and I needed Vudu. Even with Movies Anywhere, I still have over 200 movies that are not MA compatible, and I only have those in Vudu.

One thing that I do not like about Roku is that they send you forced updates. Around February or March of last year, one of the updates added a chirping sound to the audio. That sound lasted for months, until around August, before it finally got fixed. But the update that fixed it caused new, worse problems that caused the audio to become very loud. I had to set the volume on my receiver lower by 10 to 20 places -- I normally watch movies with the volume set to 30 or 35. The next update didn't fix this issue but instead added an issue where the screen would randomly flash black. I would have to restart my device to get the flashes to stop, and this was something I had to do almost every time I turned the device on after it went to sleep. All of these issues were with version 7 of their operating system.

Finally, in the November or December update, when they released version 8.0 of their operating system, they fixed all of these issues and everything has been working flawlessly again. But I spent almost a year with the device having errors their updates created. Every time an update gets released, I wonder what new problems its going to cause instead of what fixes/new features it provides. On Roku's forums, it seems like different people have different issues depending on the Roku model they have. Also, not everybody ends up with issues when an update is released. Some people have had issues with version 8, while I have had none.

It has been working flawlessly for me for the past month or two. It even handled a 4K movie on my low speed (10mbps) Internet and only had to buffer one time during the movie. But if the next update causes new problems, I'm going to consider either the Apple TV 4K or the Nvidia Shield Pro.

[deto]

We use apple tv and amazon fire. If apple tv had new japan world, we would probably only use apple tv.

[twobelowpar]

We have a Roku for the bedroom but I absolutely love the ATV4K. It has what I need content-wise, has a splendid interface, and my only complaint is the remote.

[squatting hen]

I have always used Roku, but I did try the ATV3 for a few days. This of course was before MA, Vudu, and Amazon was available, so things have defiantly gotten better. At the time I remember thinking where are all the apps/channel store. There was a lot missing from the ATV compared to what we used on the Roku, so we returned it. I also prefer the Roku layout. I don't want to see what I consider ads on the ATV. Promoting new movies/albums or whatever. I know most don't consider those ads (roku has ads on the right hand side).

I was walking around Best Buy the other day and they had the ATV 4K out to demo. I agree with most, the remote is not very user friendly. I didn't realize the touchpad part was a button and couldn't figure out how to select anything for a few minutes. Geometry Wars was on there, and it was pretty neat to be able to play that.

I have thought about picking up a new ATV, but it is just hard to justify the price for what you get. For us, there really isn't any advantage over an Roku. Especially if you are used to a Roku device. Game are a plus, but I don't think we would ever play them. Thankfully though, we use harmony remotes so we wouldn't be stuck with the ATV one.

[GuyIncognito]

My Apple TV does a weird thing where it will fritz out and give me a white static screen with some weird colors. Then when I scroll through menus it will be normal for a little bit but then go back to that screen again. I tried a different HDMI port on the TV with the same results

[veritas]

Originally Posted by GuyIncognito

My Apple TV does a weird thing where it will fritz out and give me a white static screen with some weird colors. Then when I scroll through menus it will be normal for a little bit but then go back to that screen again. I tried a different HDMI port on the TV with the same results

It could be the cable you might just have a cable that cant handle the chroma you have it set to I would lower chroma from 4:4:4 to a lower setting or get a better hdmi cable (or adjust the frame rate high frame rate and 4:4:4 chroma is alot of data some cables cant handle it). I know I had to get a new cable to handle 4:4:4 at a higher frame rate and the old cable would have similar glitches to what i think your describing.

[WestMan]

I learned a long time ago not to play in Apple's ecosystem.