Roku has been a long time coming to Australia. The little internet connected entertainment box has been well regarded on the other side of the Pacific for years, but getting it up and running in Australia has been a battle only the techiest of geeks have waged.
So we were pretty excited when Telstra announced it would be launching the Roku 2 in Australia, branded as the Telstra TV. Even though Roku has moved on with both the Roku 3 and the Roku 4, the updated Roku 2 is still a well regarded little device.
And given that Telstra has managed to acquire the holy trinity of Australian SVOD services - featuring both Netflix and Presto from launch and with Stan set to arrive in November - there's plenty of reasons that the Telstra TV is exciting for Australian entertainment fans.
Given that the Telstra TV is essentially a rebadged Roku 2, the hardware is anything but a surprise. It's still a small squarish box with a weird purple clothing tag coming out the side, plus a USB, ethernet, SD card and HDMI ports around the back (and side).
But this time around, instead of saying Roku on the front and remote, it says Telstra TV, and those little cloth tags read "Roku powered".
No, where the Telstra TV differentiates itself from Roku is in the software, which is, from our initial impressions, a rather customised – and restricted – experience.
Appiness
We're still putting the Telstra TV through its paces, and working on a full review, but during our early testing we've noticed that there are some very nice features under the hood.
At launch, Telstra has included Presto and Netflix apps out of the box, although there's a Stan app placeholder for when it launches in November.
Catch up TV services are also pretty well catered for – Yahoo!7's Plus 7 app is there, as is SBS On Demand and 9's JumpIn (the first time we've really seen it away from a browser or mobile app).
Sadly, there's no TenPlay or ABC iView yet, and we're not sure if or when they will make their way to the platform.
Also on the app front, you get BigPond Movies, YouTube, GoPro and RedBull out of the box, plus a whole heap more.
Navigation appears super simple, although initial tests indicate there are a few quirks that may turn users away from Telstra's streaming box. Firstly, there's no way to adjust DNS settings, so users who have been tweaking the DNS servers to access US Netflix on their Apple TV won't enjoy the same freedom here.
The second thing we noticed is that when you're playing your own mkv files, the Roku box doesn't decode Dolby Digital audio signal. Instead, it offers support via HDMI pass through, meaning that you need to have the Roku box plugged into a device (like an AV receiver) capable of decoding the format.
This isn't a deal breaker, by any means, but it is a noteworthy quirk that might turn some people off.
Early verdict
Until every streaming service manages to make its way to every smart TV (or Presto gets around to an Apple TV app), the Telstra TV has a unique selling point in being a a one-stop SVOD shop for Australians.
That's a pretty enticing offer, given the variety of content between the services (and the fact that a subscription to all three is still cheaper than a decent Foxtel plan).
But from what we've seen, this is definitely a Telstra box. The fact it's locked down to Telstra customers, and doesn't offer the same openness as the Roku box it's based on will certainly annoy some users, but there's enough to like here to overcome many of those hurdles.
from TechRadar: Technology reviews http://ift.tt/1jUJNtU
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