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Fox to buy Roku

wsj.com

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Re: Fox to buy Roku

#371

Post by al_borland »

Marsymars wrote: post #358
al_borland wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been a Plex user since the early days. I currently run it on a Synology NAS in a container, using the Plex app on the AppleTV as my primary client device. I tried setting up a Jellyfin container a few months ago as I’ve been concerned about the direction of Plex. It went poorly. I have a fairly large library, which Plex never seemed to care about. Jellyfin choked. It took forever to go through it all, and I seem…

> For all the fanfare Jellyfin gets online, I expected it to be better. It made me question how honest the people pushing it are. But maybe they have small libraries or only tested it with 5 movies for the review. I don’t think that’s a real-world experience. I don't love crapping on open source software, but I had the same experience recently - installed Jellyfin because I wanted to test hardware-accelerated AV1 tra…

> I don't love crapping on open source software

The software is probably fine for what it is. I mostly meant to crap on those pushing it and claiming it’s better than Plex, when, a least for large libraries, it isn’t. It’s important people have the right expectations going in.

Plex has almost a decade of development on Jellyfin, and Plex itself was born as an OS X fork for XBMC, so it got a big head start from open source itself.

Re: Fox to buy Roku

#372

Post by pseudosavant »

xp84 wrote: post #264
pseudosavant wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially because you can get TVs with Roku built-in. I would guess most Roku users aren't using a box these days.

> I would guess most Roku users aren't using a box these days. Sure I guess. But those devices objectively suck. the CPU and storage in "smart TVs" are so underpowered that using streaming apps on them is painfully sluggish. For comparison, I've used the "Chromecast with Google TV" (a $50ish at its release 4k streaming stick that uses the 'Google TV', fka 'Android TV' platform) and a Sony TV on the same platform, rel…

Maybe it is just the devices I have, but I've had the higher end 4K-capable Roku boxes before I eventually got all Roku TVs. I would say the experience with my Roku TVs (TCL, Phillips, and Sharp) has been the best. Nothing slow about them.

I don't try to do anything like run a console emulator on them though. Just watching streaming channels and YouTube TV.

Re: Fox to buy Roku

#373

Post by xp84 »

pseudosavant wrote: post #372
xp84 wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would guess most Roku users aren't using a box these days. Sure I guess. But those devices objectively suck. the CPU and storage in "smart TVs" are so underpowered that using streaming apps on them is painfully sluggish. For comparison, I've used the "Chromecast with Google TV" (a $50ish at its release 4k streaming stick that uses the 'Google TV', fka 'Android TV' platform) and a Sony TV on the same platform, rel…

Maybe it is just the devices I have, but I've had the higher end 4K-capable Roku boxes before I eventually got all Roku TVs. I would say the experience with my Roku TVs (TCL, Phillips, and Sharp) has been the best. Nothing slow about them. I don't try to do anything like run a console emulator on them though. Just watching streaming channels and YouTube TV.

I wish I could come back and ask you how they perform after a couple more years of "software updates" from the app providers. Considering, too, that they will also be vibe-coding them from here on out.

IDK about the specs on yours, but even things like bloated sizes of apps themselves on disk can become a problem. What happens when the OS and the apps inevitably go up in size such that the 8GB or whatever TCL has decided to give you cannot hold the OS, Netflix, Disney+, and HBO at the same time? They don't just let you stay on old versions anymore, either.

Re: Fox to buy Roku

#374

Post by 0cf8612b2e1e »

stock_toaster wrote: post #359
0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure seems like free money. In normal times, there is a chance this could get blocked, but a favored media outlet of the administration seems a lock. Also, look at the five day chart. Shot up from $120 on Friday. Bunch of insiders knew early.

Ah. I think I figured it out. > FOX is acquiring Roku in a cash-and-stock transaction valued at $160.00 per ROKU share. FOX will pay $96.00 in cash and 0.9693 shares of FOX Class A common stock for each Roku Class A and Class B share outstanding immediately prior to the effective time of the merger. So not a straight $160/share cash, but $96/share cash and some FOX shares. Roku trading below 160 means the fox stock i…

Fox also took a dive today. While $160 total could happen, seems likely to shortchange Roku shareholders.

Re: Fox to buy Roku

#376

Post by TheGrassyKnoll »

carlosjobim wrote: post #239
dylan604 wrote: post #34

Ugh, Fox. I recently made the decision to not spend $10.99/month for their FoxOne app to stream World Cup matches. I decided to watch the Telemundo broadcasts instead, even though I don’t speak Spanish, just to not give Fox my money. If I were Roku user, this would definitely cause me to quit being a Roku user. I doubt I’d be the only one, but I also do not believe it will be enough total to be noticeable.

Do you think people will throw away their perfectly functioning devices because of politics?

Yes. If this goes through, my Roku is going to the Goodwill.

Re: Fox to buy Roku

#377

Post by TheGrassyKnoll »

asveikau wrote: post #214
carlosjobim wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think? Does it make sense that Fox would invest the entire value of their own company for that end goal?

It depends. If they have the foresight to know that alienating their existing install base is a bad thing, then maybe they will put in a shoestring budget to keep the lights on for the old stuff.

Fox owning Roku is alienating to me.

Re: Fox to buy Roku

#378

Post by zamalek »

freeAgent wrote: post #186
andrewla wrote: post #4

As a long-time[1] customer of Roku I am tentatively extremely pessimistic. I have always been unhappy with Roku's decision to get involved in streaming content at all, because it could potentially cut into their service-agnostic architecture. Bad enough in my mind that they had in-platform ads instead of just charging for hardware, but way worse when they are actively competing with streaming services. And now it loo…

Ironically, I think the Apple TV is the best streaming box out there. Of course, Apple is both the manufacturer and a streamer in their own right. And they definitely privilege their own store and streaming over other services. However, everything else already sucks so much with UIs chock full of ads that Apple wins anyway. It’s awful.

I don't like anything Apple, I had an awful experience with MacOS (the laptop was great), iPhones and their 12 finger gestures (again, terrible software) aren't for me.

WiFi and worsening slowness woes with the Google TV/Chromecast pushed me into buying an Apple TV, and it is the single Apple product that I would glowingly recommend; that's saying something coming from an Apple hater. It is truly a fantastic product.

Re: Fox to buy Roku

#379

Post by ssl-3 »

BobaFloutist wrote: post #221
05 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the box where I can’t set up a third party player to do the ‘replay last 5 seconds with subtitles on’ because it’s all locked down is the best then I don’t want to know what the worst is, I’ll just keep using LibreElec. At least if LibreElec does something I don’t like Claude can fix it.

What box do you put librelec on?

I use LibreElec on a Raspberry Pi 4, though it doubtless also works well on a Pi 5 (and the cheapest one with 1 GB of RAM is probably plenty).

It does great with local [networked] media and that's all I use it for. There's a million plugins for other things, some dating back to the XBMC days on the OG Xbox 20+ years ago, that others may find utility in... but for regular commercialized streaming I just use a $25 Chromecast and that does the business well-enough.

(LibreElec has a huge advantage to me that most people probably don't care about: My AV receiver sounds brilliant and was once very expensive [~$4,500], but it's rather old and it chokes on HDMI signals higher than 1080i. It is also unable to decode things like Dolby Digital Plus, TrueHD, and DTS-HD.

This would make the receiver a non-starter for post-Blu-Ray film soundtracks, except the Pi4 has two HDMI outputs. It is a no-effort built-in for LibreElec to use one of these outputs for video, while the other one is dedicated to high-res multichannel PCM audio.

In this way: The video system gets whatever video signals it wants, while the audio system is just fed PCM audio and doesn't have to struggle with any of that more-modern business at all. Everything is very happy with this arrangement.)

Re: Fox to buy Roku

#380

Post by supertroop »

freeAgent wrote: post #186
andrewla wrote: post #4

As a long-time[1] customer of Roku I am tentatively extremely pessimistic. I have always been unhappy with Roku's decision to get involved in streaming content at all, because it could potentially cut into their service-agnostic architecture. Bad enough in my mind that they had in-platform ads instead of just charging for hardware, but way worse when they are actively competing with streaming services. And now it loo…

Ironically, I think the Apple TV is the best streaming box out there. Of course, Apple is both the manufacturer and a streamer in their own right. And they definitely privilege their own store and streaming over other services. However, everything else already sucks so much with UIs chock full of ads that Apple wins anyway. It’s awful.

Why is that ironic? The Apple TV unit reminds me of the old Apple. Simple and solid.
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