I've been thinking about getting some sort of streaming player for my TV.

 I'm most familiar with Google TV but I read that it doesn't play HULU. Two people that I know have the Apple version and aren't terribly psyched on it.  Does anyone use Roku? How does it compare? 

I love my Roku

I use netflix, Hulu, Youtube, Vimeo, Facebook and there is a ton of "private channels" you can find on the internet made by developers. (porn, traffic cameras, ijustintv, etc)

If you get the ROKU 2 ($99) it'll play Angry Birds, Galaga, Pac Man, and a couple other 8 bit video games too

I'm fixing to buy that as my second Roku

I have a roku 2 xs, brand new in box, never used once, that I'll sell for $80 if you are interested. PM me if so. I'm only selling because I use my ps3 for my streaming needs, it seems like a pretty sweet little streamer.

There's a ton of non-private channels but here's a list to just the "private" ones

http://streamfree.tv/apps/roku-private-channels/all/

You'll see the password listed and if you hover your mouse over the password link you'll see that it's a link to your roku account.

If you owned a Roku all you would have to do is click on the the password (which would direct you to your roku account)

and type it in

(I'm not seeing youtube anymore and I've heard it was discontinued due to some legal BS but I've also heard it's still accessible)

If you really wanna get deep into ROKU you can check out their forum  http://forums.roku.com/   

Okay wise guy!

Think of it this way:

If you had to carry your DVD/blueray player to your television from another room, plug in an hdmi and find a power outlet every time you wanted to watch a DVD. You would find it pretty annoying.

Now imagine just sitting down on your couch and pushing 'PLAY' on a remote control.

That is why there are set top boxes



BOO-YAH!!! 

That is what I do. Its not inconvenient, and I have $80 to spare to by a quarter of weed to chilllllll. My laptop weighs like 2 pounds. Its not that inconvenient, and I have no jail break issues that you guys are whining about.