I understand the economics of streaming movies. I know Netflix and Amazon and everyone else wants to get me to pay monthly to watch movies. However, there are two problems.
- I don’t want to pay every time. I already pay for DirecTV and don’t want to pay for another service.
- Internet access is not always perfect and I hate, hate, hate low quality video.
So the answer for me, historically, has been to watch DVDs. At some point I ripped the movie off the DVD and make a digital copy for myself. (FBI, I owned the DVDs and don’t share them so back off) However, the problem is the decide HOW to play the videos on the television in a simple way.
DirecTV has a USB port, but it seems to be useless.
My Sharp TV has a USB port, but doesn’t support NTFS or USB 3.0 so I can’t have large movie files and it’s slow. This makes it impossible to use the feature.
My Blu-Ray device has a USB port and plays the files, but there is a strange audio lag happening to the TV so it makes it intolerable.
I bought a Roku 3. It has this bizarre idea where “apps” are called “channels”. It has a USB port, but requires an app, I mean channel to access it. Crazy UX. Anyway, it played videos, but could not play subtitles! We have some foreign movies and I need the sub-titles. Crap, this thing sucks!
I could use a laptop, but it doesn’t have a remote control and is a pain in the ass to keep connecting and moving.
Finally, I tried the WD Live for just $86. The video works automatically and has a button for subtitles. Look at the remotes for the Roku 3 and the WD Live below.
The WD Live is much more robust. The only downside is that it doesn’t support Amazon Prime Instant Video.
I know, I know, I just finished trying to play my own videos. However, I just saw this thing on Amazon, some original content and I (as a prime customer) wanted to watch it. Neither my Sharp TV, nor DirecTV, nor the new WD Live has Amazon Prime.
I just can’t seem to get my perfect situation. Oh well, at least I got subtitles.
Whatya think?