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I picked up a ROKU, I am wanting to cut the Cable TV cord.

I first tried the ROKU hooked up to the TV with an HDMI in the Great room/Living room and it worked well. We even watched a couple movies on Amazon Prime. No dropouts or buffering. (ROKU is connected to 60mbps speed internet through a switch with CAT5e.)

Last night I thought I would try it in the HT room and see how it worked and how the picture quality looked there.
Hook up of the ROKU to the switch again by CAT5e. From the output of the ROKU I connected the HDMI cable to an HDMI input on a Marantz SR8002 HT receiver.

I then turned on the equipment and set the Marantz to the correct HDMI input port and the ROKU home page came up just fine. I checked YouTube and it seemed ok. When I tried Amazon Prime it loaded fine. But, when we found a movie we wanted to watch, it started to load, but then an info block came up on the screen of the TV saying there wasn't enough bandwidth to load the movie. I tried again 2 or 3 times, same thing. I knew the problem was not the Ethernet cable. Works fine when using it for Netflix.

So what the heck was the problem? I even tried a different HDMI input port on the Marantz. Why? I don't know but I did....
 For a test I disconnected the ROKU HDMI cable from the Marantz and connected it directly to an HDMI input port on the Samsung LED TV. I then attempted again to watch the same movie on Amazon Prime as I tried earlier. Movie loaded without a glitch. Not a dropout or buffering glitch once throughout the entire movie.
What gives?

Jim
jea48
tls49's avatar
tls49
1,351 posts
 
Can't add anything about Roku, but 2 thumbs up for the jwargel recommendation of OBiTALK for phone service. I have been using it for a few months now and the quality/features are better than the old phone service land line. Once you buy the voip adapter for ~$50 (single line), the service is $0/month, unless you want enhanced 911 service for a couple of bucks. After getting it, I asked people how I sounded on their end, and everyone said great. Also, got this Panasonic phone system with only the base unit needing to be connected to the OBiTALK adapter. Extensions just need to be plugged into AC for battery charging. Now I can even text or answer my cell phone on those extensions. No doubt the talking caller ID is pretty cool for incoming calls.

http://shop.panasonic.com/cordless-corded-telephones/cordless-telephones/KX-TGD56M.html?dwvar_KX-TGD...

The convenience of phone extensions throughout the house with modern day technology.

jea48 OP
4,714 posts
 
@whart ,

Bill,
 Thanks for the Link. I followed the post on the AVS forum where the guy said everything had to be powered off before connecting the HDMI cable from the ROKU to the HT receiver. I did have the Marantz and Samsung turned off but not the ROKU.

I just tried hooking the ROKU HDMI cable back up to the Marantz again having everything turned off including having the ROKU unplugged from the AC mains power outlet.

I then plugged in the ROKU PS into the AC power outlet. I waited for the blinking light on the front of the ROKU to stop blinking and go to solid.

I them powered up the Samsung TV and Marantz HT receiver. Set the Marantz to the correct HDMI input. And as before, the ROKU home page came up.

I then went to Amazon Prime. The page came up as before. I selected the same movie as I did before, when the low bandwidth banner came up on the screen..... NO Banner this time!! The movie started playing. No glitches or buffering, so far. Picture quality looks the sames as it did with the ROKU connected directly to the Samsung. Sounds good as well. A heck of a lot better than it did coming out of the 2 little down firing speakers on the TV.

Jim
whart's avatar
whart
3,170 posts
 
@jea48 - well YAY! 
I'm a genius. :)
Not really. Glad you got it working. 
best,
bill
mtbrider
150 posts
 
Happy that your setup is now working.  You may have encountered the same unusual problem that I had on Thursday. I got a "not connected to the server" message when trying to use my ROKU to view a movie on Prime.  I tried Netflix on the ROKU and it worked fine.  I then went to the Prime app on my LG OLED and I could view the movie with no problems.  Later in the day, all was well with the ROKU.  I think there must have been some kind of temporary glitch between ROKU and Prime.
gareneau
110 posts
 
I too would like to cut the cable cord but judging from the posts here it isn't easy. Does anyone happen to know whether channels like the Tennis Channel and the Golf Channel are available a la carte? It would be so nice if I could just pick and choose the channels I want and not the hundreds I don't.
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