Hi, everyone !!
In a week which has seen the Amazon UK FireTV set top box beat the 'Roku 3' in passing the 2,000 app marker (or, "channel" marker, to use Roku parlance) it is, at least, of some small comfort to Roku owners in the UK that the Amazon UK FireTV Stick is still (currently) languishing behind the pack with 1,715 apps available on the entry-level streamer from Amazon UK but we shouldn't expect that to be the case for too much longer! For the record, there are now 1, 909 "public" Roku channels available in the "Official" Roku UK Channel Store on 'Roku 3' devices, with 2, 009 (i.e. one hundred more) apps now available on the flagship streaming media player from Amazon UK - let's just hope that, now they are leading the way in terms of app numbers, Amazon UK will be less precious about their video streaming service (Amazon Instant Video) and (finally) extend it to UK Roku owners! With little profit to be made from the FireTV hardware, they are better off expanding the availability of their streaming service to as many devices as possible. Instead, they chose to remove their 'Amazon Instant Video' app from certain 2011 UK Samsung TV models this week and sent out emails offering half-price FireTV set top boxes to "compensate" those who lost out. Maybe, if they were to add a UK version of the existing (in the USA, at least) 'Amazon Instant Video' (AIV) channel for U.S. Roku devices, they could start increasing their revenue from the pay-per-view (PPV) content on AIV UK by making it available to UK Roku owners - as we have been asking them to do for over three and a half years now!
On a brighter note, there have been some improvements to the 'BBC iPlayer' channel on UK Roku devices, with a NEW "LIVE RESTART" FEATURE ADDED to the BBC TV "Catch-Up" service. This means, when you navigate to "Channels" in the main menu to "WATCH LIVE" any of the BBC channels available via the 'BBC iPlayer' channel, if you click on any content which is "ON NOW" you get a choice of jumping in and watching "LIVE" from that moment... or, you can "RESTART" your chosen content from the beginning. This could be particularly handy if you get held-up on your way home and, inadvertently, miss the start of a show you wanted to see. Now, at least, you have a chance to start it from the beginning and watch a "DELAYED LIVE STREAM" of your programme. With that, on top of resolving the "black bars" issue which had previously been plaguing the 'BBC iPlayer' channel on UK Roku devices for months, it now seems that the BBC are being pro-active in improving their Roku channel again. Word is that more improvements are planned for the coming months so, if you have been avoiding the 'BBC iPlayer' channel on Roku due to the recent issues, now is the time to give it another try - things, it seems, are looking up !! :-)
BEFORE I FORGET... there has been a LIMITED TIME OFFER during this past week whereby two of the Roku paid "Themes" have been made AVAILABLE FREE OF CHARGE to UK Roku users. Those of you who regularly follow the companion Twitter Feed: @ukrokuchannels for this blog will (most likely) have seen my tweets about this, earlier in the week but this is the first (and last) chance I'll get to post about it via the blog before it ends. There is confirmation of the offer, IN THIS POST, on the "Official" Roku Blog if you are interested... although, if you navigate to the "Themes" genre of the "Official" Roku UK Channel Store, you should find both the "Golf Theme" and "Letterpress Theme" are (temporarily) FREE-TO-ADD and you should ADD THEM BY SUNDAY 23rd AUGUST at the latest, as their "paid" app status is likely to resume the next day. So, IF YOU WANT THEM FREE, it would be best to ADD THEM SOONER RATHER THAN LATER !! ;-)
Anyway, before I proceed with listing the current crop of new channels (plus providing links to their associated reviews) for this particular 'Weekly RoundUp'... a brief reminder that, whilst I had hoped I'd be able to catch-up on the missing Roku-related news from this blog in recent weeks, all the extra work I've been burdened with of late means it remains unlikely that I'll be fully caught-up anytime soon. Until I do find the time... my one saving grace is that (as mentioned previously) I have somehow managed to remain up-to-date with all the latest additions to the "New" category of the "Official" Roku UK Channel Store and will endeavour to flesh-out what's missing ASAP! Admittedly, there are quite a few articles that I need to catch up on but, rather than post links for individual weeks, I'll simply refer you back to my "Roku UK Channel Store - Weekly RoundUp #78", which contains all of the pertinent information you might need when researching back over the items in question. Again, I'm sorry this has dragged-on (far) longer than anticipated, and apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused you, but (all being well) things will be back up to speed soon!
For now... all I can offer you is a summary of the latest additions to the "Official" Roku UK Channel Store from the past seven days. As with my other recent posts, you can expect any additional Roku-related news from the past week, along with details of any changes to the channel selection found on NowTV Boxes, to be added at some point in the near future. As for "mending" all of the "broken" links from previous 'Weekly RoundUp' posts, I still can't put a time-scale on how long that is going to take but (like I said before) if you "copy" the existing link(s) and change the "http" prefix to "https", as well as removing the "forward slash" between 'channels' and '#!details', so that "channels#/!details" becomes "channels#!details" in each weblink, you should find that they will all work for you and redirect to the new-look version of each individual channel description. As with the last forty-one 'Weekly RoundUp' posts, every link from this week (plus all future posts) will use the new format, so it's only those from 'Weekly RoundUp #1' up as far as 'Weekly RoundUp #86' which you'll have to amend... at least, until I can edit/repair the links for you !!
Still, with all the "missing" Roku-related news (and links) yet to follow, let's now press on with the current 'Weekly RoundUp' of NEW ADDITIONS to the "Official" Roku UK Channel Store. This time there are SIX NEW CHANNELS which have been added during the preceding seven day period. These latest additions provided FRESH CONTENT in the Movies & TV, Games, News & Weather, Religious, and Travel categories. Specifically... this means there's no less than TWO EXTRA CHANNELS in the "Games" genre, plus ONE EXTRA CHANNEL in each of the "Movies & TV", "News & Weather", "Religious", plus "Travel" categories among the new choices which have been added to the Roku UK channel selection during this past week.
In keeping with previous installments from the 'Weekly RoundUp' series, details of these new channels have been listed below, together with links to obtain further information {by clicking on the channel name(s) beneath the respective channel icon(s) as pictured} and to read a 'Roku Guide' review with an independent (slightly more expansive) assessment of each one:-
SUSHI MATCH FUN.....................COST: £0.69 (ONE-OFF PAYMENT) [Roku Guide Review]
***FILED UNDER: "GAMES" in Roku UK Channel Store WHEN FIRST RELEASED***
BRIGHTLIGHTS POKER..............COST: £1.49 (ONE-OFF PAYMENT) [Roku Guide Review]
***FILED UNDER: "GAMES" in Roku UK Channel Store WHEN FIRST RELEASED***
PRTV NETWORK...........................................COST: £0.69 (MONTHLY) [Roku Guide Review]
***FILED UNDER: "MOVIES & TV" in Roku UK Channel Store WHEN FIRST RELEASED***
THIS IS HARRISON...............................................................COST: FREE [Roku Guide Review]
***FILED UNDER: "TRAVEL" in Roku UK Channel Store WHEN FIRST RELEASED***
FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH MARIETTA..............................COST: FREE [Roku Guide Review]
***FILED UNDER: "RELIGIOUS" in Roku UK Channel Store WHEN FIRST RELEASED***
ABTV - AMERICAN BUSINESS TV...................................COST: FREE [Roku Guide Review]
***FILED UNDER: "NEWS & WEATHER" in Roku UK Channel Store WHEN RELEASED***