Roku 2 XS Wireless 1080p HD Media Player (Refurbished) $55

I recently tried out a WD tv live that did play avi files but the interface was insanely slow and buggy. It wouldn't let me properly 'eject' the usb drive so I would always have errors if I unplugged it. Also it seems to be the only avi player outside of an android device that resembles a roku, I may just have to bite the bullet and re-encode... hundreds and hundreds of gigs

I wish microsoft didn't own the patent and charge royalties on everyone making these handy little devices. Patents cripple the growth of technology.

How are these Roku's with reguards to responsiveness? Is there any reason it would be slow if the media was mostly just playing from USB? Does it have the same issues that the WDtv I mentioned had?

if its supports mp4 and mkv files thats all the better.
if pirates/viewers are dumb enough to still be downloading/encoding avis over mp4s they dont deserve a HTPC or a media box like this Roku......

I've tried a roku on the past and gave up because it was too slow and unstable, but it undoubtedly has the most support as far as channels go. My question is - is there any other streaming player <$100 which is faster and more stable? E.g. With Plex, is there anything else that will not require transcoding?

How about the blu ray players - is there Netflix UI faster? I see that the Samsung BR players also support Plex with a very nice client UI, but is it usable?

WDTV is much more mature, faster, and more importantly easily plays more formats. It also supports a wider array of external drives, has separate digital audio out.

Why would you buy a roku which doesnt support nearly many codecs?

BTW I have three WD for years and never ever damaged a hard drive unmounting. In fact I have a WD in my car with two.US drives for two years without a hitch.

Usb No support avi files

Does this Roku (or any for that matter) support Bluetooth keyboards?

Most Blu-ray players' Netflix interfaces are horribly slow. I have a Roku 2 XS and I find it to be very snappy for the most part,

WT Heck?
all players support MP4 and MKV, Roku supports the least other codecs and containers.
And huge nubmers of foreign flicks that are not on netflix or available in the US are "around" on avi.