What good is having HBO on my Roku if I can't buy it without a cable subscription?
It's always nice that they are adding more content channels to Roku. These little media streaming boxes rock. But adding HBO Go to Roku seems completely pointless. The only way to get access to HBO Go is if you already subscribe to HBO from your cable or satellite provider, typically at $20/month (at least that's what Comcast charges me right now). HBO Go provides the same content that I can already get through On Demand on my cable box so why would I want to consume the capped bandwidth through the Roku and risk buffering and other disruptions when I can just use the existing service? What I want is to be able to go directly to HBO.com, and subscribe to HBO Go for say $10-12 per month without having Comcast in the middle of the transaction. If I could do that with the twenty or so channels(most at a significantly lower price of $2-4 per month) that we actually watch, out of the several hundred offered by Comcast then I could ditch the cable TV service and just keep the Internet and save a lot of money.
Fat chance of that happening any time soon.
Reshared post from +Clayton Morris
Sweet. HBO Go comes to our Roku boxes.
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HBO GO
Get instant access to over 1400 HBO® shows and hit movies – every episode of every season of the best of HBO. Free with your HBO subscription through participating TV providers.
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I agree. I cannot stand the idea of HBO GO…well the idea is great, but the model is horrible. People who want to us alternative devices to watch TV are generally the same ones who are dumping cable to do so. It just doesn't make any sense. Why would HBO willingly tie itself to cable providers? It could totally go solo with HBO GO. Although, I wonder if there is some contractual obligation at the end of which we will see HBO GO become untethered…
HBO GO offers more, free,
on demand content than the regular HBO channels you get through your pay-TV
provider. Unfortunately though, since
you subscribe to Comcast, you still won’t be able to access it through Roku. You
can, however, access HBO Go through their website and Apple products. Lucky for
me, I have DISH, since I work there, and can access the same content through
Roku, my computer, and various other mobile devices.