NOW TV

I have a Roku 3 which I believe is the same hardware as the black Now TV box. It's absolutely fine on Now TV, the YouTube app is the one it struggles with most.

It's probably time to think about replacing it but I doubt I'll be sticking with Roku as, aside from their 'Streambar', none of the devices available in the UK support wired networking (even with an adaptor).

The new Roku Soundbar does with a USB Ethernet adaptor.

https://www.roku.com/en-gb/products/audio/roku-streambar

https://community.roku.com/t5/Discussions/New-Roku-Streambar-wired-ethernet-port/td-p/609596

Yes, hence my comment 'aside from their streambar'. I'm not a fan of the concept on that one.

This is so annoying, I bought a Now TV 4k box as no Roku device in the UK has Ethernet. But , of course, this device limits you in what you can install.

Looks like Roku seems pretty uninterested in the UK market which wasn't much before the 4K range. And US imports has/had problems with things like BBC iPlayer.

Why is lack of ethernet an issue? It's designed to be a small thing you stick behind your TV out of sight out of mind, powered off USB and connected via HDMI. It's designed for wireless use.

Also, what are you installing on it that you've used up all the internal space? There's only about 10 apps/channels worth having anyway.

Some of us prefer to have a solid connection that uses all of the available speed which reduces the risk of buffering.

Then don't use Roku. Buy a mini PC and use Windows or Linux to build yourself an all-in-one media unit.

If you live in a heavily populated area, or a large apartment building, WiFi can be really congested, and not a brilliant experience for high-bitrate streaming of 30Mbs+ streams.

Cabled ethernet is always preferable as it's guaranteed to just work. (It's for that reason that Chromecasts, Fire TVs etc. can all have Ethernet adaptors, and why the Chromecast Ultra came with one as standard, integrated into its PSU, which is also how Amazon's work)

And, I always like to assign a static IP address to any cable ethernet connected device if it's possible. (Yes; I know )

Using the NOW TV PC app doesn't give viewers 1080p when using the NOW TV Boost. It's all rather simplistic to expect users to use WiFi when I live in a block of flats where the 2.4GHz band is congested, which makes it useless for streaming. 5Ghz is slightly better, but still nowhere as good as using Ethernet.

As always, there's no one media device that's the best of all worlds, so you have to compromise on something.

Ah - I stopped doing that a long time ago, once I could tie DHCP-delivered IP addresses to MAC addresses in my router. If I then move the device to another network it will still work without me having to edit at static IP.