This is an old article which was originally printed in the Register-News.

As you may know, our family cut the cable cord this year and moved to getting all of our shows online. We use Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Prime, and a few other video services to get the few shows that we watch regularly along with the occasional movie.

There was some whining in the beginning (by me) however we have all adjusted to watching shows shortly after they air rather than on ‘Premiere Night’. This is very much like how we were watching shows on the DVR before cutting cable.

Before cutting the cord, we had a Logitech Revue with Google TV. This worked very well for light Internet surfing and watching Netflix. Unfortunately it was old, slow, and did not support all of the ‘channels’ we wanted to have available.

Being the geek that I am I began searching around all of the sites and reviews I could find for recommendations about the best streaming box. There were many hours of reading about features, channels, speed, and connectivity. At the end of it all, we decided to buy a Roku.

Roku devices are available at Radio Shack, Wal-Mart, and online. For me this meant driving up the street and buying a Roku 2. Less than a week after my purchase Roku released version 3 and so I returned my 2 model and picked up the 3 from Amazon.

The Roku 3 ($99) has a new interface combined with faster internals. What this means to you is that it is very fast and easy to use. Shortly after I signed in and placed all of my channels my wife and children were blissfully flipping around between Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu for entertainment.

Over the past months our Roku 3 has only hiccupped once which resulted in having to pull the plug and restart. This only took a few minutes and the Roku has been just fine with our hours of television watching otherwise. There is no buffering with a solid connection to the wireless network and the quality is full HD for shows with that option.

Roku 3 has an earbud jack in the remote (new) so that if you want to watch late night TV without waking the house you only need to use the included earbuds and bring your own popcorn. This feature comes in very handy when I decide to watch Breaking Bad again late night.

Overall the Roku 3 is a quality hockey puck which works very well to add streaming to your modern ‘dumb’ TV. If you need hard specifics, head to Roku.com for connection options and pricing details.

Have tips, tricks, or questions? Find me on Twitter @DanVoyles or email using askageek@register-news.com.