HuluPlus, HBO Go and ITunes Accessibility Make Roku Streamer A Winner. Oh Yeah, And It's A Bargain.

We're big fans of the Apple®TV media streaming box. It's sleek. The interface is slick. And it gives us access to the iTunes library that resides on our big computer upstairs. So anywhere we connect the Apple box to a TV/ZVOX sound bar combination, we get a instant home theater and music media jukebox.

We also like our Roku streaming box. And lately, we like it even more than the Apple TV.

 The Roku interface isn't a slick as the Apple TV's, but it's pretty good.  The biggest shortcoming of the Roku system, until recently, was that it didn't give us access to our iTunes® library. But last summer they added a feature called MP3Tunes which lets us do just that. Plus the Roku give us access to HuluPlus -- which allows us to watch a whole big mess of TV shows for $7.99 a month -- much cheaper than buying shows through iTunes on the Apple TV.  The combination of a Netflix subscription and a HuluPlus subscription is cheap money compared to the cost of cable TV. And if you compare the cost of renting a cable box to the cost of buying a Roku box, pretty soon you'll be replacing cable boxes on your second and third TVs.

Another cool thing is traveling with a Roku player, especially for long term vacations. Just throw the little box in the suitcase and you bring entertainment wherever you go -- just plug in the HDMI connector.  And now Roku has added HBO Go -- a service that allows HBO subscribers to watch HBO on demand, at no extra cost, wherever they travel with their Roku box! And the new model is less than 50 bucks (compared to Apples' $100).

Apple TV, we like your sleek design and interface. But until you add HuluPlus and HBO Go, we're gonna dance with Roku.

® Apple and iTunes are registered trademarks of Apple, Inc.  Roku is a registered trademark of Roku, Inc.