We have been streaming movies for more than 4 years. We started with a Roku streamer and it is still our favorite one. Whole companies are acquired by other companies and corporations all the time but as far as I know, the company that first sold the Roku streamer is still the one selling it now. The streamer is a small box that sits beside our tv. It connects to the tv with a wire and it has a power cord from a nearby electrical outlet. There is a huge variety of things to watch in Netflix and a second huge variety in Amazon TV. Both Netflix and Amazon have gotten into the business of originals, shows that are created by one of them. Amazon has won awards for some of its originals.
If you set up an account with either company, you can watch all their stuff on any computer or tablet. However, a streamer puts their sfuff on your tv without going to the bother of putting the computer near the tv and connecting the computer to the tv, usually with a HDMI cable, which tends to give the best signal and quality. There are other channels and possibilities through a streamer that might not occur to you but I watch TED Talks or YouTube videos with our Roku sometimes.
Two nights ago, neither Netflix nor Amazon TV worked. Selecting Netflix would result in the channel just jumping back to the Roku home page. Selecting Amazon worked ok until I had actually made a selection and at that point, I always got a message that there was a difficulty in playing my choice and that I should come back later. I switched to YouTube and watched some Richard Pryor and Robin Williams videos instead. The next night, I got the same unacceptable results. Called my cable company. They said the problem was not them and advised calling Roku. I called Roku and got a nice lady with such a thick foreign accent that my impaired hearing could not decode what she was saying. She finally got across to me that she didn't have any solution to my problem and advised me to try Amazon TV. In fact, she connected me to an Amazon Customer Service agent. The Amazon agent was very clear but couldn't help. She sounded sorry that she was no help. Then, she said,"Have you tried restarting your Roku player?" I hadn't. Pulled the plug and waited with the Amazon agent still on the line, timing out 20 seconds. Plugged it all back up and Bingo! Perfect plays on both Netflix and Amazon, although the problem was clearly the Roku itself, not Amazon. Very good customer service! I wrote a positive report on that agent.
