The IT Nerd

Roku, Inc. has announced the Apple TV app is available on the Roku® platform starting today. For the first time ever, Roku users can add the Apple TV app via the Roku Channel Store to discover and watch movies, TV shows and more, including accessing their iTunes video library and subscribing to Apple TV channels directly on Roku devices. Starting November 1, Apple TV+, Apple’s home for all-original shows and movies from the world’s greatest storytellers, will be available on the Apple TV app on the Roku platform.

Apple TV App

Through the Apple TV app on their Roku devices, customers can enjoy personalized recommendations of shows and movies; subscribe directly to Apple TV channels and more using their Apple ID and password; browse, buy or rent more than 100,000 movies and TV shows; and watch all the shows and movies they have previously purchased from iTunes.

Apple TV+

Beginning November 1, Apple TV+ will be available in the Apple TV app on Roku, giving users access to exclusive shows, movies and documentaries from the most celebrated creative artists, including Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, Octavia Spencer, J.J. Abrams, Jason Momoa, M. Night Shyamalan, Jon M. Chu and more. Roku users can subscribe to Apple TV+ right in the Apple TV app on their Roku devices for $4.99 per month with a seven-day free trial. Apple TV+ subscribers can also watch on the Apple TV app on iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, iPod touch, Mac and other platforms, including the web (https://tv.apple.com). For more information about Apple TV+, please visit https://www.apple.com/apple-tv-plus/.

Availability

Supported Roku streaming devices can add the Apple TV app for free starting today. Apple TV+ through the Apple TV app will be available in supported regions starting on November 1. In addition to the U.S., the Apple TV app is available to Roku users in the following markets: Argentina, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, France, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom.

Music lovers, you’re in for a treat. Today, TIDAL, global music streaming and entertainment platform bringing artists and fans closer together through unique original content and exclusive experiences, launches on the Roku platform. Members of TIDAL can find videos, albums, playlists, and other exclusive content to stream directly on the TIDAL channel on their Roku devices.

The new TIDAL channel features a custom interface for Roku devices and offers some awesome features for music fans:

• Over 60 million songs and over 250,000 high-quality music videos
• Thousands of playlists curated by TIDAL’s expert editorial team, industry experts, artists and more
• Live and on-demand streams of concerts from some of the world’s biggest artists
• Exclusive music documentaries, original shows, and podcasts

There are two monthly subscription options:

• Premium ($9.99/month), which offers a standard sound quality
• HiFi ($19.99/month), which offers lossless High-Fidelity sound quality, allowing you to experience music as the artists intended it to be heard

Both options offer a 30-day free trial, and you can sign up directly through the TIDAL channel on your Roku device.

With the debut of new Roku Smart Soundbar and Roku Wireless Subwoofer this fall, people will be able to enjoy Roku’s streaming entertainment platform with TIDAL’s high-quality catalog in a tailored music experience.

Add TIDAL directly through the Roku Channel Store, or find it in the ‘Music’ category of the streaming channels section on your Roku device

Roku, Inc. today unveiled its 2019 streaming player lineup for Canada, consisting of three models. Roku® launched a redesigned Roku Express, offering easy HD streaming in a sleek new form factor. Brand new to the Canadian line-up is the Roku Premiere which delivers 4K streaming with HDR, starting from CAD 49.99. The existing Roku Streaming Stick+ will remain in the 2019 line-up, offering powerful portability, exceptional wireless performance and vibrant 4K HDR picture quality. Roku also announced that it is adding free live linear channels to The Roku Channel in Canada, with the first linear channels expected to arrive before the end of the month.

Roku Express

The Roku Express is 10% smaller than its predecessor, is sleek and designed to blend in and disappear when connected to a TV. It can be fully powered by most TVs to reduce clutter around the TV. With the Roku Express consumers can enjoy easy and smooth HD streaming. In the box a simple remote control is included with popular streaming channel shortcut buttons, a High Speed HDMI® cable and a power cord.

Roku Premiere

The Roku Premiere is a simple way to start streaming in HD, 4K Ultra HD or 4K HDR. It features a powerful quad-core processor and comes in a low-profile form factor. In the box a Premium High Speed HDMI® cable is included plus remote control with popular streaming channel shortcut buttons and a power cord.

All Roku streaming devices in Canada provide access to thousands of free and paid streaming services, including: Netflix, Prime Video, The Roku Channel, DAZN, Global TV, CBS All Access, Acorn TV, hayu, Britbox, VMedia and many more. Additionally, Roku players and Roku TVs can be used with the free Roku mobile app for iOS and Android, to enjoy private listening, voice search and more.

New on The Roku Channel: Live Linear

The Roku Channel launched in Canada in 2018 and has quickly gained popularity. No subscriptions, fees or logins are required to access hundreds of free movies, TV shows and documentaries, with a selection of box office hits and TV shows featured every month.

Next to on-demand entertainment, Roku users in Canada will soon be able to access 14 live linear channel on The Roku Channel, from various publishers:

• Law & Crime ‒ Watch the courtroom drama unfold live and get in depth legal analysis on the day’s biggest crime and legal stories.
• Now This ‒ Now This is the most watched mobile news brand in the world, providing the latest in video news, investigative reports, interviews and original series.
• AllTime ‒ AllTime aims to bring you the most informative, fascinating and engaging top 10 videos.
• TMZ ‒ Get your daily dose of pop culture from the TMZ channel featuring programs such as TMZ Sports, The Hollywood Beatdown, TMZ TV, TMZ Chatter and more.
• AFV ‒ America’s Funniest Home Videos (AFV) shines the spotlight on hilarious videos to bring you America’s ‘real-life’ funny moments captured on video.
• Fail Army ‒ FailArmy is the world’s number one source for epic fail videos and hilarious compilations.
• Pet Collective ‒ The Pet Collective is home to the top trending clips, most entertaining memes, and funniest animal videos.
• People Are Awesome ‒ People Are Awesome is the number one destination for amazing, original videos and compilations of ordinary people doing extraordinary things.
• Adventure Sports Network ‒ Adventure Sports Network (ASN) is the worldwide leader in adventure sports, outdoor, lifestyle and travel.
• Food52 ‒ Come on by the Food52 test kitchen. Our award-winning editors and kitchen experts—like Genius Recipes‘s Kristen Miglore and Dear Test Kitchen‘s Josh Cohen -are here to help with dinner tonight, weekend meal prep, cookie emergencies, you name it.
• Tastemade ‒ Planning your next adventure abroad or at home? Tastemade shows you how it’s done. Whether expanding your palate or your itinerary, Tastemade presents even more of the things you love. Hundreds of hours of original shows, streaming straight to you.
• FilmRise Free Movies ‒ Catch film stars like Owen Wilson, Emma Stone, Morgan Freeman and more in our massive selection of free blockbusters.
• FilmRise Crime ‒ The best Crime TV to satisfy the sleuths among us.
• FilmRise Classic TV ‒ Catch primetime smash hits like 21 Jump Street and Hunter all day long.

Availability and Pricing

The 2019 Roku streaming player line-up in Canada will be available beginning early October from Best Buy, Walmart, Amazon, Staples, The Source, London Drugs and other fine retailers:

• Roku Express: MSRP CAD 39.99
• Roku Premiere: MSRP CAD 49.99
• Roku Streaming Stick+: MSRP CAD 69.99

With more and more viewers cutting the cord, companies are looking to reach their target audience in new ways. According to research by analyst firm Convergence Group there will be more OTT subscriber households by the end of 2020 in Canada than TV subscribers.

With 29 million active accounts, Roku provides a large-scale platform for entertainment companies to reach their specific intended audiences. It offers unique custom sponsorships that go beyond a 15 or 30 second ad to help provide value added content to brands looking to align with a specific theme or movie title.

Sony Pictures Releasing Canada is partnering with Roku to promote the release of its highly anticipated movie Spider-Man^TM: Far From Home with a customized sponsored Streaming Guide. The campaign targets fans of the franchise to raise awareness of the new film and provide a place for users to views similar Marvel entertainment.

Using its proprietary first party data, Roku is able to target its users with affinity to the Spider-Man^TM franchise and superhero genre and serve up a native ad on the home screen from which they can access a special branded microsite that auto-plays the Spider-Man^TM: Far From Home trailer. In addition, five existing Marvel titles, that are currently available on the Cineplex channel, are also displayed to the targeted fans.

The campaign runs till June 30 leading up to the release of Spider-Man^TM: Far From Home on July 2.

Global TV announced today that its extensive offering of hit shows are now available on all Roku streaming devices in Canada. As the first Canadian broadcaster to join the platform in Canada, Global is broadening its reach and giving audiences a new way to watch its complete lineup of daring dramas, laugh-out-loud comedies, and fan-favourite reality shows with the Global TV App on Roku streaming players and Roku TVs.

In Canada, consumers can access the Roku platform through Roku streaming players as well as Roku TVÔ models from Hisense, RCA, Sharp, Sanyo and TCL. Roku streaming devices deliver a coveted content selection, ease of use, and value to Roku’s highly-engaged customer base. In Canada, the Roku streaming platform offers thousands of free and paid for channels that provide access to 150,000+ movies and TV episodes. The Global TV App can be added from the Roku Channel Store in the Movies & TV category, allowing viewers to stream hit shows like Global’s New Amsterdam, 9-1-1, Saturday Night Live, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Survivor, Big Brother Canada, and more.

In addition to Roku streaming devices, the Global TV App is available on iOS, Apple TV, Android, Google Chromecast, and Amazon Fire TV. Full episodes of Global series are available for free on Roku streaming devices for the first seven days after they air on television. To unlock Global’s entire lineup, viewers can sign in to the Global TV App with their TV service provider credentials to access full episodes and exclusive clips anytime. For more information, visit GlobalTV.com.

Seeking free movies and TV shows to watch on your Roku device? Look no further than The Roku Channel, your hub for free entertainment. No subscriptions, fees or logins required!

FEATURED TITLES AVAILABLE IN MAY:

Grace of Monaco
Set in 1962, six years after her celebrated Wedding of the Century, “Grace of Monaco” is an intimate snapshot of a year in the life of the twentieth century’s most iconic Princess – Grace Kelly – as she strived to reconcile her past and her present, a yearning for a return to the big screen with her newfound role as a mother of two, monarch of a European principality and wife to Prince Ranier III.

Harry and Meghan: A Windsor Wedding
Join us as we celebrate the engagement of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Featuring the complete first ever public interview of the couple together on 27th November 2017, it also features testimonials and interviews from the people who know them the best. Discover what it will take for Meghan Markle to join the British royal family.

The Jane Austen Book Club
As five women and one enigmatic man meet to discuss the works of Jane Austen, they find their love lives playing out in a 21st century version of her novels. Sylvia, is shocked when her husband Daniel, leaves her after 20 plus years and three children. Jocelyn, her unmarried best friend, distracts herself from her unacknowledged loneliness by breeding dogs. Prudie is a young French teacher, in possession of a worthy husband yet distracted by persistent fantasies about sex with another man. The many times married Bernadette develops a yearning for one more chance at happiness. Beautiful, risk-taking Allegra, Sylvia and Daniel’s lesbian daughter, has quit talking to her lover. And Grigg, a young science fiction fan and computer whiz, seems horribly both out of place and obliviously at ease as the only man to be invited into the book circle.

Before Midnight
Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Céline (Julie Delpy) first met in their twenties in Before Sunrise; reunited in their thirties in Before Sunset; and, now, in director Richard Linklater’s amazing Before Midnight, they face the past, present and future; family, romance and love. Now on a writer’s retreat in Greece, the couple looks for a night of passion, but instead their idyllic night turns into a test of their relationship and a discussion of what the future holds for them.

This Beautiful Fantastic
A contemporary fairy tale revolving around the unlikely of friendship between a reclusive young woman with dreams of being a children’s book author and a cantankerous widower, set against the backdrop of a beautiful garden in the heart of London. Bella Brown (Jessica Brown Findlay) is a beautifully quirky young woman who dreams of writing and illustrating a successful children’s book. When she is forced by her landlord to deal with her neglected garden or face eviction, she meets her nemesis, match and mentor in Alfie Stephenson (Tom Wilkinson), a grumpy, loveless, rich old man who lives next door and happens to be an amazing horticulturalist.

I Saw The Light
I Saw The Light is the story of the legendary country western singer Hank Williams (Tom Hiddleston), who in his brief life created one of the greatest bodies of work in American music. The film chronicles his meteoric rise to fame and its ultimately tragic effect on his health and personal life. Also starring Elizabeth Olsen, Cherry Jones, Bradley Whitford, Maddie Hasson and Wrenn Schmidt.

Emperor
A gripping tale of love and honor forged between fierce enemies of war, inspired by true events and starring Matthew Fox and Academy Award®-winner Tommy Lee Jones as General Douglas MacArthur. Immediately after Emperor Hirohito’s World War II surrender, General MacArthur (Jones) suddenly finds himself the de facto ruler of a foreign nation. He challenges his expert on Japanese culture – General Fellers (Fox) – to provide evidence in 10 short days to decide if the Japanese Emperor, worshipped as a god by his people but accused of war crimes, should be punished or saved. The fate of a nation awaits…

Whiplash
A promising young drummer enrolls at a cut-throat music conservatory where his dreams of greatness are mentored by an instructor who will stop at nothing to realize a student’s potential.

Searching for Sugar Man
Searching for Sugar Man tells the incredible true story of Rodriguez, the greatest ’70s rock icon who never was. After being discovered in a Detroit bar, Rodriguez’s sound struck 2 renowned producers and they signed a recording deal. But when the album bombed, the singer disappeared into obscurity. A bootleg recording found its way into apartheid South Africa and over the next two decades, he became a phenomenon. The film follows the story of two South African fans who set out to find out what really happened to their hero.

21 Jump Street – The cases of an undercover police unit composed of young looking officers specializing in youth crime.

The Commish – A no non-sense police commissioner revered by his officers and community for his unorthodox style and compassionate nature.

Ultimate Wheels – Classic cars get a fresh spin in this reality TV series. The show’s car-loving gurus take some of history’s most iconic vehicles and give them a custom spin.

Click here to add The Roku Channel to your Roku player or Roku TV.

Happy Streaming!

Roku keeps adding great content to their channel line-up and they have added to it with the launch of the Olympic Channel on Roku TV’s and Roku players in Canada.  Fans of the Olympics can now watch their favourite moments from the Games all year round.

The Olympic Channel features a 24/7 live stream and more than 400 episodes from the Olympic Channel library of original content featuring more than 50 series developed with best-in-class production companies from more than 25 countries. The round-the-clock streaming channel features original programming, Olympic Games event replays and other Olympic-related content.

Other programming highlights include the channel’s signature sports documentary series Five Rings Films and original series like the Legends Live On. The Olympic Channel is available now for free and can be found in the Sports category in the Roku Channel Store. For more information and details on the Olympic Channel please go to this blog post here.

Today Roku announced Roku OS 9.1, making the streaming experience even simpler and more enjoyable. Roku OS 9.1 is expected to roll out to current generation Roku streaming players over the coming weeks, Roku TVs are expected to follow by early summer. Besides various performance improvements and fixes they will also introduce two new features in Canada:

• Guest Mode: This feature is perfect for your next house swap or for short term rentals. When enabled on a Roku streaming player or Roku TV, Guest Mode enables visiting guests to sign in to subscription channels using their own account credentials. Guests can specify a date on which their credentials will be automatically removed from the Roku device. To enable Guest Mode, go to Settings > System > Guest Mode. Guest Mode can also be switched on and off remotely from the My account page on Roku.com. On Roku.com users can also remotely sign a guest out if the guest left early or accidentally selected the incorrect sign-out date.
• Automatic Account Link: Makes subscription streaming on multiple Roku devices with the same account easier for users. If a customer has already logged in to a supported subscription service on a Roku device, they will not be required to re-enter their credentials when launching the same channel on an additional Roku device.

This feature is now available to developers and publishers to integrate into their channel. The first channels to support Automatic Account Link in Canada are fuboTV, CBS All Access and Plex. Additional channels are expected to integrate support for Automatic Account Link shortly.

At Roku, we believe TV is for everyone – even for pets! According to customer feedback, many of you lean on the TV to help entertain their playful pooch when they’re not at home. For our favorite furry friends, the television viewing experience can be static, and dare we say, unfulfilling…and that’s ruff.

We recently surveyed our customers and identified a major pet peeve — most dogs can’t operate our remote controls to tune in to their favorite shows on a Roku player or Roku TV. More specifically, 72% of Roku owners surveyed believed that their dogs would enjoy TV more if they could use the remote themselves to control what they watch.

Our goal is to get all our customers, including pups, to the show they want to watch, as quickly as possible. In order to enhance the TV experience for all tail-waggers around the globe, we proudly present the Roku Press Paws Remote™.

The Press Paws Remote is designed to make it easy for your dog to tune in to their favorite TV entertainment. The Press Paws Remote includes paw-friendly features such as:

Animal-Themed Shortcut Buttons: Ergonomic shortcut buttons get your dog to their favorite shows faster, giving them direct access to pet-themed channels including Animal Planet, where they can catch the latest “Evan Goes Wild” episode, and The Pet Collective on The Roku Channel, where they can watch hours of clips, entertaining memes, and funniest animal videos

Bark Assistant Technology: The Press Paws remote works seamlessly with your Roku player or Roku TV and features “Bark Assistant Technology.” Various commands are at your pet’s disposal, like bark-to-play, bark-to-pause (for emergency bio breaks) and bark-to-mute 

Built in Sub-WOOFer: We built a Sub-WOOFer into the Press Paws Remote that produces very high frequencies, so your hound’s sound is happy in the home

In addition, The Roku Channel is getting even more paw-some with a row specifically dedicated to our four-legged viewers. Starting on April 1, your pet can tune in to some of their favorites.

The Roku Press Paws Remote will be available for purchase for $19.99 via Roku.com in the U.S., Canada, U.K. and Mexico starting on April 1, 2019.

Happy Streaming!

CNN announced today the expanded availability of CNN’s streaming platform CNNgo on Roku® players and Roku TV models in Canada.

CNNgo is a next-generation product that gives viewers unprecedented control over their TV news experience. Users can access live CNN U.S., CNN International and HLN television in addition to on-demand feature programs from CNN, CNN Original Series, CNN Films and Great Big Story. In addition, Canadian Roku customers will be able to access hundreds of video clips and collections through the CNNgo channel.

After adding CNNgo to their home screen Roku users can log in with their cable or satellite credentials to access CNN’s live stream, past and future show segments and related videos. All users are offered a 10-minute preview each day without logging in.

CNNgo is available from the News category in the Roku Channel Store. CNNgo is also available on CNN.com, iOS and Android mobile devices and on Apple TV, Amazon FireTV, Android TV, and Samsung TV. CNN was the first U.S. news organization to stream its full CNN, CNN International and HLN networks online and on OTT devices in real-time, including commercials.  For more information visit here.