Streaming devices are little box’s like your Austar or Foxtel box you use to watch any type of media like movies, TV Shows and look at Photos. But instead of over the cable networks or satellites, you use your internet connection to view what you are looking at.

Although Australia has nowhere near the amount of services you can use on your streaming devices such as HBO or Hulu, there is still a few options that can make it worth while.

You can pay and use paid services like Netflix for about $15/month which will get you access to 1000’s of movies and TV shows (a lot less than the USA Netflix Service) and you can also use free services you are probably already using on your computer like Youtube and Vimeo.

No matter what service you use you will be using your internet data so it helps to use have a broadband plan that does not meter these services.

Now we have got out the way what streaming services are, I am going to talk about how to access them on your television and what the major differences are between the 2 popular devices a lot of people use.

Apple TV

For the past few years the Apple TV has been getting pretty stale. For a very innovative company a lot of Apple TV customers have felt a bit neglected.

The new Apple TV 4 is the latest in the Apple TV range so I am going to be referring to this version.

The big thing now with the ATV4 is the addition recently LIVE TV services. But unfortunately living in Australia most of these services are unavailable to us.

Basically the way Apple TV works is you connect your device to your television using a HDMI cable and them follow the prompts on the screen which will include access your internet connection or wifi setup.

If you use services like NBA and Netflix you will have to put your username and password in the fields when clicking on the app using your remote control and off you go.

The Apple TV device is very easy to use and after using one for 3 years have never had a problem with it stopping or restarting.

Roku

The Roku is very similar to the Apple TV in the way you set it up and connect to your television and wireless network.

With both of these devices you can setup and account and also purchase apps you might want or services through their stores.

I like and use both of these devices but there are a lot more choices and range to choose from in the Roku store. Unlike the Apple TV which is run by Apple and must be hard to get approved to put on their store.

With the Roku store there seem to be a lot of additional apps to use from independent developers you would never see on the Apple TV.

The big one for me is the use of the PLEX app. With Plex you can run a Plex server on one of your computrers on the same network and stream your own media files, movies or photos from your computer to your Roku device.

You can also do this on the Apple TV but Apple close a lot of this off and only let you view the files and format the allow. Its much more closed off.