Do you take your (ROKU) Media Player to your Timeshare Vacation?

[billymach4]

OK last year I tried the ROKU and I did not like it so I sent it back.
Got the Kindle Fire for DW on her B'day, and signed up for Amazon Prime.

Now I have a real need to get a media player or Blu-Ray player to view Amazon Prime on the Big Screen. Also signed up for Netflix streaming.

I got the Sony Network Media Player SMP-NX20 at Costco for $75. So far I am happy.

Has anyone taken their Media Player and signed in to the WIFI and hooked to the Big Screen at the Resort where you enjoyed your vacation?

 

[spirits]

Sort of

A few years ago my sons took their playstation and hooked it up to the old TV at our week 52 timeshare. They also bought us DVD's as a Xmas present so we had lots of new stuff to watch. The next year we took the playstation but had a different TV with no way to attach cables. Went without for 3 years until this summer when our son brought his laptop with movies on it. Cosy with us all on the couch watching his laptop. It seems the tv's at our resort do not lend themselves to attached cables.

 

[billymach4]

Good to know. Thanks for the reply.

I plan on taking the new Sony Media player on my next trip along with an HDMI cable, and the Red, White, and Yellow cables with what I call banana plugs on the end.

My next trip the resort has WIFI.

 

[pwrshift]

I have an AppleTV and this thread got me wondering if it is transportable...plug it in and watch Netflix? I do have Slingbox on my laptop and have been able to plug it into TVs with a HDMI input and WIFI.

Brian

 

[short]

Bandwidth?

I have been at two Marriotts in the last month and sometimes the wifi is flaky, getting kicked off frequently. I am wondering if most hotels and timeshares have enough power to handle a bunch of folks streaming video?

Short

 

[Ken555]

I have an AppleTV and this thread got me wondering if it is transportable...plug it in and watch Netflix? I do have Slingbox on my laptop and have been able to plug it into TVs with a HDMI input and WIFI.

Brian

I've been traveling with an Apple TV for a while now. Works well at most resorts for me, but others prove a challenge. YMMV, but when it works it's great. Be sure to pack an HDMI cable and an extra long ethernet cable just in case. I also take an Apple Airport so I can create my own wireless network, which helps with authentication issue at resorts.

 

[Pens_Fan]

I have been at two Marriotts in the last month and sometimes the wifi is flaky, getting kicked off frequently. I am wondering if most hotels and timeshares have enough power to handle a bunch of folks streaming video?

Short

In general, I would say no.

 

[MichaelColey]

We just use our iPhones (and the kids have our old iPhones, essentially iPod Touches now). We have an A/V cable to hook the iPhone/iPod up to a TV, which we use in our car and in timeshares/hotels when the TV has RCA input jacks. Not all do, but many/most do.

 

[billymach4]

It works

At Vacation Village in the Berkshires, having to pay for WIFI.

The only catch is that I had to call the WIFI vendor Hotel Internet Services and give the support agent my MAC address, username. The bandwidth is not as fast as my home speed of course, but it is sufficiently fast enough to support Netflix and Amazon Prime.

 

[Guitarmom]

No ROKU

We bought a ROKU and it suits our needs at home beautifully. We had, however, hoped that it would serve as a Netflix conduit when we were on the road. That has proven to be 50-50.

A ROKU will work if it can just "grab hold" of a resort's wifi. But if the wifi requires you to enter a username/password on a network sign-in screen, then there is no way to do that with a ROKU attached. We called ROKU customer service to see how to make this work, and they said that there is absolutely no way to do so.

So our ROKU continues to serve us well at home, but we now bring an HDMI cable to hook our laptop to the timeshare's television to run Netflix.

 

[mayson12]

Did just that at Desert Springs Marriott

I brought our Roku player to the Desert Springs Marriott and at first I thought it was a waste because the wireless connection needed us to connect to a browser and agree to their terms of agreement. Since there is no browser with the Roku, it couldn't do that, so I thought I was out of luck.

However, I googled the problem and found an easy solution: I contacted the ISP, which was AT&T. I explained the problem, gave the tech my Roku's MAC address (which came up with the "unable to connect" error message) and the tech was able to add it to the service.

After that, it worked without any problems. I hope this helps.

 

[Guitarmom]

Oh my goodness! Thank you !!!!!! What a great idea. I guess I'll get ready to ROKU on the Road!