Crackle

RokuGuide Review: What is Crackle? According to Crackle's website FAQ, "Crackle, Inc. is a multi-platform video entertainment network and studio that distributes full length, uncut, movies, TV shows and original programming in our users’ favorite genres." And one of those platforms is the Roku, where you will find the Crackle channel.

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Crackle doesn't offer it's full Web library on the Roku, but the Roku content is still pretty extensive. At the time of this review (June 2011), the Crackle channel offers 209 movies (vs. 275 on the Crackle website), 45 television series (vs. 102), and 47 original series (same as the website). All movies, television shows, and originals are provided as full, uncut presentations, and all are free. You will have to sit through a single short advertisement at the start of each video, and there are occasional commercial interruptions, but these are also short and fairly infrequent. The commercials are certainly less than you would experience on network television.

Movies are listed under six genres: action, comedy, horror, crime, sci-fi, and thriller. The Crackle content menu also includes a "featured" category and a "most popular" category, and allows you scroll through all movie titles if you don't want to browse a specific genre. If you want to preview a movie before watching the full film, or if you just want to rewatch highlights from a favorite, there are collections of clips from 76 movies. The movies eras offered are concentrated in the 80's, 90, and early 2000's. There are some newer and older films available, but the 50's, 60's, and 70's appear to be only a small percentage of those available.

Close to half of the television series are anime cartoons. Twenty are listed as anime, and several look to be of a similar genre. Toss in some unknown titles and you're left with just a few classic television shows. The only series that are highly recognizable are Barney Miller, Bewitched, Good Times, I Dream of Jeannie, Married with Children, News Radio, and Soap. Some other shows that may be recognizable are the Dilbert and Spiderman cartoons and The Dana Carvey Show. For some of the series, you can also watch "minisodes", which are similar to highlight clips of an episode, but put together in such a way that an entire half-hour show is condensed into less than five minutes. For more information on Crackle minisodes, read "Short Attention Span? Crackle TV Minisodes are for You" - unfortunately, many of the minisodes that were available when Crackle first came to Roku are no longer available on the Roku.

Originals is more television-style series. Subject matter includes horror (Buried Alive), (Urban Wolf), action and adventure (Best Ranges Competition), talk (Anytime with Bob Kushell), documentary (American Dreamers), satire (True Colors), comedy (That Guy), game show (The Tester), reality (I've Got Skills), and more.

Content is laid out well using the newer grid style, although I would like to see all of those anime shows moved out of the television category and perhaps put into their own section. The addition of more classic television shows that are currently offered on the website would be a great addition to the Crackle lineup.

The Crackle stream has been very reliable for me, and picture quality is high. Remember, though, that those Bewitched episodes from the 1960's aren't going to come through in HD. The infrequent commercials are an acceptable tradeoff for free content. Crackle is a great addition to the Roku Channel Store and one worth having on your channel lineup if you want free movies and television-style series.

Developer's Channel Description: FREE Movies on Demand: Uncut and Unedited. Crackle delivers full-length Hollywood movies and TV series in the genres you care about most: Action, comedy, crime, horror, thriller, and sci-fi. More info: www.crackle.com.

--RokuGuide Reviewed on June 12, 2011

CHANNEL STORE CATEGORY: Movies & TV

DEVELOPER: CRACKLE

FEES: None

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Crackle Supports Obama

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sat, 2012-06-16 12:47.

We tried watching a movie on Crackle last night and it was interrupted every 15 minutes or so with Anti-Romney ads and Support Obama ads. Not a great idea, especially since we are Republican and refuse to watch ads supporting Obama. We refuse to watch this channel and will stick with Netflix and Hulu Plus.

Crackle Supports Obama

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 2012-10-05 13:08.

Bravo Crackle!! Well done! Two Republicans are scurrying to get back under their rock! With Obama ads running on every broadcast station, and now many streaming services as well, not even the Fox News Channel is safe! Oh, the humanity!

Unless you're enamored of

Submitted by Stan Robinson (not verified) on Tue, 2012-02-14 18:45.

Unless you're enamored of that stupid Japanese animated crap, Crackle is pretty worthless. Actually, it IS completely worthless, now that I think about it. I was interested in their classic TV offerings .... for about 10 minutes. Turns out that, 1) All those series they offer -- it's only a few episodes of each. Useless. 2) The audio/video quality is fully up to a VHS tape running at EP. Complete garbage. At least they are merciful when it comes to the commercials. They're brief and infrequent. But unless there's something worth your time, the commercials that pay for it, no matter how brief, aren't much of a selling point.

Cracle content not worth the headaches

Submitted by Hawke (not verified) on Sat, 2012-02-18 15:18.

Hawke » Sat Feb 18, 2012 1:06 pm
To say that Crackle is problematic is far too polite. Trying to watch a 21 year-old movie,Bugsy, was impossible to get through simply because after the time frame of peak demand arrived last night, it stopped playing after a commercial break. No matter what I tried, it would not respond. Other movies in lower demand would startup and play fine. Later, I woke up in the middle of the night, and tried once again when the demand fell. It started up just fine. Now, during a period of relatively high demand (Saturday morning), it once again will not play. Okay, here's the deal people: Crackle is obviously offering too little decent content to spread around the demand so that the movies that people flock to will jam the feed and shut the system down. If a 21 year-old movie succeeds at doing this, their lineup quality is just WAY too anemic. This is why I'm writing a scathing review of this channel and let the world of Roku users know what I think. Crackle, get your act together.

I dont understand why

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 2012-08-19 22:51.

I dont understand why everyone is bashing it so bad. Netflix and Hulu-plus cost $96 per year per person... so of course they are going to be better. Considering its 'free' for us means that even if its a bit bugy or whatever then that is still good. Because its free. I have watched a couple movies on it without issue so far. And to say Crackle supports Obama is kinda stupid... more like Obama was the only one putting money towards it at the time. I have now seen a Romney ad on there too, so now Romney is putting money towards crackle commercials too.

Crackle crackle pop

Submitted by crackled (not verified) on Sun, 2012-09-02 21:24.

So Crackle is free, they have ads. Go watch Free network television. What people are really mad about is that they expect a free to public programming to have a multi billion dollar budget so they can have what they want when they want it. FOR NOTHING! Humans, so greedy.

A service that is offered to the public should have some responsibility to the people. And a technical explanation should be part of the FAQs. Why do I get a network down? Why do I get a content error. Network issues are streaming problems plain and simple. When the service is taking 5 seconds to respond to requests on a digital level...well, you will see problems. Thats a lot of discards and drops. Oh well. What do you do? Bitch? LOL.

Good thing they invented this cool app called OUTSIDE, there is trees and birds and real people. Some one should have invented that a long time ago. The graphics are awesome and totally 3d and 100% interactive.

agree

Submitted by crackle :-) (not verified) on Thu, 2013-01-24 20:08.

You couldn't have said it any better. Crackle is a free service. You get what you pay for... Or in this case, what you don't pay for. If people want to see the latest movies, then go to the theatres. You pay premium, but you don't have to worry bout no network issues :-p