The heat wave rolls on in much of the U.S. Check the weather in your area on the Weather Underground channel. If it's too hot outside for you, stay in and check out some new channels on the Roku that you may not have watched before. Read on for my picks and suggestions this week.
Amateur photographers won't want to miss Mostly Photo on the TWiT.TV channel. This hour-long weekly show is billed as helping everyone "take better pictures by teaching you how get the most out of your digital camera". Recorded every Tuesday, you can catch up on the latest six episodes on your Roku. The show is currently on break until June 14, when it will re-emerge as TWiT Photo. The latest episode includes an interview with photographer Mikkel Aaland. Previous episodes covered street photography through the lens of Chris Marquardt, and video and photo advice from Stu Maschwitz.
Last week I recommended that animation enthusiasts visit the Whiskey channel for videos focused on comics and gaming. Those who enjoy anime will want to check out Crunchyroll, which has lots of great videos from this genre. There are several seasons of dozens of series. The most-recent episode of each series requires a premium membership, but older episodes are free to watch.
Short attention span? blinkx delivers short videos from hundreds of sources from across the Web. Choose a category - sports, news, popular, or fun, and you'll be presented with close to 50 videos arranged by date. Pick the videos you want to watch, or just hit play and blinkx will run through all of the videos in that category. I expected low-quality YouTube videos - there is some of that, but you also get content from sources such as the Associated Press and SportingNews.
There are a lot of movie channels on Roku, but Jaman specializes in independent films, cult classics, and movie festival favorites. After setting up a free account at Jaman's website, you can rent movies from your computer to watch on the Roku. Make sure you visit the Roku movies page to make your selections, as not all titles are available for Roku viewing. Jaman also offers a free movie of the week. Currently showing for free is Blind Date (2007), an independent film in which an estranged married couple role play blind dates to reignite their relationship.
The Facebook Photos channel offers a good way to catch up on photos posted by your friends. Select Photo Feed for the most recent photos from your Facebook friends, or go to My Friends' Photos where you can select any friend and view their photo albums on your TV. You can also view your own photos.
If none of my picks interest you, check out the new Roku channels that were added to the Channel Store this week. Try them out and leave comments on the RokuGuide channel pages letting other know what you think about them.
