- Roku released some details today
on the upcoming Roku OS 11.
Now they say this is going to come
out in the next few weeks.
What that means we don't exactly know.
And it takes a few small steps
and it does take a big swing or two,
but mostly it proves something
that we already knew all along.
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And I do have the details for you so let's dive in.
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All right, Roku OS 11.
Let's get into the details.
There are eight major updates.
I'm sure there's lots of little things going on
in the background, but eight things that are noteworthy.
And in this video, I'm going to rank them in order
from the most to the least exciting, at least to me.
Okay, so let's start with number one
and that is the What to Watch menu option.
Now for this one, let me introduce you to past me.
What I'm asking for is on the left side of that screen
where it says home, you've got settings,
you've got search, all those things,
on the left side just add one more menu option,
and that is recommendations.
When you go there, you would get served up a screen similar
to what you would see on those other devices,
where it's pulling in content recommendations
from all over your different apps
and displaying them there in one place
for you to scroll through and choose something to watch.
Past me is very excited for the What to Watch menu option
because past me really called it.
And this is pretty much exactly what I asked for.
So instead of redoing the entire homepage,
which is simple, easy to navigate,
it's Roku's hallmark really,
they're adding a menu option underneath the home button
with the What to Watch.
So this is their recommendation algorithm
but unlike Google TV and Fire TV
and whatever else does those robust recommendations,
the Roku version is going to set it off to the side
so that you can kind of have your cake and eat it too.
I know from the comments on my videos
that a lot of you would be very excited about this.
And a lot of you really don't want recommendations
on your Roku.
So either way you get what you want,
you can keep your clean homescreen
and never go to the What to Watch menu.
Or if you do like having those recommendations,
then yeah it's there for you.
Either way, I like this update quite a bit.
Although we do have to acknowledge
that this is a bit of catch up on Roku's part.
Everybody else is doing recommendations.
Roku has kind of been behind on this for a while.
And so I'm glad that they're catching up,
but yeah it is catch up.
The big question to me is how good
the recommendations will be.
Google TV is fabulous with their recommendation algorithm.
I will say Fire TV is less so, at least by my lights.
So will Roku be better?
I guess we'll see.
Update number two is Roku Photo Streams.
They're actually very excited about this
based on the press release that they put out.
Roku Photo Streams is essentially
a personalized screensaver with a catch.
Now, personalized screensavers are not new,
Google TV does this, Fire TV does this.
Essentially you can use your mobile app or your computer
to take your own photos, upload them to your Roku account,
and then they show up as a personalized screensaver
on your TV.
The catch or maybe the better word would be the twist here
is that these are now shareable with other Roku users.
So if you have family or friends elsewhere
you can share your Photo Streams,
kind of mix and mingle those
so that you can view other people's photos
alongside your own in your screensaver.
I think it's kind of a cool idea.
There's a reason it's number two.
We'll see how well it works out
and how many people actually take advantage of it.
But yeah, I like the idea.
I like the idea of something that is already established
on other platforms and giving it that twist
to make it a little more interesting
and possibly a little more attractive
to those who are in the Roku ecosystem
with those they love of across the country.
Update number three is the voice enabled keyboard.
This is another bit of catch up on Roku's part.
Other platforms have been doing this for a while now.
Apple TV has been doing it for years.
And in fact it was one of the things years ago
that I loved about Apple TV that set them apart
from other streaming platforms.
What this means the voice enabled keyboard means
that when you need to enter an email address,
a password, a pin, whatever,
you can hold that microphone button on your remote
and it will allow you to dictate that email address
or password or pin.
And it won't just be available to English speakers.
It will support Spanish, German, and Portuguese
in the US and supported countries as well.
I put this pretty high at number three
because even though I don't have to enter a lot
of email addresses and passwords anymore,
I mean my Roku is pretty well set up,
but I know what a pain in the rear end it can be
when you have to set up all these new accounts.
You're logging into every account that you have.
It gets tedious to have
to type something in with the remote.
You could go to the app and kind of do this
with your phone or with your phone keyboard or your voice.
But now you have the option to not have to do that.
You can do it right on your TV,
which I think it's a nice step forward.
Update number four is an expansion of the Live TV Zone
that already exists on your Roku device.
The Live TV Zone came into effect a few months ago.
And for those who appreciate Live TV, it's great.
It pulls in a lot of your live content into one place
on your Roku device.
And now they're expanding that with a Recently Watched tab
in the Live TV Zone, and they're also expanding
their recommendations game there as well.
So local stuff, national stuff, sports, news, whatever.
They're going to analyze what you're watching
and use that to recommend more live TV content.
So if you are somebody who enjoys live TV still
then this is great for you.
For me, I'm a little bit less excited about it,
just 'cause I I don't really watch a lot of live TV anymore,
but still I see the utility in it
and I think a lot of you will be really excited about it.
Number five is some new sound modes in Roku OS 11.
Right now, if you click on your star key
and you go to the sound modes,
you've got normal, you've got bass boost,
bass reduce, and bass off, I think it's called.
And that's about it.
Some very, very basic EQ that you can do with those presets.
Now we're getting a few more, we'll have standard, dialogue,
movie, music, and night mode.
And again, these are just EQ presets
but these will be a little more specifically tailored
to certain situations, which could be nice.
Now how night mode differs as a sound mode
versus a volume mode where it already exists,
I'm not sure.
Night mode right now exists as a sound leveling mode
so that if you're watching something at night
and you don't wanna wake up the rest of the house
when a gunfight starts after a conversation,
you know those things will be a little bit closer together
in volume level.
So will it be different as a sound mode versus
a volume mode?
I don't know.
I guess we'll have to see, but I suspect they're the same.
Number six is Automatic Speech Clarity.
Now this is another sound mode
that you'll be able to toggle on and off.
And I struggled whether I was more or less excited
about this versus the new sound modes.
We'll call it a tie.
But what Roku says is that Automatic Speech Clarity
is a mode that you can toggle on and off
that will dynamically identify and amplify dialogue
within your content.
It's a cool idea and I hope it works.
It reminds me a little bit of motion smoothing,
that setting that you can do on the video side of things.
A lot of people love it.
A lot of people really hate it.
Sometimes it's useful.
Sometimes it really doesn't work out too well
and it makes things kind of janky as you're watching it.
I wonder what will happen with automatic speech clarity.
If it works well, I could see it being a real boon,
but if it doesn't, I could see it being very distracting
or distorting audio within your content.
We'll see how it goes.
I hope it works out well.
Number seven is an update that provides more details
in your mobile content searching.
Essentially they want a more visual experience
when you are searching on the Roku app, the mobile app.
So there won't be much in the way of new capabilities
on the mobile app, but hopefully the search process,
the experience of using the app,
will be a little more pleasant
and a little more informative.
So when search on the mobile app for a title
it'll give you a little more information
on who's in the cast and crew, if that matters to you.
But it will also do what already happens when you search
on your Roku device or your Roku TV,
the search results will more readily highlight
where you can watch things,
where you can watch them for free,
where you can watch them
if you have some existing subscriptions,
and where you can pay for content if you have to.
Lastly we have number eight, which is an improved A/V sync.
I'm putting this one last, not because it's not important,
just because I don't think that it will affect
as many people as the other things on the list will.
But if it does affect you, this is gonna be very important.
Essentially A/V sync is about when your audio
and video is out of sync, right?
So if you have a sound system that isn't working properly
with your Roku device, then you get that little lag time
in between the visual and the audio.
Very, very annoying.
So the new version of A/V Sync is still a settings menu
in the mobile app.
If you have a device that you're having trouble calibrating
hopefully the new Roku OS 11 will help you do
that a little bit easier.
Calibrate those devices
so you don't have the annoying sync issues.
All right, that's my order of excitement
but I'd like to know yours.
So hit the comments and let me know.
With the exception of the What to Watch menu option,
which I love, at least in theory.
I hope it works.
Overall I think a lot of these things are catch up.
You know, they're trying to catch up to Roku TV,
to Fire TV to Apple TV,
to what these other devices are capable of doing,
the Roku's been a little bit behind on for a few years.
So it's not a radical change to the Roku ecosystem
which I think is good.
They've got something that's working.
Like I said about the What to Watch menu,
some of you won't be so excited about recommendations.
Well, you don't have to use them
but I like that they're implementing it.
And I like that they are catching up
in some of these other areas as well.
But yeah, Roku works really well already,
so they didn't need to radically overhaul
their entire operating system.
They just need to iterate
and keep improving, which this does.
I think it's a step in the right direction
but I'm sure we'll have more that we wish for
from Roku OS 12.
So if there is anything left that you want Roku
to implement hit the comments, let me know.
I'd be interested to hear about it.
All right, everybody, thanks for watching.
Don't forget to like and subscribe if you enjoyed this video
and don't forget to join me on Fridays at 2:00 PM Eastern
for those live streams.
Hope to see you there.
Have a good one.