Starz on The Roku Channel

Recently, I've been watching The Roku Channel, not just on Roku but also on other platforms, too. I've been looking at the features and trying to decide what I've been missing out on.

The Roku Channel is one of the most popular apps on Roku, and is fairly popular on other platforms as well. While I'm a fan of Roku, I haven't bought in to the hype about The Roku Channel. Still, I'm willing to give it a try. So, I'm trying it out.

The feature I'm looking at now is Starz, a premium movie channel that can be added to The Roku Channel. Subscribing to Stars on The Roku Channel adds a separate app, "Starz on The Roku Channel," to the menu. If I want to watch Starz content, it's all right there, as well as being available within The Roku Channel.

The two problem I had with Starz on The Roku Channel were the lack of a search feature and the limited content.

The search is a big deal, because browsing doesn't offer easy ways to find stuff. There is a workaround: you can still search within The Roku Channel, just not within the Starz on The Roku Channel app.

The limited content is the other thing, and the major thing, since there's no workaround. You see, not everything that's available from Starz is available through Starz on The Roku Channel. Starz/TRC did not have everything. If you go to the various categories of content, for example comedies, you'll see up to 40 titles in the category on Starz/TRC.

The thing that I really don't like is that with Starz/TRC you are limited to watching it on a Roku device. You can't watch the content through The Roku Channel on a Fire stick or Chromecast, because premium content to which you subscribe via The Roku Channel is not available on a non-Roku platforms.

I do like that if you sign up for a free trial, you'll be notified ahead of the expiration of the free trial in case you want to cancel and not get billed for the first month. That is a good feature and not every service does this. I commend Roku for taking this approach. More services should.

To summarize, if you're all in with Roku, it's a good way to subscribe to Starz, but not as good as subscribing to Stars standalone service. Still, there's enough good quality content to consider including premium services such as Starz on The Roku Channel in your Streaming Life.