In the streaming and on-demand age, the question when it comes to content for the most part has gone from “Can I watch this?” to “Where can I watch this?” With thousands of streaming services out there you can find so much to see. Of course, some content is locked down on specific premium services and some is not. But my experience has been that you can find almost anything you are looking for if you know how and where to search.
There are a lot of search sites and apps but the most powerful one on the market is via Roku. The Roku cross-section search is just by far the most inclusive content search in the industry. What makes it so different is the number of content partners included in the results. All streaming devices have a search feature, but they seem to tap out on the number of sources pretty quickly. Roku’s built-in system scours seemingly every single channel that Roku offers. This allows users to find the most esoteric selections on the most unknown channels/apps.
Other devices using FireTV OS, IOS, Android TV as their operating systems will often search the big guns in the industry such as Netflix, Amazon Video, Hulu, Disney+, etc find a lot less content. There is simply no argument to be made about the superiority of Roku’s platform search.
The next closest tool to Roku’s system is Just Watch. Just watch is available on streaming formats for IOS, Android TV, FireTV OS. You can also get the apps on mobile platforms and its website. Just Watch does not have the depth of Roku’s system but does search 171 platforms including cable replacement streaming services like Sling TV and fubo TV, Amazon channels options, and TV everywhere apps. Just watch will also provide users with genre choices across their selected apps. In an ironic twist, Just Watch can be the easiest place to search for content on their favorite apps because they can use it to look for content on specific apps as well as multiple.
In head-to-head matchups for certain titles, Roju’s search found free options for more titles than any of the other content searches by far. It found titles on apps that are included on other platforms but nonetheless do not show up in results. One example was a fairly unknown King Kong knockoff called Queen Kong. A search for the title on Roku returned 3 places to watch the movie for free. The Amazon Fire Stick returned a result that said unavailable. This result happened despite the availability of two of the same apps that Roku returned. For the record, Queen Kong is available on FilmRise Comedy and Watch Free Flix. Both have apps for Amazon Fire TV but neither were listed in the results. We could do this with random movies all day. Now, if you are looking for a big movie like Star Wars you will not have a problem. But that’s the thing about the choices today. You can find things you have never seen at the drop of a hat. If you find your way into a story like Craziest road trip movies, you may want to look them up and watch them. In our case, it was the 15 worst King Kong knockoffs.
So if content discovery is your most pressing need in a streaming device a Roku is the way to go. It will give you the most extensive results you can find period.
