more roku joy: post your pbs and nfb recommendations here

Roku has added an app for PBS! This means we watch music clips from Austin City Limits, and in the winter we'll binge on American Experience history documentaries and American Masters biographies. These documentaries are consistently worth watching, and often truly excellent.

On American Masters, we've recently seen "There But For Fortune," about Phil Ochs, and will eventually see bios of Philip Roth, J. D. Salinger, Johnny Carson, Mel Brooks, Rosetta Tharpe, and James Baldwin. American Experience has a spate of docs we haven't seen, including "The Abolitionists," and films on the building of the Panama Canal and the Hoover Dam.

Roku has also added an app for the National Film Board of Canada! The choices there are overwhelming, so if you've got NFB recommendations, please post them here.

The appearance of these two apps is good news for streaming in general and for Roku in particular. Now that all my TV and movie viewing is on-demand, and I have so many choices, I often wonder how I managed with cable. But this is how I managed: I hated it and I complained often. Streaming through Roku plus downloads plus our US IP address equals movie and TV heaven. Maybe one day Netflix Canada will get up to speed, and we'll drop the US address, but until then... If you want to know how, go here, then here.

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There are many excellent videos on the Roku PBS/Austin City Limits app, but for me, none tops this gripping performance by Richard Thompson: "1952 Vincent Black Lightning". Enjoy.

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