Yeah, tivos are expensive, I agree. I think you can find wifi adapters that will work for less than $70 though, mine was free with my tivo during a special offer.

The thing is, if you want the features tivo has, there's really nothing better. If you're fine with the what roku does then yeah, save your money.

I don't know for certain because I do have tivo service, but I'm pretty sure that you do need it to get movies. By the way, I bought tivo's "lifetime" service option. It's expensive, $300, but I was planning on keeping it long enough that I thought that it would eventually pay off. I'm not sure they even offer that anymore though.

Anyway, there are probably cheaper options if you only want movies.

Tivos have been able to use Wifi instead of telephone lines for years now. In fact, you have to if you want to use their Netflix or Amazon movie download service.