On Sat, 12 Nov 2011, Ryan Coleman wrote:

> Xbox also requires a subscription to Xbox Live. Something I won't pay 
> for. The others, at least the Wii and Roku, will do it for free and the 
> Roku, depending on the unit you buy, will do HD.


Thanks for all the comments, so far.  I have been hearing so many things 
about Roku, and the price is good, so I think I'm just going to get one of 
them and deal with the game-console issue later, but I am getting the 
feeling that a 4-year-old girl might like the Wii best.

Regarding Roku, any idea which is best?:

http://www.roku.com/roku-products

Between HD and XD, I like the idea of getting 1080p, but is there enough 
1080p content out there that it will matter?  Comparing XD to XS, I don't 
know what "fully loaded" means, I guess ethernet would be good, maybe I 
can use USB, but I don't know what any of these things will be doing. 
Here's a review:

http://reviews.cnet.com/digital-media-receivers/roku-2-xs/4505-6739_7-34850104.html

So "games" means one game?  I guess people really, really, really like 
Angry Birds, though, but that might mean it's an addiction the family can 
live without.  ;-)  I'll probably go with XS unless someone thinks it's a 
bad idea.

Thanks again for all the good ideas.

Mike