How To: Add USB Flash Drive to Roku TV Getting Pause and Rewind Features

It is not difficult to get some premium functionality from Roku TV like pause and rewind by simply adding a USB flash drive to your setup

You will need to configure the Roku TV and the flash drive to work together, but it’s not hard to do.

To get close to 90 minutes of pause or rewind time you will want to use a 16GB or larger flash drive. So using something small like a 2GB or 4GB USB drive, probably isn’t worth the effort.

The other caveat is that the pause function is only available on the live TV input, limiting you to whatever’s coming over your antenna or cable connection.

So if the above sounds like something worth trying, let us show you the way:

What you’ll need:

• Roku Smart TV (not the dongle or box). Said another way, a Smart TV with the Roku app.
• Live TV input (usually either antenna or cable)
• Roku TV remote control (standard with Roku purchase)
• A 16GB or larger flash drive. Can be either USB 2.0 or USB 3.0

Once you’ve selected your flash drive be sure nothing is on the USB stick. This process will format the drive and remove any files you have on the drive.

Getting Started

Locate a USB port on your Smart TV. Any port will work. These will be found on the back side of your Smart TV. Connect the flash drive to a USB port.

Going to your Roku home screen and move the cursor until you are highlighting the LIVE TV option. This will be a tile on the home screen.

Don’t click LIVE TV, but rather get into the Options menu of Roku. You can either click the Gear button on the Roku remote, or you can press the Home button on the remote five times.

In the Options menu select the “Set up Live TV Pause” and follow the on-screen instructions. Part of those instructions will include formatting a USB flash drive so Roku can sync with the flash memory for pause and rewind features.

Roku software will ask you to confirm the formatting process via a pin. This is only to make sure you think before you format because once you format the drive, any old data on the USB stick will be gone!

Done

Once live TV pause is enabled, you will be able to pause live television using the play/pause button on the Roku remote. You can also rewind up to (about) 90 minutes of live TV. This gives you plenty of time to have a nice family dinner while the Roku is on pause… then come back to finish the show.