Not loading on Roku

[koopa8840 23]

Since it always asked; I am not using the Roku Emby app, because it converts FLACs to MP3s for playing. I want to see if Emby DLNA allows for FLAC direct play. The problem is Emby DLNA stays "loading" and never loads. Just an endless spinning icon. AssetUPNP loads fine and allows the Roku to play FLACs without the device being forced to convert. All debugging has been turned on. IPv6 is disabled. Here is the server log.

Thanks.

embyserver.txt

[Luke 37007]

Hi, are you able to use other dlna apps from other devices?

[koopa8840 23]

Yes. As it is right now, using the Roku Emby app forces my FLACs to MP3s and then plays. If this is going to happen, when using Emby through DLNA, then I'm not going to waste time and just use Asset UPNP. I would prefer not to use multiple programs.

[Luke 37007]

are you able to use other dlna apps from other devices to connect to your emby server?

[koopa8840 23]

Every other device can connect fine, except for Rokus. Rokus connect fine to Media Player DLNA and other DLNA apps. Rokus connect to Emby DLNA, but is stick with the loading icon. I have left them overnight, trying load, and no success.

So if I manage to get a Roku to connect via DLNA, are my FLACs going to be converted to MP3s and then played? If so, there is no need to continue troubleshooting to achieve a undesired result.

[Luke 37007]

So you're able to connect other devices to Emby DLNA?

[koopa8840 23]

Yes.

[Luke 37007]

Is this with Roku media player?

[speechles 1917]

@koopa8840 How many items are you trying to load into Roku Media Player?

Roku media player tries to load everything into view at once without lazy loading. It then breaks these up into rows with 5 items per row usually. You can configure it differently but the way Roku media player loads is just wasteful. It does not support a real grid. It does not have ways to sort or give true album or song views.

I know you want FLAC to direct play on Emby for Roku. We want that too. I can take time coming up shortly and really dig into the why, where, and how. Then we can have it working the way expected without transcoding. The Roku does not accept RAW flac for direct play. But we can direct stream these possibly under the right conditions rather than transcode to mp3. Let me look into this...

Edited July 26, 2021 by speechles

[koopa8840 23]

20 minutes ago, Luke said:

Is this with Roku media player?

Yes.

5 minutes ago, speechles said:

@koopa8840 How many items are you trying to load into Roku Media Player?

Roku media player tries to load everything into view at once without lazy loading. It then breaks these up into rows with 5 items per row usually. You can configure it differently but the way Roku media player loads is just wasteful. It does not support a real grid. It does not have ways to sort or give true album or song views.

I know you want FLAC to direct play on Emby for Roku. We want that too. I can take time coming up shortly and really dig into the why, where, and how. Then we can have it working the way expected without transcoding. The Roku does not accept RAW flac for direct play. But we can direct stream these possibly under the right conditions rather than transcode to mp3. Let me look into this...

Roku Media Player connects to other DLNA programs, loads the music and direct plays FLAC files. Roku supports FLAC direct play via DLNA. This seems to contradict what you are stating. Emby doesn't even connect, so I can't test it.

[speechles 1917]

22 minutes ago, koopa8840 said:

Yes.

Roku Media Player connects to other DLNA programs, loads the music and direct plays FLAC files. Roku supports FLAC direct play via DLNA. This seems to contradict what you are stating. Emby doesn't even connect, so I can't test it.

They use the old SDKA. Notice how it "looks" compared to modern Roku applications. Roku cut them some slack since Roku Media Player is an inside job.

It still doesn't change the fact that it is possible to direct stream FLAC on the new SceneGraph SDK. We just aren't doing that ATM. We can. That is possible. Anything is possible unless you try it and come up with a valid excuse why it isn't. When we play music we do not know the media information ahead of time. What the codecs are, bitrates, etc we have no idea ahead of time. We do not request the playback information because that would slow down playback each song and take an extra second or two. The server is sending us things blind after we send it capabilities of the device and we react with fallback to what we get sent if the Roku initially balks at playing it.

We can know after playback fails what the item was composed of codec-wise and react accordingly. We know the media information once it fails playing. Just not before hand. Once the Roku says it does not like it we can know everything about that item. But to know ahead of time will slow down playback since you are getting it twice. Once for you to know and let the app know. The second is the audio player naturally fetching them. If you wait until it fails you can let the app know what the audio player fetched with getting it once.

There is part we can do better. We can react with better fallback since we know the codec and all that jazz after it fails. Then we simply do better at that point and direct stream FLAC. This is simply convert flac into a flac container with header the Roku likes. That is all. It isn't modify the FLAC stream. That is how we would have to do it.

But that also doesn't change the fact the way Roku Media Player loads data is wasteful and slow. They could've used lazy loading but then it makes row navigation hell until all the rows are appended. I can tell why they didn't. Loading rows that way is painful. That is why we limit what can be shown on the Roku homescreen. Entirely why. To build into a Roku rowlist on-the-fly and allow navigation is clumsy at best.

Now that you know all this please trust me on this. We can do better and I will see what we can do to get that better here faster. So that we do not need to come back down this road ever again. So that you know what is really going on without being fed nonsense. That is really what is going on. ^_~

Edited July 26, 2021 by speechles