Direct Stream Question

[farside847 39]

You could also research this a little to see if we should adjust the firmware version we're checking for. That way we can improve it and you can enjoy the latest version.

 

here are the roku direct play requirements according to plex. I find it interesting that there are no framerate requirements.

 

 

 

MKV

• roku firmware: 5.1+
• video codec: h264 or mpeg4
• h264 level: high@4.1 or less supported (others may work through advanced prefs)
• max video refFrames: 8 for 720p, 4 for 1080p
• max video bitDepth: 8
• audio codec: 2ch AAC, 2ch MP3, or passthrough AC3, DTS
• (rare) legacy firmware (fw3.x) must have an audio track

MP4, MOV, M4V

• video codec: h264 or mpeg4
• video refFrames: 8 or less (5 or less for legacy firmware 3.x)
• audio: 2ch AAC or passthrough AC3
• (rare) legacy firmware (fw3.x) must have an audio track

WMV (less recommended)

• roku firmware: 3.1+
• video codec: VC-1 or WMV3
• audio codec: WMA9.2

HLS (transcoded stream)

• video codec: h264
• audio codec: 2ch AAC or passthrough AC3

Global Conditions: (if any of these are true, then transcoding will occur)

• more than one video stream
• burned in subs
• resolution > 1080p
• resolution preference less than source (local/remote quality)
• first audio track is AAC 5.1

Less common:

• anamorphic support: fw 4.8+ (only for anamorphic video streams)

https://forums.plex.tv/index.php/topic/37215-frequently-asked-questions/page-2?do=findComment&comment=776609

[speechles 1919]

@@farside847

 

Which roku? What chipset do they mean? That document is pretty irrelevant without a breakdown per version. I know for a fact a roku3 (4200) can play up to level 5.1 with 15 refframes just fine with current firmware. They dont break down the new support contained in 6.x firmwares on that document. In fact, plex pretty much closed sourced their roku client now (so others cant learn from it) so I doubt they would share present data either.

 

What is needed is actual people with their roku's to test out multiple videos and report back any which fail. You can easily edit capabilities.brs to add abilities, rezip the archive, and send to your roku while at the developer plugin screen. With this version, now test your roku and see which types fail to play consistantly. Thats the only real way to know for sure. I know for fact on the "Broadcom BCM11130" chipset (roku3,roku2 2015) you can do alot more direct-playing than your model above suggests.

 

What you saw, with me above, was fixing an oversight @@Luke had. I'm sure he didnt mean to drop support for anamorphic in the roku client, since it was still in appMain.brs being written to the global variable space the roku keeps for that application. So it was simply an oversight. Emby is at least in line with that document model above, If not moreso, because the min refframes presently is 12 for a bcm11130 chipset. Plex still transcodes more often than emby will if you test videos on it. Emby direct plays more.

Edited May 21, 2015 by speechles

[Luke 37071]

i thought this was about anamorphic support. speechles submitted a pull request and fixed that

[moviefan 184]

Where can I look to determine if my Roku is Direct Playing or transcoding?  Is it in the transcode log or somewhere on the Roku itself?

[Happy2Play 8282]

Push the OK button on remote when something is playing or check the dashboard.

[whitman27 1]

I was going to ask this question in a seperate thread because tonight I was getting frustrated with the Roku transcoding to play my movies and tying up valuable server resources and causing issues on other systems to watch files.

When I was using WDTV in 2 rooms they both could play movies at the same time and there was no biffering throught the entire movie. 

Since switching to the Roku it seems I can only have one Roku used at a time or it buffers.

This leads me to believe its the transcoding as the WDTV played direct.

 

I love the idea of having access to EMBY through Roku on all my tvs and having the ability to resume and see what has been watched.  But I hate the transcoding.

Is there any other boxes that I can use that wont need Transcoding?  Would androidTV boxes transcode also?

 

Thanks
Whit

[mjktg99 34]

I was going to ask this question in a seperate thread because tonight I was getting frustrated with the Roku transcoding to play my movies and tying up valuable server resources and causing issues on other systems to watch files.

When I was using WDTV in 2 rooms they both could play movies at the same time and there was no biffering throught the entire movie. 

Since switching to the Roku it seems I can only have one Roku used at a time or it buffers.

This leads me to believe its the transcoding as the WDTV played direct.

 

I love the idea of having access to EMBY through Roku on all my tvs and having the ability to resume and see what has been watched.  But I hate the transcoding.

Is there any other boxes that I can use that wont need Transcoding?  Would androidTV boxes transcode also?

 

Thanks

Whit

That more depends on what format your movies are in then it does the hardware.  If you converted your movies to MP4/h.264 and AAC audio, they would probably direct play on almost anything.  Just as an example, I have 2 Roku's.  Most of my movies are MKV/h.264 and AC3 Audio (Dolby Digital) they only direct play on my main TV because that TV can decode the AC3. On my other tv, it cannot decode so everything that is not AAC audio gets transcoded.  That's a combination of hardware and video formats.  There really is a lot of scenarios to make it all work and you just need to figure out the best for you.

 

If you just setup a PC, then you can probably get almost everything to direct play because you have a lot of control of what codecs are installed and what not. Also, with the new Android TV OTT boxes that are coming out, there might be some possibilities there as well.  Although with them I am reading they have some audio deficiencies as well.  And that's related to them having to pay for the licensing on the formats that they want to support.

Edited May 30, 2015 by mjktg99