Theme: blue neon night

[speechles 1929]

When using the blue night app to watch live tv I notice a reoccurring pop every minute or so with the audio. The video never skips a beat. It happens every time I watch a channel with live tv but the timing of it is inconsistent. When I use the general release emby roku app it does not occur at all.

 

I've attached the transcoding logs and noticed they are transcoding to different audio streams (aac vs mp3) if it matters.

 

transcode blue night.txt

trancode general release.txt

 

For stereo sound only, set this option to no, then you will get mp3 during transcoding. Since liveTV which will not give a codec type, change the unknown audio like below to mp3.

 

 

For stereo set the default audio to mp3. And the convert AAC to MP3 option to yes. Force surround should be no.

 

If you have surround sound, the convert MP2/3 to AAC should be yes. The default audio should be ac3. The unknown audio should be ac3. Convert AAC to MP3 should be no. Force surround should be yes.

 

All of these work together to provide the best sound for your situation. This can help with older TVs and stubborn sound bars.

Edited August 29, 2016 by speechles

[Guest Grace1313]

Wow.  Is this stuff that easy to do - or is Speechless working 24/7 ?

This guy is really good at what he does.  It's not easy to do.

[speechles 1929]

New Version: v3.79

* add h264 max level preference

* various minor bug fixes

 

This release should help those on rokuTV force video to play by lowering this preference from 51 to 40 or 41. This will make transcoding use a maxmimum you set. You can always "force directstream" and over-ride this when you want to. This setting will only come into play with transcoding. For everyone without an issue, leave this at the default 51.

 

 

The other various bug fixes, included cleaning up a double facade screen in the videoplayer, cleaning up some of the code to read easier, and various other things no one would ever notice without looking at the code.

 

For anyone on rokuTV on tcl or insignia brands. This release is for you. Enjoys.

Edited September 2, 2016 by speechles

[vaise 307]

We have collected more info on the delete / no delete option when you finish watching a recording.  It seems random but I think it depends how much of the file there is still to watch (we think?) that then shows no delete button at all onthe first or second menu.  The fix we have to get the delete button back is stop, play from beginning, FF a bit, then stop - then the delete is there.  This only seems to happen on 1 in every 3 shows or something like that so is not too big an issue - but there is something in the code that when you stop a playback at a certain point, there is no delete button on either menu.  I cant believe anyone else has not noticed this - or do others not use so much as a PVR - or is it ONLY related to the nextPVR plugin ?  I will take a photo of the screen next time this happens and upload to this.  No priority as others dont seem to have it and we have a work around.  Thanks.

[vaise 307]

Small positioning Issue with live TV - displaying recorded shows - the 'speech box' - if that is what it is called, covers the show names behind it.  If it was dropped a fraction that would be good.  I have taken a photo and attached.  Ta.

[mikeraburn 60]

I've run into an audio codec that is only working in transcode.

No sound in direct play when I choose it manually.

 

E-AC3

 

Some kind soul directed me to this link earlier.

 

https://sdkdocs.roku.com/display/sdkdoc/Video+Encoding+Guidelines#VideoEncodingGuidelines-SupportedAudioFormats

 

To me, it says it should work, Correct?

 

VideoCodecH264
AVCYes
ProfileHigh
Level31
Resolution1280x720
Aspect ratio16:9
AnamorphicNo
InterlacedNo
Framerate23.97602
Bitrate4041 kbps
Bit depth8 bit
Pixel formatyuv420p
Ref frames5
NAL4

AudioLanguageeng
CodecEAC3
Layout5.1
Channels6 ch
Bitrate640 kbps
Sample rate48000 Hz
DefaultYes
TitleEng Dolby Digital+ 5.1 Default

SubtitleLanguageeng
CodecSRT
DefaultNo
ForcedNo
ExternalNo
TitleEng

Containermkv

[speechles 1929]

New Version: v3.80

* fix delete not showing as a button

* add new image to "because you..." toggle

* add consistent "..." on buttons that spawn dialogs

* add media information screen

 

Okay, first off the delete button wasn't showing in the main button menu or the popup dialog "more ..." menu at times. I think I found the cause so this shouldn't occur anymore. The issue was it was remembering its earlier placement which may not have room for it causing it not to be shown at all. I now wipe its memory before setting buttons.

 

Added a new image for the suggested row of movies. This was necessary to add the entire text to make this easier to understand. Now it resembles the web client much more closely in use and looks.

 

 

Microsoft and Apple use "..." on menu items that spawn a dialog to ask something else afterwards. I added this to all the buttons now so its clear which buttons do so.

 

Also managed to add in a full media information screen. I noticed that androidTV app has this available, the web client shows this. I felt this app should too, but was at a loss how to fit it in since most screens/dialogs have no room for more buttons. So I fit it in where I could and changed the "show more of the description" button. It now is the "Show Overview/Info" Button. This works two ways. When there is a description shown this will first go to the normal description screen. From this screen you can get to the "media information" button to display like the web client does. If the item does not have a description shown the description screen is skipped and it goes right to the media information screen.

 

 

 

 

Updated all links in first post. Update your devices. Enjoy

 

Hopefully everyone understands, I didn't intentionally forget anyone and their requests and questions. I intend to add more features, and get to them soon.

 

This release also contains this commit: (thx @softworkz)

https://github.com/MediaBrowser/Emby.Roku/commit/1636a2235cb88a84914d0f42be28cc84c519c463

 

Seems "elseif" to "else if" was one of the fixes. There are 2 more places in the app that have "elseif" so I fixed those too.

Edited September 14, 2016 by speechles

[speechles 1929]

Small positioning Issue with live TV - displaying recorded shows - the 'speech box' - if that is what it is called, covers the show names behind it. If it was dropped a fraction that would be good. I have taken a photo and attached. Ta.

This actually cannot be changed, the placement... but.. You can disable it for that section of the app. Press * and use the "Change View Style ..." button. Turn Display Info Box off. This will remove the "bubble" from appearing. Also, I hopefully, corrected your delete button issue. Let me know if it still has moments of forgetfulness

This guy is really good at what he does. It's not easy to do.

It actually isn't that hard. Alot of the code is aleady written. Most of what I do just hooks into these already existing parts and just adds more functionality. I have had to write complete brightscript functions, don't get me wrong, but it isn't as difficult to develop on the roku. It just takes time. For example, the 3.80 version was approximately in total, 10 hours of work. Some of it bug proofing and hunting, and other parts working through crashes of the app to understand how to implement what I want and how I want it to work. Hopefully it works how you like too as well.

 

Keep in mind, some of what I've tried never works right because of limitations of the roku. When this happens, I try to overcome the problem just try another way. Eventually though, I just scrap the idea and move forward to the next thing. You learn as you go by trying again after you fail. For the 3.80 version I have 32 revisions with bugs. It was the 33rd revision of version 3.80 that worked. Failed 32 times before all the bugs and issues were all ironed out flat. This is where patience and try again comes into play. You focus and keep trying something else until it works, or you realize why it never can.

 

This is why the roku cannot have a nice wall of movie posters that cascade vertically. So each row has 5, and just move down rows until all the movies fill in. This presents a nice view for sure. The problem is, it cannot be paginated easily when loaded. You have to know the total amount of movies in advance and have them populate rows in advance before you can show the screen. With anything over 500 movies this will introduce about a 20 second wait before that screen would show. This is entirely too long, imo. For 1000 movies its a 40 second wait. So whilst that feature would be awesome and is possible, the downside of it outweighs its usefulness.

 

This is where the scene-graph apps can solve the problem and open up possibilities again. Eventually this will happen.

I've run into an audio codec that is only working in transcode.

No sound in direct play when I choose it manually.

 

E-AC3

 

Some kind soul directed me to this link earlier.

 

https://sdkdocs.roku.com/display/sdkdoc/Video+Encoding+Guidelines#VideoEncodingGuidelines-SupportedAudioFormats

 

To me, it says it should work, Correct?

The roku documentation is, at best, merely something to consider. It isn't correct some of the time. If the audio is an EAC3 stream the roku hates it. This will direct play with no sound. The roku only truly loves AC3 and DTS in 5.1. You can sometimes direct play AAC 5.1 if the profile is LC and the roku "likes it" ...but.. not sure what that reason for liking it is. It might like it if its bitrate was below 384kbps, but I haven't done enough tests in that area. This is one of the major reasons I've added the "Media Information" screen. Its alot faster to experiment with it available on the device. No more having to juggle your eyes from the web client and back to the roku.

Edited September 14, 2016 by speechles

[mikeraburn 60]

speechles

 

I'm really digging the Media Information viewer.

Obviously I don't know what 95% of the stuff means, but for the stuff I do know, it is handy to pop it up while in the app.

To me this is the best newest feature!

 

I saw an article about Roku releasing developer stuff so that the menus and other stuff can be modified.

I think that is what I took away from it.

Although I cannot imagine any better flow to to the current Blue Neon. 

I meant to save the link and post it but now I cannot find it.

Did you or any other EMBY gurus see that? 

 

The transcode of the E AC3 audio has no affect to the video quality of those certain files so that issues is moot on my end.

 

Once again, thanks to you all for the awesome app.

[speechles 1929]

speechles

 

I'm really digging the Media Information viewer.

Obviously I don't know what 95% of the stuff means, but for the stuff I do know, it is handy to pop it up while in the app.

To me this is the best newest feature!

It shows the media info as the roku actually sees it. This isnt "cleaned up" like the other apps do it. I am just dumping the entire arrays directly to screen unaltered. So you see these in the best way to fix a roku specific issue.

 

 

I saw an article about Roku releasing developer stuff so that the menus and other stuff can be modified.

I think that is what I took away from it.

Although I cannot imagine any better flow to to the current Blue Neon.

I meant to save the link and post it but now I cannot find it.

Did you or any other EMBY gurus see that?

Yes, that is specific to firmware 7.x, known as scene graph, uses xml to render and run off nodes.

 

The issue is the blueneon app is supposed to work on any firmware, any roku, that was the intent. When I start to take advantage of scene graph this will limit the rokus that can use the app. This is why I havent jumped onto these yet. I was waiting for an official emby team answer what was going on with scene-graph before I jumped in to help. So presently this is the hold up. But... in the meantime, I can continue to make the blue neon app even better, remove bugs, polish it up, add features.

 

 

The transcode of the E AC3 audio has no affect to the video quality of those certain files so that issues is moot on my end.

 

Once again, thanks to you all for the awesome app.

The transcode E-AC3 issue might not be possible to solve in software or a firmware update by roku. It may require new hardware and curiously, roku had some of their new hardware models for 2016 holiday season leaked. It is quite possible these new roku models coming up may address the problem and pass through full audio codec support and allow more video codecs to direct play. On the other hand, they may not. Only roku knows the real answer.

 

Thanks for the support. Its nice knowing others appreciate the efforts.

 

 

 

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

Edited September 18, 2016 by speechles

[vaise 307]

Thanks for the work on the delete button.  The positioning 'speech' bubble thing cant seem to be turned off for live TV - only the normal other libraries.  I just get a beep when I press the * on the Live TV recordings view.

[speechles 1929]

Thanks for the work on the delete button. The positioning 'speech' bubble thing cant seem to be turned off for live TV - only the normal other libraries. I just get a beep when I press the * on the Live TV recordings view.

Doh!!

 

Since I dont use liveTV I assumed it had context menus. Upon inspection I see it lacks context menus and a base screen refresh to allow them to work.

 

This was easy to add to that section. Now liveTV works with context menus and even does a view refresh. This works for channels, guide, and recordings and is called the livetv view in the context menu.

 

Expect a new release that includes this, and much more shortly..

 

Ps. Thx @@econ for use of your server/livetv to fix this issue.

 

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[Guest Grace1313]

Why not just jump in and start. Doesn't seem like the team is too concerned with it so I'd say go for it. If I could help in any way,i would.

[speechles 1929]

New Version: v3.81

* fix search screen when viewing genre/studio to allow albums

* fix all screens to properly show 2nd detail line with item counts

* add genre/studio tracks button to detail screens

* fix shuffle to allow genre/studio/artist tracks

* add preference for max tracks in genre/studio/artist

* add limit to genre/studio/artist tracks

* fix various other bugs

* add context menu * to live tv

* add audiopodcasts, photos, collection folders, and liveTV to search results

* fix context dialogs facade versus base screen

* add parse music list items and discard invalid

 

In this relase I've gone over all (most?! hopefully its all ) the "sore spots" and gave them all attention. This means even minor cosmetic issues I've fixed. It should look quite polished now. The search is now the best on any device (even the web client). The rest of the apps will have to copy how this app does searches now to catch up. Try and search for "A" and see how many rows populate with results.

 

 

 

Most of the areas touched upon are to enhance how music works on the roku and should need no explanation. For genre and studio this will now allow track selection with music. This means you can click on the genre "rock" and click the button "genre tracks" and get just the rock tracks in a track list. The same works for artist and studio.

 

The dialog that allows filtering, sorting, changing view types, and all that stuff also had a bug. It has had this bug since inception and I finally figured out how to kill it. It happens because those dialogs are created at the base level and are self closing. This doesn't play nicely with normal base screens. Adjusted how this was done so the facade is always regenerated at the base level before the dialog is loaded. Now it works perfectly. This was required to fix. The new LiveTV context menu needs it and it can't be "wonky". Feel free to press * on liveTV screens and see what you can do.

 

There is also a new preference in options to control the MAX genre/studio/artist limit. This is default at 200 tracks and includes a way to disable. It helps avoid loading a track list of potentially thousands of items and lag the roku for 10 minutes loading. There is no MAX limit for playlists or music albums. These can still have a large amount and the app loads them all. This is by design.

 

Instant mix will always return a maximum of 100 tracks and is based on genre. This is because if you want it based on artist or studio you can just go in those views and use the shuffle button. Using genre allows instant mix to have the best pool to mix music with and respect the mood.

 

Those using music on the roku should notice the improvements right away. As always anything I've forgotten, or any bugs please let me know. Those who use music please try out the new features and see if they work for you. Anyone with time, please try to find any bugs I've not squashed. Get your magnifying glasses and nets it's "Bug Hunting Time!!!".

 

Updated all links in first post. Update and Enjoy.

 

Why not just jump in and start. Doesn't seem like the team is too concerned with it so I'd say go for it. If I could help in any way,i would.

Doing that may eventually happen, but hasn't because then I would create a public app. You see, this app is a private/hidden app that you cant find by searching roku. You have to know how to get it. This was done intentionally so as not to cause confusion. I don't get premiere money, or derive income from the app. Now the people who do, are leaving the roku users to "fend for themselves". This is why I started to make the app. There wasn't enough movement on things I thought were beneficial.

 

The new app will have to be entirely rewritten from scratch from the ground up. I havent gotten that ambitious.. yet. I will get there though, because scene graph has potential and I am curious to make use of this potential. The new youtube app on roku, makes use of pure scene graph, this shows what power lies within. Having something like that for emby is the goal.

Edited September 21, 2016 by speechles

[Guest Grace1313]

I hear you, I don't know all the details of what went on with those guys but it sounds like what you say is true. Not sure why they wouldn't want better apps to bring more people to them. Anyway, we all appreciate your effort. You've done a great job.

[speechles 1929]

I hear you, I don't know all the details of what went on with those guys but it sounds like what you say is true. Not sure why they wouldn't want better apps to bring more people to them. Anyway, we all appreciate your effort. You've done a great job.

I edited my above post right after you saw it. I maybe, was a bit too harsh.

 

The reality is roku isnt going away. They have new roku models and new rokuTV devices coming out this holiday. So the people looking for a better app wont go away. They will only increase, so I do understand the users wanting a better look and making posts mentioning such. They want what plex has. Plex has theirs based off custom screens though. Their app didnt go all in with scene graph. The emby app can and leapfrog their app. It is hard for one person to attempt a complete rewrite without being able to recycle code. Hard doesnt mean impossible though. ^_~

 

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[Guest Grace1313]

Right, that plex app looks good, but functionality isn't that great. I think it's about finding that balance, which I'm sure you'll do. I'm cool with blue neon,i think it's great. I just modify some things to my liking. I also understand those wanting something fancier.

[mikeraburn 60]

Blue Neon is fine as is.

 

If the newer Rokus differ from the current ones, maintaining two or possibly three different apps would lose it's "hobbyist" appeal to Speechles, I would imagine.

 

If Blue Neon goes "public" it would lose it's appeal. That is my opinion only.

[mikeraburn 60]

"Roku Confirms 4K HDR Support For New Roku Boxes"

 

Ain't a kick in the head,to me at least.

I got my Roku4 to future proof.

I do not have a 4K tv.

 

But from what little I have read AND understand, understand being the key word, a type of HDR is going to be a standard.

Not so much 4K. (To me 4K seems like a fad and marketing point just like 3D was.)

 

Hopefully I can wait a few years before my Panasonic Plasma quits and then see what the newest "rage" is then.

4K, UHDR +++, and OLED. What will us humans come up with next?

 

FYI, I still read real books...on paper.

 

(get off of my lawn)

Edited September 25, 2016 by mikeraburn

[GB Utah 4]

Quick report on my first use of Roku with Emby.

 

I recently acquired a TCL Roku TV for a bedroom. Works well enough, Roku embedded what could go wrong? It's a 50UP120 to be specific. It's online and up to date. I believe the software version reported by the TV is 7.2.0

 

I installed the official Emby Roku app/channel and the Blue Neon app/channel. Both work well, nice enough for my first use of Roku.

 

99% of my source content is full makemkv backups of DVD material. This means, in general, 480p MPEG2 video, AC3 6 or 2 channel stereo, embedded DVDSUBs.

 

The official and Blue Neon apps appear to play everything I have, however, as expected trancoded. Side note on the transcoding, I had Intel QSV transcode enabled on the server initially. That was causing many (all?) of my content to freeze about 10 minutes into playback with a retrieving message. Once I disabled QSV, transcoding proceeded as normal.

 

Here's where it gets interesting. I was playing with some of the settings available in the Blue Neon app and decided to attempt to direct play and/or direct stream a full DVD MKV rip as noted above. It works. No trancoding.

 

When I select direct play, Blue Neon crashes back to the home screen, but when I select direct stream, it plays... the ok button on the remote while viewing playback says direct play, but I can't explain why. Also the info displayed with the ok button does not fit in the display box. It's centered so both the right and left edges are cut off. Most likely a Roku display limitation.

 

One additional comment/question. The * button on the remote, as I understand for Roku, should bring up a context menu with the app. However, on my TCL Roku TV the * button is hard coded to bring up Audio/Video settings for the TV itself. Is there some work around to get context menu usage within the app?

 

Good job on the Roku app. Very VERY nice to be able to direct stream MPEG2 using a Roku, even if I had to get a TV to do it.

Edited September 26, 2016 by GB Utah

[im85288 1493]

I edited my above post right after you saw it. I maybe, was a bit too harsh.

The reality is roku isnt going away. They have new roku models and new rokuTV devices coming out this holiday. So the people looking for a better app wont go away. They will only increase, so I do understand the users wanting a better look and making posts mentioning such. They want what plex has. Plex has theirs based off custom screens though. Their app didnt go all in with scene graph. The emby app can and leapfrog their app. It is hard for one person to attempt a complete rewrite without being able to recycle code. Hard doesnt mean impossible though. ^_~

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

Yup and to be fair the official Emby app should have been re written by now to at least be on a par visually with what Plex has. Like yourself I could have done this well over a year ago but Emby is run by a very small core group of developers. The mistake in my humble opinion is that they are not recruiting specialists for specific apps as Plex does. The Plex Roku app was designed by a guy who made his own mod (just like this) and Plex saw his value so hired him. You can see that quite evidently by comparing things like the Roku app and the iOS client which I'm afraid are in different leagues. For example iOS 10 is released, out comes Plex with features taking advantage of that (think context sensitive menus). The only way Emby will compete is by recruiting more developers. It's a huge shame as the server works very well, it's the clients that are letting them down...with the exception of Emby for Kodi which a bunch of us did for free in our own time.

 

Anyway keep up the good work, I don't use a Roku but I can see there are many happy users of your app

[Gaz 20]

Recently bought a Roku 3 and I'm loving the Blue Neon theme so firstly thanks for that

 

A quick question if I may - Is there any way Emby for Roku can be made to display fanart other than the 'thumb' and 'poster' pictures such as logo's, banners, clearart etc that can be seen on most of the other Emby apps?

[speechles 1929]

Yup and to be fair the official Emby app should have been re written by now to at least be on a par visually with what Plex has. Like yourself I could have done this well over a year ago but Emby is run by a very small core group of developers. The mistake in my humble opinion is that they are not recruiting specialists for specific apps as Plex does. The Plex Roku app was designed by a guy who made his own mod (just like this) and Plex saw his value so hired him. You can see that quite evidently by comparing things like the Roku app and the iOS client which I'm afraid are in different leagues. For example iOS 10 is released, out comes Plex with features taking advantage of that (think context sensitive menus). The only way Emby will compete is by recruiting more developers. It's a huge shame as the server works very well, it's the clients that are letting them down...with the exception of Emby for Kodi which a bunch of us did for free in our own time.

 

Anyway keep up the good work, I don't use a Roku but I can see there are many happy users of your app

Indeed, you see it exactly like I do. For such a monumental task as writing clients for every device, one would think there would be a talent pool of developers. Each developer their own specific niche hammering out apps. When you fragment your time, trying to keep several (dozen?) up to date the quality of each starts to suffer. You can tell the clients the developer is biased towards, they have more features and in general work and look more polished. This is quite obvious. Glad someone else notices besides me.

 

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[speechles 1929]

Quick report on my first use of Roku with Emby.

 

I recently acquired a TCL Roku TV for a bedroom. Works well enough, Roku embedded what could go wrong? It's a 50UP120 to be specific. It's online and up to date. I believe the software version reported by the TV is 7.2.0

 

I installed the official Emby Roku app/channel and the Blue Neon app/channel. Both work well, nice enough for my first use of Roku.

 

99% of my source content is full makemkv backups of DVD material. This means, in general, 480p MPEG2 video, AC3 6 or 2 channel stereo, embedded DVDSUBs.

 

The official and Blue Neon apps appear to play everything I have, however, as expected trancoded. Side note on the transcoding, I had Intel QSV transcode enabled on the server initially. That was causing many (all?) of my content to freeze about 10 minutes into playback with a retrieving message. Once I disabled QSV, transcoding proceeded as normal.

 

Here's where it gets interesting. I was playing with some of the settings available in the Blue Neon app and decided to attempt to direct play and/or direct stream a full DVD MKV rip as noted above. It works. No trancoding.

 

When I select direct play, Blue Neon crashes back to the home screen, but when I select direct stream, it plays... the ok button on the remote while viewing playback says direct play, but I can't explain why. Also the info displayed with the ok button does not fit in the display box. It's centered so both the right and left edges are cut off. Most likely a Roku display limitation.

 

One additional comment/question. The * button on the remote, as I understand for Roku, should bring up a context menu with the app. However, on my TCL Roku TV the * button is hard coded to bring up Audio/Video settings for the TV itself. Is there some work around to get context menu usage within the app?

 

Good job on the Roku app. Very VERY nice to be able to direct stream MPEG2 using a Roku, even if I had to get a TV to do it.

I have fixed this for auto detection. There is now a preference in options to turn on auto direct play for mpeg2. I also corrected the issue with the app crashing when trying to play video, this was due to how I was logging things. I will have a new release very shortly.

 

Note: We could auto-detect the device, and its capabilties with firmware 7.x, down to the exact video and audio codecs supported. The app though is keeping it cool with support for firmware 3.x thru 6.x though so no firmware 7 features are used. This is why the preference section is so large to allow manual adjustments.

Edited September 27, 2016 by speechles

[speechles 1929]

Recently bought a Roku 3 and I'm loving the Blue Neon theme so firstly thanks for that

 

A quick question if I may - Is there any way Emby for Roku can be made to display fanart other than the 'thumb' and 'poster' pictures such as logo's, banners, clearart etc that can be seen on most of the other Emby apps?

Unfortunately roku limited the display with the screen interfaces the app is presently using. So it is difficult to fit as much images and text you see other apps using. This adds to the apps simplicity. It is so simple a caveman can use it. With too much onscreen at once it can tend to distract from the real purpose of any app, which is to play the content.

 

When the move to a pure "scene graph" OS7 app is made you will get this behavior. This will allow a more modern look and can include more images, animations, speech, sounds, sprites. Until then, the blue neon app offers a refreshed look as an alternative to the standard app.

 

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk