Roku Ultra

[pclausen 41]

So I picked up a Roku Ultra today and took it for a spin.  It is very similar to the Roku 3 as far as the GUI is concerned.  Only real difference during initial setup, was that it configured itself at 4K UHD with my setup (as it should).

 

The audio config is almost identical to the 3 as well.  Here are the settings I set on the Ultra:

 

 

The next thing I did was to start playing various titles to see how the experience on the Roku Ultra differed from that of the Roku 3 as well as running a HTPC with Emby Theater in a room with a full Atmos/DTS-X setup as far as speakers are concerned.

 

First up is Natural Born Killers.  This is a title that I ripped way back in the day before motherboards came out that supported bitstreaming, so I encoded to FLAC using eac3to.

 

Media info per Emby as following:

 

 

Playback via Roku Ultra was disappointing:

 

 

The FLAC 5.1 is being converted to 2 channel MP3 despite the fact that the Ultra supports FLAC (I realize this might be something that the Emby client might need to to updated to support).

 

Playback on HTPC provides the proper PCM 5.1 output:

 

 

Next up is Ace Age (2016).  Media info:

 

 

On the Ultra, the info looks very promising in that is shows Direct Play 8ch DTS, but alas, there is no sound at all.

 

 

Playback from the HTPC is flawless with 8 distinct channels:

 

 

Ghostbusters (2016) was up next.  Media Info:

 

 

This titles won't playback at all on the Ultra.  After a few seconds, it goes back to the Movie info page.  As with every title I sampled here, playback via HTPC was flawless:

 

 

Next I tried Jupiter Ascending.  Media info:

 

 

This is a Dolby Atmos title, and just as with the Roku 3, the Ultra strips this down to a 2 channel MP3:

 

 

HTPC playback is flawless as always:

 

 

Finally, I played back the Atmos version of Lucy, which is one of my best audio demo movies thus far in my library.  Media Info:

 

 

Roku Ultra once again disgrace this soundtrack by transcoding it down to 2 channel MP3:

 

 

HTPC playback is flawless as always:

 

 

So for anyone with a decent sound system, the Roku does not seem to be what you want.  The sound quality different in a title like Lucy is night and day comparing playback via the Roku (3 or Ultra) compared to a HTPC.  And worse, there are titles that the Roku 3 is able to play back fine, that the Roku Ultra fails to play back at all.

 

I was really expecting the Roku Ultra to at least do a little bit better than the Roku 3, but I found the opposite to be true (Ice Age and Ghostbusters no longer play back).

 

Speechles, I will try out Neon with the settings you suggested to see if that improves things.

 

For the sake of completeness, I'll go ahead and play the above titles via Apple TV Gen4 as well as nVidia Shield, as I have those devices as well.  But I must say, there are no client that beats a HTPC so far.  The Shield comes close, but it does not bitstream unless you run Emby for Kodi.  On the other hand, the HTPC does not to NetFlix well (compared to Shield, AppleTV and Roku), so there is really no perfect solution (yet).

Edited October 12, 2016 by pclausen

[Waldonnis 148]

Some of what you're seeing is definitely a result of the Emby app not detecting the new device's capabilities properly yet.  I started working on modifying the code to more dynamically query the device to see what was supported codec-wise, but I haven't had any time lately to continue the work so it can be accepted by Luke and ebr.  Those changes rely on 7.x firmware, though, so it wouldn't work on some of the older Rokus that may still be in use and will never receive the SG firmware releases.  They have access to my work so far, though, so I'm confident that some form of it will make it upstream eventually (likely when the SG rewrite happens, which we've all talked about before).

 

I haven't done much testing with FLAC audio streams in a video file, and I frankly don't remember the results.  I'll see if I can free up some time to look into that.  The devices seem to support it according to the firmware last time I looked.  I think the current code just checks FLAC support for audio files, so it may be as simple as checking and exposing that via the capabilities code for video file containers.  speechles could comment more on this, since I know he wades through capabilites code frequently 

 

As for surround, it's likely to be a mixed bag.  Roku hasn't been keen on TrueHD/Atmos or DTS-HD passthrough in the past, but maybe the new models and future firmware will expand that support, given that at least one model sports optical output.  Rokus have always been marketed more to average consumers who stream a lot from Internet services like Netflix rather than to the audio/videophile crowd that does more local streaming anyway, so it's not surprising that they've been slow/hesitant to adopt support for codecs used mostly by those who play local content through them (their 4 month delay on fixing the 4GB issue alone should tell you where their priorities are).  Time will tell, I guess.

 

HTPCs will generally be better at supporting different codecs/containers than devices like the Roku, but that's a whole other holy war and it's pretty well accepted that each solution/device has their share of advantages     I too wish there was a solution out there that was ideal and did well with everything, but we're just not there yet.

 

If you're at all familiar with telnet and simple Roku debugging, I can post a few commands to run to see what the new model supports codec-wise.  I keep meaning to whip up a side-loadable channel to dump stuff like that to a screen...wish I had more time (or more money to buy a newer model).  I'll see what I can do or if I can quickly modify a sample channel to do that. I'd love to see what the new devices can do that way.  Actually, a "device info" screen would be a nice addition to the Emby channel, come to think of it.

[the1legend 45]

Devices like Roku, Shield, and the Mi Box (which I'm currently testing) are great for TV's in a second room or a bedroom, but there is just nothing better than a PC for a home theater. I used to have PC's connected to every TV and it's great to be able to decommission those and move to these little boxes. I have yet to find a little box that works as well as a PC in my theater, they have the best codec support, video quality, and flexibility. I'm sure that one day I will be able to replace my PC but after 10 years of trying dedicated boxes of all types, my PC has bested all of them. Granted, I have updated the PC countless times to keep up with the new video and audio formats which just goes to show how flexible they are.

[pclausen 41]

@@Waldonnis, yes I have putty on my workstation and would be happy to run a few commands to check the capabilities of the Ultra if  you post them here.

 

If only Roku would support bitstreaming of everything, life would be so much simpler.

 

I have 2 HTPCs at the moment, once Skylake based and one Haswell based.  The Skylake one has a GTX 1070 in it for madVR.  Amazing picture and sound and rock solid almost all the time.

 

I too have tried all the boxes out there (currently have Apple TV, Shield, the Roku 3's and now the Roku Ultra).  And no, nothing comes close to touching a HTPC.  The only issue with the HTPC, is that it will compromise online streaming.  Amazon and Netflix 4K for certain shows look amazing, and I can't get that on a HTPC.

 

About the only box I have not tried yet is the new xBox One S, but I understand it doesn't bitstream HD audio either.

 

Hopefully the day will come when a single device will do everything well!

[speechles 1917]

 

 

@@Waldonnis I think you are correct. The new roku line needs the firmware 7 method to pull audio capabilities correctly. For video capabilities (codecs/resolution/container) you just ask device.CanDecodeVideo(codec,profile,level) and it returns true, or false. If it is false it also returns the best matching to transcode to. device.CanDecodeAudio(codec) works the same way for audio. Much easier than the pre OS7 days. The capabilities dont need to be known this way. The server expects capabilities given to it or it will transcode. If the device returns true for video and audio it can "force directstream" and this way the server stays out of the decision making. This is how the workflow would need to change.

 

I got a new blue neon version almost ready to release. It will include the new "device info" screen shown above. This displays all of the attributes held by "rodeviceinfo". Using this makes it possible to visualize what we need to know.

 

I will have the new blue neon app posted very soon.

Edited October 12, 2016 by speechles

[pclausen 41]

So here's the software version info on my Ultra:

 

 

And the device info from neon:

 

[speechles 1917]

@@pclausen

 

Nice, that says it supports EAC3 7.1. The leading number in the audio decode info is number of channels. The last number, the 1 on some of yours indicates it passes through and isnt decoded by the device. It also supports AAC 5.1 another cool part. The wmapro is for netflix and of course supports 7.1. I can modify blue neon to support EAC3/dd+ and AAC5.1 passthrough in automatic detection. Using the audio decode info as a guide.

 

Until then you should be able to "force directstream" most of your media. There is presently a bug in roku firmware with DTS-HD. It doesnt work correctly to make use of the DTS core like it should. Roku is aware of the issue. You may have to "force transcode" those to get sound. I can only test on my roku3. A new roku isnt in my budget yet.

 

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[pclausen 41]

Tested playback of a few titles via neon and here are my results:

 

San Andreas (Atmos title).  It now gets down converted to DD+, a huge improvement over the 2ch AC3 that the regular Emby app does.

 

 

Natural Born Killers (FLAC 5.1) plays back, but there is no audio now.

 

 

Last title I tried was Ghostbusters.  Like with the regular Emby app, it won't play, but at least with neon I get an error message.

 

Edited October 13, 2016 by pclausen

[speechles 1917]

The flac issue, as I read through roku forums, is a bug in firmware 7.2.2. It should work as it reports in its audio decode info it is capable. The issue is the firmware isnt decoding it. Roku is also aware of this issue. That makes 3 problems in the firmware that roku need to address. The 4GB bug, the DTS-HD not allowing DTS core to pass through, and the FLAC in 5.1 isnt decoded.

 

Your error with ghostbusters is puzzling. I see the media info for it above. Level 41 with 2 refframes. If you "force directstream" does ghostbusters play?

 

 

 

Flac in 5.1 plays fine for me in MKV. But I am on firmware 7.2.0 on my roku3. The flac bug is roku4 specific because it is on firmware 7.2.2 which has the problem. Your ultra unfortunately has this same firmware version.

 

I have a bunch of videos in my testing library filled with all sorts of crazy codec/container combinations. This is why I am familiar with capabilities.

Edited October 13, 2016 by speechles

[speechles 1917]

Got a compatibility checker now as part of the media information screen at the bottom. This will check the streams against the roku itself. This uses canDecodeVideo and canDecodeAudio. These are OS7 features only. If you dont have OS7 on your roku you wont see this. The problem is, the roku thinks it cant play "level 3.1". It says result false and updates the level to 4.1. This is it being cautious. This can direct play so even asking the roku it can be wrong about itself...From the looks of it, canDecodeVIdeo and canDecodeAudio arent perfect by a long shot. Notice above the 2nd screen shot. The can decode video result is true. Notice the fps field in the reply is empty. This should be 30 since its on a roku3 with 1080p. A roku3 can only do 60fps in 720p or less. This is the worrying part. I dont want to use this if it means the roku will transcode even more things..

Notice the audio bitrate is missing. The audio check fails because bitrate is n/a.

@@Luke can you please add bitrate to audio streams metadata, please. Some audio stream have bitrate, some do not. Is this from old metdata and I need to refresh these tiles missing it? This is required for OS7 to tell if it can support the audio stream on its own.

Another new version of blue neon likely appears tomorrow. Get your pokeballs ready!!

What will probably wind up happening is leaving capabilities how they are. Then use audiodecodeinfo and have it add eac3 7.1 and aac5.1 to devices that support it. At least until canDecodeVideo and canDecodeAudio work better than they do right now. Right now canDecodeVideo thinks it can only direct play an h264 if it is level 41 with a profile of main or high. This is obviously bullshit, it can direct play more than that..such as level 10 all the way to 51. Notice also it isnt checking refframes at all either. It is very mediocre. T.I. wouldnt accept it as he don't want no mediocre.. heh

Edited October 13, 2016 by speechles

[CBers 6771]

It's about time the Blue Neon Night Roku app became the official Emby Roku app !!

 

It's far superior to the official one and @@speechles is doing a grand job keeping it up-to-date with the latest options and for the latest devices.

 

Great job !!

[mikeraburn 60]

I am noticing a possible "bug" in my system.

 

Roku Ultra and my 2 week old Vizio SB3851 DO 38".

 

The issue is with ACC of all codecs!

The only reason I say ACC is because I identified the codec in speechles's Blue Neon.

 

The audio comes across garbled.

 

This happens in the Hulu channel and Blue Neon UNTIL I do a Roku Ultra reboot from the master Roku menu.

 

I can also clear it up on the fly by swapping the audio to night listening mode.

 

(If you frequent the Blue Neon thread you will see what issues I had a week ago when I forgot I swapped the Roku to night listening mode. The drama llama reared it's ugly head until I realized what I had done to myself.)

 

Has anyone else noticed this?

 

This may just be a ME problem with my setup.

 

The official Roku forums don't mention this, that I could find.

[mikeraburn 60]

This is definitely a ME problem only.

The sound bar auto discovers my different sources and then gets confused.

 

The quickest way to "un-confuse" the sound bar when it is goofing up with the Roku Ultra is to do a Roku Ultra device restart.

Sort of show the soundbar WHO THE BOSS is. The boss being the Roku Ultra.

 

The issue is with my setup and equipment and NOT the Roku Ultra.

 

I am noticing a possible "bug" in my system.

 

Roku Ultra and my 2 week old Vizio SB3851 DO 38".

 

The issue is with ACC of all codecs!

The only reason I say ACC is because I identified the codec in speechles's Blue Neon.

 

The audio comes across garbled.

 

This happens in the Hulu channel and Blue Neon UNTIL I do a Roku Ultra reboot from the master Roku menu.

 

I can also clear it up on the fly by swapping the audio to night listening mode.

 

(If you frequent the Blue Neon thread you will see what issues I had a week ago when I forgot I swapped the Roku to night listening mode. The drama llama reared it's ugly head until I realized what I had done to myself.)

 

Has anyone else noticed this?

 

This may just be a ME problem with my setup.

 

The official Roku forums don't mention this, that I could find.

[Luke 37060]

Thanks for the info ! So you've resolved it now?

[mikeraburn 60]

Yes

 

It was wholly MY lack of knowledge about MY setup and newly added soundbar.

All on me!

 

I thought I would post a follow up to stress that my experience was in no way an Emby Server, Blue Neon App, or Roku Ultra issue.

 

99.999% of the time Emby Server + Blue Neon + any Roku is flawless.

 

It goofs when we as users add "new to us" stuff or just blaze through settings without fully comprehending what we are setting up.

[Luke 37060]

thanks for reporting back !

[speechles 1917]

@@mikeraburn does your roku ultra seem to mute sound at times? When you start any video, the audio seems to start muted then once video plays shortly after that you get sound. Same with rewind/fastfwd it has this initial annoying mute effect. This also affects the audio player. Play a track, then use left/right to move about the track. On the roku3 this lets you know where you are as the sound skips around as you do. On rokuUltra it mutes the sound while you skip around. Then takes like a second to unmute. Super, super annoying. Hopefully roku fixes that issue because it ruins the audio player with no audio cues as you skip around.

Edited December 3, 2016 by speechles

[mikeraburn 60]

@@speechles

 

Yes.

 

It even does it on the apps like Hulu and YouTube.

 

I assumed that was due to my setup so I just expect it now.

Like I have said before, our individual system setups are so varied it is hard to pinpoint a cause of some minor "errors" or "glitches"

 

I can guarantee that my setup is the most goofiest and has many areas that can fail, but it just plain works for me.

[mikeraburn 60]

One perk of Ultra is that when using the android Roku app, I say android because I don't have any apple products, there is zero Emby transcoding when in private listening mode.

 

Oh the possibilities there.

 

I haven't checked the range on it in my house yet.

I have to remember to test that when streaming a REAL football game on ESPN....... 

[mikeraburn 60]

With the new ROKU DEVICE firmware update I can pretty much confirm that the few second audio delay upon media playback has been addressed.

Play, pause, fwd, rev, seems to have zero audio delay.

 

Either that or my sound bar has "learned" to obey the might ROKU ULTRA.....

 

I have stopped trying to understand this stuff long ago.

[Waldonnis 148]

Since I don't have an Ultra or 4k-supporting Roku...

 

I noticed that the Roku docs mentioned FHD bif file support, but I'm not sure what the target resolution would be for generating these.  I know the expected widths of SD and HD frames (240 and 320, respectively), but I just can't seem to find any mention of what the expected width would be for FHD frames.  Has anyone run across any info on this?  I could probably guess/calculate the width given the known widths for the other resolutions, but I'd rather know for sure.

 

The reason I'm asking is because I'm probably going to suggest a few improvements to the Roku Thumbnails plugin (one of which should cut generation time down significantly for folks like me who generate both SD and HD bif files) and would like to squeeze FHD bif info in there as well if possible.

[speechles 1917]

@@Waldonnis

 

https://forums.roku.com/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=23520#p546778

 

Without knowing a better place to find the answer, I've asked directly on roku developer forums. This invariably gives away the clues to the competition as they read this same forum, but there is no other way to get an answer. My awesome Google-Fu is useless here. So lets hope the roku wizards know the answer.

 

https://github.com/MediaBrowser/roku-bif/blob/43fad93a9636e891f11869fe06807b2c6e02309b/RokuMetadata/Drawing/VideoProcessor.cs#L50-L57

 

This is where the FHD option would need to be added. Then the new fhd function would need to be added in everywhere the SD,HD are found in the rest of the code. I am guessing the width would be 480 since that is a logical conclusion. 240->320->480. I await the roku gods to speak.. HAW

 

EDiT:

 

To get a faster answer, I even created an issue on the rokudev github tracker.

https://github.com/rokudev/docs/issues/22

Edited December 17, 2016 by speechles

[Waldonnis 148]

@@Waldonnis

 

https://forums.roku.com/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=23520#p546778

 

Without knowing a better place to find the answer, I've asked directly on roku developer forums. This invariably gives away the clues to the competition as they read this same forum, but there is no other way to get an answer. My awesome Google-Fu is useless here. So lets hope the roku wizards know the answer.

480 would be my guess as well, but it would be nice to be sure.  I doubt they'll be hesitant to answer since FHD is mentioned on the trick mode/biftool page in the docs, it's just not specified.  I may try using biftool on Linux, since it's apparently dynamically linked to ffmpeg's libs and the docs hint that it can use media filenames as inputs (WIndows, it seems, isn't so lucky).  Taking apart bifs is easy enough to do, so if it does generate an FHD bif, it'll at least yield an answer if the forums don't work out.  Thanks for asking there, btw.

 

https://github.com/MediaBrowser/roku-bif/blob/43fad93a9636e891f11869fe06807b2c6e02309b/RokuMetadata/Drawing/VideoProcessor.cs#L50-L57

 

This is where the FHD option would need to be added. Then the new fhd function would need to be added in everywhere the SD,HD are found in the rest of the code. I am guessing the width would be 480 since that is a logical conclusion. 240->320->480. I await the roku gods to speak.. HAW

Right. The changes I have in mind would require a bit of rewriting in that section anyway.  Basically, the code parses the input media file twice (once per bif resolution).  In cases where the media files are large, as they are apt to be, and if you want to generate both resolutions' bifs, running ffmpeg twice (or three times, if FHD support is added) takes significantly longer than if ffmpeg were run once with two/three different scaling parameters and output destinations on one command line.  I have a script locally to do this and can attest to it taking nearly half of the time to generate both bifs compared to running ffmpeg twice sequentially.  The current code isn't laid out to allow this, so some tinkering on other functions may be needed as well (or at least some restructuring and additional logic).

 

Since I'm spilling suggestions, my other one would be to allow bif generation for movie extras as well.  It currently doesn't touch them at all, and some of mine rival the features themselves for length, so trick play would be nice to have for those.  I currently use scripts to handle this, but figured it would be nice to have as an option in the plugin.  I just haven't had much time to form a proper FR yet...

[mikeraburn 60]

What in the wide world of sports are you guys talking about?

 

With all of the numbers and acronyms flying around you'll be lucky if the NSA doesn't flag this thread. 

[Waldonnis 148]

What in the wide world of sports are you guys talking about?

 

With all of the numbers and acronyms flying around you'll be lucky if the NSA doesn't flag this thread. 

 

 

The Roku thumbnails are currently generated by the Emby server plugin to support what Roku refers to as standard definition ("SD", or 720p) and high definition ("HD" or 1080p) user interface resolutions (stuff that the non-4k Rokus support).  The 4k-supporting models add a new interface resolution they call "FHD" ("full high definition" for 4k monitors) and supposedly have a new thumbnail image size for the higher resolution, but none of us can seem to find what the expected thumbnail image size should be.  When we do find out, the Roku thumbnail plugin should probably be modified to generate thumbnail files for the new resolution as well so the 4k Rokus don't have to scale up the smaller, lower-definition thumbnail images.

 

As for the rest of it, it's just me blabbing about expanding Roku thumbnail support to include movie extras and also optimising it a bit to cut thumbnail generation time almost in half (or really 2/3rds if FHD thumbnails are added).  Admittedly a slight hijack to the thread, but if a third thumbnail resolution option is to be added anyway, cutting the time it takes to make the files should probably be considered.