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Please do some Massive improvements to Roku app now that Roku bug is fixed


jayw654

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Roku app is severely dated, its transcoding even when the setting of the server says not to do so.


Mp3 @ 320kbps are transcoded down to 128kbps which isn't needed as Roku can play@ 320kbps without issue.


Trancoding to and from and format has serious delays and dropout when streaming over the internet (lag time in the transcoder I believe).


Natively supported codecs are being transcoded and do not need to be in Roku app, actually causes degradation of video and audio when its not needed. 

Video — H.264/AVC (.MKV, .MP4, .MOV), on Roku 4 only: H.265/HEVC (.MKV, .MP4, .MOV); VP9 (.MKV)

Audio – AAC (.MKV, .MP4, .MOV); MP3(.MP3, .MKV); WMA (.ASF, .WMA, .MKV), FLAC (.FLAC, .MKV), PCM (.WAV, .MKV, .MP4, .MOV), AC3/EAC3 (.MKV,.MP4. .MOV, .AC3), DTS (.MKV, .MP4, .MOV), ALAC (.MKV, .MP4, .MOV, .M4A)

These formats above do NOT need to be transcoded as they are natively supported.


the reliability, speed and efficiency of the roku app need improvement as it seems even 15mbps movies drop quite often even though my upstream is 25mbps and the receiver over the net is getting 43mbps downstream. However streaming with Emby Theater to the same person and connection has no issues.

 

Better handling of high bitrate encoded movies over the internet under Direct Play.

Emby Server:
Lastly, being able to select ciphers for HTTPS is important and improving stability of the server app as a whole has others had similar complaints of instability.


BTW this is for the "Stable" of server and for the Roku app where it applies and is based on direct play.

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Happy2Play

Natively supported codecs are being transcoded and do not need to be in Roku app, actually causes degradation of video and audio when its not needed. 

Video — H.264/AVC (.MKV, .MP4, .MOV), on Roku 4 only: H.265/HEVC (.MKV, .MP4, .MOV); VP9 (.MKV)

Audio – AAC (.MKV, .MP4, .MOV); MP3(.MP3, .MKV); WMA (.ASF, .WMA, .MKV), FLAC (.FLAC, .MKV), PCM (.WAV, .MKV, .MP4, .MOV), AC3/EAC3 (.MKV,.MP4. .MOV, .AC3), DTS (.MKV, .MP4, .MOV), ALAC (.MKV, .MP4, .MOV, .M4A)

These formats above do NOT need to be transcoded as they are natively supported.

Well that is not entirely true as you need the Roku attached to a device that supports some of those codecs, so the codecs can "pass-thru".  Otherwise you still need to transcode.

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Nice, its a copy of what plex thinks the roku can playback natively. They missed a few things, and I dont want to give them easy work to find out what things, so wont mention what they are.

 

The roku isnt playing back, or decoding, all of those audio codecs. It is simply passing-through to the hdmi cable (and for the most part spdif port). Whatever you plug that hdmi cable into from the roku is your "reciever". The reciever is responsible for decoding audio streams passed-thru the hdmi cable.

 

The blue neon app, linked above, has the feature when audio files are transcoded they are done so @ 320kb/s. It also understands more audio files that can be direct streamed, such as M4A. This app also has the ability to "force directstream" on the fly, with fallback playback. Has improved search, dedicated device info buttons, on-device debug logs, background music when browsing, etc. It is using the standard emby app, and in effect taking it "to the max". This is purposely avoiding any OS7 features so this can be used on all roku models.

 

I have heard a new scene graph OS7 app is possibly being created. When this is done, this will give the app a pretty face. If this app takes some from the blue neon app, all the features and functionality, then the app will put doubters in their place. The roku has more to offer than people give it credit for.

 

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

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Which Roku bug is fixed? Roku has gotten more unreliable over the past few months very little of which has to do with emby. The apps are nice but unless Roku stops putting out massively buggy firmware it won't make a difference.

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First I'm referring to the Official Emby app. second of all I'm referring to the bug causing random playback dropouts due to the bug in the AAC audio codec playback. Also as far as bugs that is the only bug I have experience with Roku other then that the Roku 4 has been quite stable and reliable.

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Well that is not entirely true as you need the Roku attached to a device that supports some of those codecs, so the codecs can "pass-thru".  Otherwise you still need to transcode.

That's funny I direct play flac with no issue, mp3 and the rest listed without issue. The codecs supported and listed are directly from the Roku site and following that list has never steered me wrong at all as everything tends to always work without the need for transcoding.

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Happy2Play

As already stated the Roku can only pass-thru certain codec.  Example if you connect a Roku to a TV that doesn't support AC3 you will get no sound unless it is transcoded to the fact that AC3 is pass-thru audio not direct play.
 
 
audio codecs
AAC (HE-AACv2 and AAC-LC) pass-through: Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus

 

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

Edited by Happy2Play
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Well I just use AAC with LC but not with the dolby containers so I don't need to worry. Even then that's rare as  prefer Alac and Flac.

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@@jayw654

 

If you use the blue neon app it will show you the containers and codecs your device supports. Enable debug in preferences, exit the app and restart it. Now go to the "debug logs" button on the homescreen. On this debug screen you can scroll down to see the supported containers and codecs for your device. It will also show those which can pass-through the hdmi cable. There is the "device info" button too. Use it and scroll down to the [

audio decode info] section to see what it says, you may be surprised. It is not possible to improve this more than it already is. To insinuate there is means you dont know how the app works. Please use the methods Ive shown and see how it works to find what your device is capable of.

 

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

Edited by speechles
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as stated my only concerns are MP3 and Flac for audio and those are direct playable. So what yolu are speaking may be true but its not my concern. Also there are issue with the official app and that's the only app I'm concerned with. I just want transcoding to disabled for as many formats as it is realistically possible to do so. The speed of the official app needs improvement as well. Hopefully ALACisn't a pass-through as well. Also per your link AAC is decoded up to 256 its AC3/EAC3 that is passed through which i don't use or give a damn about. And yes I do use CBR

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I just want transcoding to disabled for as many formats as it is realistically possible to do so.

 

And that's what you'll be getting. We're working very hard on the new app.

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Please make sure that shows stop properly. The looping back after the show has ended is annoying.

If you have playback issues a factory reset might help. I ended up doing that on 2/3 roku's and it helped solve some issues

 

Sent from my STV100-3 using Tapatalk

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as stated my only concerns are MP3 and Flac for audio and those are direct playable. So what yolu are speaking may be true but its not my concern. Also there are issue with the official app and that's the only app I'm concerned with. I just want transcoding to disabled for as many formats as it is realistically possible to do so. The speed of the official app needs improvement as well. Hopefully ALACisn't a pass-through as well. Also per your link AAC is decoded up to 256 its AC3/EAC3 that is passed through which i don't use or give a damn about. And yes I do use CBR

So all your movies and tv shows use mp3/flac? Improbable. There must be a majority with AAC/AC3/DTS used. Also, about your concerns, they are yours and not everyone elses. You can show all the concern you want and it doesnt make the device directly play something it isnt capable of without transcoding. Alac is the same thing as flac, only proprietary. If the DRM isnt present in the alac the roku will indeed play it.

 

You can direct play AAC in m4a using mp4 as the transport container as long as it is DRM free. Apple fans rejoice. This may not be your concern, but it is everyone elses. AAC is decoded on the device.. if.. the device is NOT a rokuTV model. This may again not be your concern, but is to those with a rokuTV.

 

Again, transcoding _IS_ only used when the capabilities of the device doesnt allow direct streaming. Ive shared the profiles Ive used in the blue neon app with the official team. The official app will eventually use these same profiles. There is no reason to be concerned.

Edited by speechles
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I'm not just doing movies and tv shows as last I check music was part of it as well. I use a Roku 4 and the older RokuTV devices that are older or cheaper will likely lose support in the near future. Heck the Roku 3 is probably going to discontinue updates in a couple years if not sooner as all the new Roku devices are now supporting newer formats along with H.265. My movies are 15-32mbps @ 1080p using stereo AAC for 192 - 256 bitrate. So what your saying does not apply to me.

 

Also if the device does not natively support the file and transcoding isn't allowed by the server then the file should not play. I absolutely do not want transcoding for any reason when I said "No" at the server. I rather it fail than transcode.

 

I don't look to the past, only the future.

 

BTW I have a roku 3 and I don't care if it loses support. I'm staying with STB's for Roku 4 and later and Nvidia Shield anything older and weaker I'm not concerned about nor are the rest of the people I know.

Edited by jayw654
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I'm not just doing movies and tv shows as last I check music was part of it as well. I use a Roku 4 and the older RokuTV devices that are older or cheaper will likely lose support in the near future. Heck the Roku 3 is probably going to discontinue updates in a couple years if not sooner as all the new Roku devices are now supporting newer formats along with H.265. My movies are 15-32mbps @ 1080p using stereo AAC for 192 - 256 bitrate. So what your saying does not apply to me.

 

Also if the device does not natively support the file and transcoding isn't allowed by the server then the file should not play. I absolutely do not want transcoding for any reason when I said "No" at the server. I rather it fail than transcode.

 

I don't look to the past, only the future.

 

BTW I have a roku 3 and I don't care if it loses support. I'm staying with STB's for Roku 4 and later and Nvidia Shield anything older and weaker I'm not concerned about nor are the rest of the people I know.

I have a roku3 too. Music is a huge part, have you not seen what blue neon does with music? The roku3 has a capable broadcom chip, it wont lose support anytime soon. Nor will any of the other devices lose support. The old roku2 hd yes, will, and any devices before it. The old roku2 xs will not lose support, nor any devices after it.
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yes its a broadcom dual-core 900Mhz processor and yes I' well aware but I'm about to dump h.264 entirely as all the new devices are supporting h.265 and doing a much nicer job with less data so its better for net streaming. Roku 4 is capable and powerful enough decode and play such processor intense compressed codec but the Roku 3 is not and even if it did at least support the codec the processor is quite weak for the task.

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Waldonnis

 

 

yes its a broadcom dual-core 900Mhz processor and yes I' well aware but I'm about to dump h.264 entirely as all the new devices are supporting h.265 and doing a much nicer job with less data so its better for net streaming. Roku 4 is capable and powerful enough decode and play such processor intense compressed codec but the Roku 3 is not and even if it did at least support the codec the processor is quite weak for the task.

It is not a question of power, but rather that the SOCs in the newer models and the older Roku 4 have a hardware decoder for HEVC. If you removed the decoders, it's likely that none of the models could support decoding 4k HEVC in real time (many modern desktop processors would struggle as well, incidentally). The actual CPU cores frequently do little more than demuxing, handle i/o and buffering, and maybe some audio decoding during playback.

 

Also, not sure what "nicer with less data" means. At fixed (and low) bitrates, HEVC can deliver better quality for 4k source material compared to h.264, but won't always. It really depends on the encoder, settings, and source material. Just because "265>264" doesn't mean that HEVC is always better quality. Try preserving film grain or some motion blur effects using both codecs and you'll definitely see why I take issue with such blanket assumptions (hint: h.264 is often better for this, even with 4k sources). I won't argue about efficiency of the codec itself, as it is just a fact that HEVC is clearly more efficient at storing larger format video data (it was designed to be so).

 

Sorry to derail, but I see too many people that just assume one codec exists that's the best at everything. Codec selection depends on so many factors that it's never that easy, and even then, encoder choice/settings can make a huge difference. It's also why we have so many codecs (even VP8/9 have their strengths) [emoji1]

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It is not a question of power, but rather that the SOCs in the newer models and the older Roku 4 have a hardware decoder for HEVC. If you removed the decoders, it's likely that none of the models could support decoding 4k HEVC in real time (many modern desktop processors would struggle as well, incidentally). The actual CPU cores frequently do little more than demuxing, handle i/o and buffering, and maybe some audio decoding during playback.

 

Also, not sure what "nicer with less data" means. At fixed (and low) bitrates, HEVC can deliver better quality for 4k source material compared to h.264, but won't always. It really depends on the encoder, settings, and source material. Just because "265>264" doesn't mean that HEVC is always better quality. Try preserving film grain or some motion blur effects using both codecs and you'll definitely see why I take issue with such blanket assumptions (hint: h.264 is often better for this, even with 4k sources). I won't argue about efficiency of the codec itself, as it is just a fact that HEVC is clearly more efficient at storing larger format video data (it was designed to be so).

 

Sorry to derail, but I see too many people that just assume one codec exists that's the best at everything. Codec selection depends on so many factors that it's never that easy, and even then, encoder choice/settings can make a huge difference. It's also why we have so many codecs (even VP8/9 have their strengths) [emoji1]

Fair enough but as a streaming format h.265 is the better codec but if space and bandwidth isn't and issue then you are probably right its a dilemma based on needs with strengths and weaknesses but my main concern is streaming for the best quality with the least amount of data. VP9 would be an answer but it has its own issues so I decided to stay away from it as encoding with it is a pain and the output looks dull due to its compression but my test was based on 9mbps. However, one thing I know that if I need to convert a movie quick HEVC is better as it is gpu and now cpu accelerated which give h.265 a hell of an edge.

Edited by jayw654
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Also read the following from Wikipedia as it states that H.265 is better designed to handle motion.,

 

High Efficiency Video Coding
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), also known as H.265 and MPEG-H Part 2, is a video compression standard, one of several potential successors to the widely used AVC (H.264 or MPEG-4 Part 10). In comparison to AVC, HEVC offers about double the data compression ratio at the same level of video quality, or substantially improved video quality at the same bit rate. It supports resolutions up to 8192×4320, including 8K UHD.

In most ways, HEVC is an extension of the concepts in H.264/MPEG-4 AVC. Both work by comparing different parts of a frame of video to find areas that are redundant, both within a single frame as well as subsequent frames. These redundant areas are then replaced with a short description instead of the original pixels. The primary changes for HEVC include the expansion of the pattern comparison and difference-coding areas from 16×16 pixel to sizes up to 64×64, improved variable-block-size segmentation, improved "intra" prediction within the same picture, improved motion vector prediction and motion region merging, improved motion compensation filtering, and an additional filtering step called sample-adaptive offset filtering. Effective use of these improvements requires much more signal processing capability for compressing the video, but has less impact on the amount of computation needed for decompression.

HEVC was developed by the JCT-VC organization, a collaboration between the ISO/IEC MPEG and ITU-T VCEG. The ISO/IEC group refers to it as MPEG-H Part 2 and the ITU-T as H.265. The first version of HEVC was completed in January 2013 and published in June 2013. The second version was completed and approved in 2014 and published in early 2015. Additional 3D-HEVC extensions for 3D video were completed in early 2015. Further extensions remain in development for completion in early 2016, covering video containing rendered graphics, text, or animation as well as (or instead of) camera-captured video scenes.

HEVC is protected by patents owned by various parties. Use of HEVC technologies requires the payment of royalties to licensors of HEVC patents, such as MPEG LA, HEVC Advance, and Technicolor SA. The licensing fees are many times higher than the fees for AVC. The problematic licensing situation is one of the main reasons HEVC adoption has been very low on the web and is why some of the largest tech companies (Amazon, AMD, ARM, Cisco, Google, Intel, Microsoft, Mozilla, Netflix, NVIDIA and more) have joined the Alliance for Open Media,[1] which aims to deploy the royalty-free alternative codec AV1 in 2017.

 

 

Now read about the internet replacement to both HEVC and VP9:

 

AOMedia Video 1 (AV1) is an open, royalty-free video coding format designed for video transmissions over the Internet. It is being developed by the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia), a consortium of leading firms from the semiconductor industry, video on demand providers, and web browser developers, founded in 2015. It is the primary contender for standardisation by the video standard working group NetVC of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).[1] The group has put together a list of criteria to be met by the new video standard.[2] It is meant to replace Google's VP9 and compete with HEVC/H.265 from the Moving Picture Experts Group.

AV1 can be used together with the audio format Opus in a future version of the WebM format for HTML5 web video and WebRTC.

 

Opus audio combined with a browser friendly Video web codec that is royalty free, its a match made in heaven. let's hope the encoding can be accelerate. Yes, I know the acceleration will not happen the moment its released but hopefully a couple years later it will be possible.

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CBers

We are building an all-new Roku app with an all-new design and a new set of capabilities.

 

Will the new app be available to sideload onto the NOW TV boxes please ??

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Will the new app be available to sideload onto the NOW TV boxes please ??

 

Possibly, but I cannot promise that just yet.

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