Quick questions on the capabilities of a Roku 3 with Mediabrowser

[hifiaudio2 47]

I have only recently found out about the integration of the Roku 3 and MB.   I currently use MB server and MBT on my HTPCs,  but also have a Dune Smart D1 in my theater and a Mede8er 600x device for another TV.   I use the HTPC for Windows media center DVR of OTA content as well.   

 

So now I read that the Roku can use the MediaBrowser channel to play back my MKV Blu Ray rips from my Synology, and that it also supports Live TV. 

 

So my questions are:

 

How integrated is the Live TV support?   Does it have a full guide selection? Do I have to buy a guide service on the backend (I assume using ServerMC which I have not used yet for anything)? Does it have the ability to play nice with a pair of HDhomeruns?   Is the quality of the OTA "stream"  identical to the original or whatever I would have gotten from WMC?  I.e. nothing being done to the video that would degrade it?

 

 

Similar question to the MKV playback.  Is it bit for bit to the source,  or does it manipulate / transcode the MKV files?  Again these are all full quality MKVs made with MakeMKV from the Blu Rays. Is there any noticeable quality loss or difference in playback of 1080p MKVs from the Roku vs any other options you guys have compared this playback to?

 

Would be nice to replace these devices and HTPCs in my house with a single Roku at each TV location if it really can do quality Live TV / DRV and MKV playback.

 

 

 

 

[Jon 34]

Live TV requires a Media Center system to get guide/tuner info from and then the server will transcode to the Roku.  I have an HDHomeRun Prime with cablecard and everything I am suscribed for (minus PPV, HBO, etc.) plays back on my Roku.  Quality was terrific in 1080p for me.  Unfortunately, there is no guide.  Your channels are listed and when selecting a channel, you will then get a list of times with what shows are on for those respective times.  Hopefully, a guide comes soon.

 

MKVs, so long as they fall within the supported level of the Roku, will be directly played.  So far, the only files transcoded to my Roku are older AVI files.  I have gotten direct play on all my h.264-encoded MKVs with with DTS, AC3, etc. audio.  Subtitles even support direct play as they are treated as closed captioning.

 

I'm in the process of getting rid of all my HTPCs for Rokus as well.  They work great.

Edited August 15, 2014 by Jon

[hifiaudio2 47]

Ok great thanks!  And can all recorded TV be played on the Roku as well?  Is it just a channel inside the Roku that allows you to select it? Is LiveTV, recorded TV, and my MKV Blu Ray access all from within the MB Roku channel / app? 

 

And is the setup of this Roku channel straightforward?  I have WMC already set up of course for my OTA DVR.  That same WMC PC also houses my MB server.   I noticed that the installation guide link in the first sticky post of this forum is broken.  Is there another install guide?

 

And does playback of my Blu Ray MKV rips through the Roku 3 support DTS-MA and Dolby TrueHD (decoding and/or bitstreaming)?

Edited August 15, 2014 by hifiaudio2

[Jon 34]

I have not done any recorded TV playback, but I don't see why it should not.  There is a selection for Recorded TV on the Roku, along with Channels, etc.

 

Setup was pretty simple.  It's already included in the Roku client.  You just need to install server plugin and point it to the Media Center system that has ServerWMC installed.

 

I don't know what it does with HD audio formats, but it should be able to do passthrough.

[econ 74]

You can access/play your recordings from the roku app.  Just make sure you use the beta roku app as it has more functionality: https://owner.roku.com/add/MediaBrowserBeta

 

You also can schedule recordings from the roku but I personally use the web interface as it provides the full guide that we are all used to.

 

If you buy the roku I promise you won't be disappointed with media browser's performance on it.  They really did an excellent job!!!

[hifiaudio2 47]

Ok great, thanks.  I may just go to Best Buy and pick one up to see how well it works with DTS MA and trueHD.  There seem to be reports that it doesnt work,  but maybe those are not using MB  if that matters. 

[hifiaudio2 47]

Just got the Roku 3 and along with MB3 it seems very, very cool.   Everything is working as it should I believe. 

 

So a few followup questions:

 

I notice that "sometimes" I get the "loading"  screen again a time or two after something is playing.  Is that because its a video (either live/recorded TV or an MKV)  that does not support direct play and has to be transcoded?  If that is the case,  does the power of my WMC / server WMC / MB server  pc have a large effect on that?  Its now a Core2 duo 8200 (?)  I think.   I have been giving thought to upgrading it to a current i5 or so. 

 

I plan on setting the Roku up in my theater to see how good the images look.  On my cheap 720p plasma it does seem that I see a good bit of compression artifacts or something along that line.  But that TV is also crap so I can make a better judgement after I view in the theater.  

 

Why cant the fine folks that make the Dune, Mede8er, or Popcorn Hour devices that can natively play many more types of files make a device that is as easy to setup and use MB server as the backend?  I like to use those devices (I have a Dune Smart D1 and a Mede8er 600x),  but I hate their disparate guide scrapers, etc.  I want to just use MB3 server for all metadata and have my devicve pull from there. The Roku "beta"  channel just worked flawlessly without me doing basically anything.  Terrific setup!

 

If I find that the Roku video quality is great, then its a complete winner of a device along with MB3 server and the LiveTV plugin.  If not,  its still a great device for secondary or tertiary TVs in the house. 

Edited August 16, 2014 by hifiaudio2

[hifiaudio2 47]

Well on further review it seems that the video quality is fairly bad vs the other devices I was talking about when blown up to theater sized screens (even when playing content that is a MKV with a h264 content inside (which I think is what the Roku CAN play without transcoding, correct? .  I wonder what it is that makes the video so much worse?  Any settings I may have missed? I did make sure 1080p was set. 

[hifiaudio2 47]

Just got the Roku 3 and along with MB3 it seems very, very cool.   Everything is working as it should I believe. 

 

So a few followup questions:

 

I notice that "sometimes" I get the "loading"  screen again a time or two after something is playing.  Is that because its a video (either live/recorded TV or an MKV)  that does not support direct play and has to be transcoded?  If that is the case,  does the power of my WMC / server WMC / MB server  pc have a large effect on that?  Its now a Core2 duo 8200 (?)  I think.   I have been giving thought to upgrading it to a current i5 or so. 

 

EDIT :   I have somewhat answered this part of my question as well.  My MBserver /  server WMC pc  is pegged around 100%  CPU utilization when sending a LIVE TV channel to my theater in 1080p.  FFmpeg.exe*32  is around 60-75%  and another 20-30%  is taken up by Mediabrowser.serverapplication.exe *32.

 

Looks like I need a stronger PC for this task. How high up would you guys suggest I go?  All the way to core i7 or something lesser?

Edited August 16, 2014 by hifiaudio2

[Happy2Play 8273]

Have changed the video quality setting under Preferences at the bottom of the app?  The default setting is 3.2, try changing it to a higher video quality to prevent transcoding.

[Deihmos 147]

I think the roku is great for video play back but mb3 isn't that good for live tv as yet .

[hifiaudio2 47]

Have changed the video quality setting under Preferences at the bottom of the app? The default setting is 3.2, try changing it to a higher video quality to prevent transcoding.

Yeah just found this setting, thanks. I upped it to the max and it wouldn't play. I checked my mb server pc and the mb server app was at 99% and not budging, even when I exited mb on the Roku. Something got hung up on the app I guess. It seemed to be eating up hard drive space too while being hung. I'll try again in a bit and see what happens. The Roku is wired to my gig e switch so I assume network bandwidth is not the issue.

[hifiaudio2 47]

OK I swapped my MB3 server over to my very powerful PC (i7 4770k overclocked to 4.5ghz) and fired up The Hobbit MKV blu ray rip that resides on my Synology.  Its playing fine, although it took about a minute or more before it started (although after it got started,  fast forwarding, even for a long while, and then hitting play resulted in playback starting within 2-3 seconds).  This PC reports a CPU utilization from ffmpeg.exe *32  of around 40%.  I did set the Roku app to 20mb,  its highest setting.  Does the fact that ffmpeg is on at all on the server PC mean that its still transcoding?  How can I stop that?   Also, can MBserver allow the Roku to stream directly from the NAS, or does it have to go through the PC first, then to the roku,  even if its not transcoding?

Edited August 17, 2014 by hifiaudio2

[Luke 37046]

If you are using the official beta Roku app, it does everything possible to avoid transcoding when it can. It knows exactly what the roku can play and what it can't. There is nothing more for you to do other than converting your media into formats the roku can play natively. You'll have to lookup Roku's supported format list over the network (which is different than it's supported format list over usb).

 

My suggestion is, just sit back and enjoy the movie.

[hifiaudio2 47]

Yeah I am using  Beta v 1.25.  

 

I still cant get it to output a bitstream though, so I am assuming that it doesnt support DTS-MA or truehd,  which will be a deal killer for the Roku unfortunately.  Otherwise its a killer box with a VERY nice app.

[Luke 37046]

it can, but only when direct streaming. so you would have to look at the formats the roku can play natively.

[Deihmos 147]

Plackback begins in less than 5 seconds on my roku playing 1080p movies with DTS audio from my q6600 server from 2007. Nothing is being transcoded. I could test it with DTS HD but I am not sure which movies have it. I don't hear a difference and never cared about it.

 

The movie with DTS HD was transcoded. I did not think DTS HD would be supported by the roku since it is only found on blu ray.

 

http://support.roku.com/entries/423946-What-media-file-types-does-the-Roku-Media-Player-channel-support-

Edited August 18, 2014 by Deihmos

[hifiaudio2 47]

Ok thanks guys.  Sounds like the Roku and the app will make a fine box for pretty much any tv in my house except my theater.  

[christoph86 12]

You mentioned getting a loading screen when playing recorded tv. Assuming this is WTV file from WMC? This does have to be transcoded, so when the show first loads up if you pause you will notice that only a small amount of time initially shows up. As the file gets transcoded that time increases, eventually showing the full time. If you try fast forwarding after it fires up it will hang. I usually pause for a short period at the beginning, then let it play and am able to forward through commercials without any hang ups.

 

The other option is to use something like mcebuddy to auto convert recordings to mp4 file. I do this for some shows and works great with roku.