HD-DVD Rip and supported framerates with Roku

"Hammdo" wrote:
Just ripped and converted one of my HD-DVD's using RipBot264 v1.16.0. Made an mp4 around 3.6 GB with a bit rate < 4 kpbs and frame rate of 23.97. Plays great on the PC I did the conversion on but, using Roksbox as the streaming channel, the video has 'scratches' during play back on the Roku box. Sound is perfect, picture is awsome except with the 'scratches' playing thoughout.

I'm not using Handbrake; however, just wanted to know if there is a 'low and high' threshold on the Roku player (XR HD) and what settings I need for video conversion in order to get the 'player' to accept after a rip and conversion of HD-DVDs (probably be the same for Blue-Rays once I get that figured out)...

Thanks in advance...

-Don

I recall there were issues with using a framerate other than 29.97fps with handbrake. could be the same issue you are running up against.

Thanks, unfortunately, Ripbot264 sets the framerate when running and I don't have the option to change it. I can of course 're-run' using a different program, but wanted to set it @ the time of the conversion. It doesn't appear to have the 'option' to set it...

But, if its a problem for Roku to do 23.976 FPS, then I guess I'd be out of luck using those video (the out-put is REALLY awesome though on the PC)...

As far as the framerate -- is this a hardware or 'firmware' limit with Roku?

-Don

Thanks. Like I said, it plays fine on the PC but not on the Roku so something is different even though I see the settings are ok when looking @ the metainfo for the movie...
-Don

Audio is great. The video has 'scratchs' when playing. No issue on audio at all. These r true rips from an HD source and converts to mp4 using h.264 4000 Kbps and 23.97 fps @1280x720 using 48000 , 128 Kbps for audio. I'm doIng a different HD video to see if it is the software I'm converting with...

I can't speak to how the Roku handles it, but can give some technical details of different framerates. I'm a broadcast engineer and deal with them a lot.

In the US, the framerates for TV are 29.97 and 59.94. For SD it's 29.97, for HD it could be either but usually 59.94. (I.E. 720p/59.94) These are the framerates supported by the actual TV set, not the Roku or the m4v. 30fps and 60fps also work because they are close enough, and in reality might even be 29.97 or 59.94 depending on the device feeding the TV. Any frame rate other than these needs to be converted somehow to one of these to display on the TV. The Roku may do this, but I can't speak for that.

15 fps is easy to do because you just display each frame twice. So are other multiples, and you may now see TV's that brag about being 120Hz-though I doubt any content is readily available at that frame rate.

24fps (or 23.97) is film. It is harder to convert to 29.97 or 59.94 because some frames will need to be displayed twice, others once. This is called "pulldown" and there are several schemes.

25fps and 50fps are PAL and should be used to target countries that use the PAL TV standard.

Again, I can't speak for how the Roku deals with it(IE converts it or passes it as is), but I would avoid anything other then 29.97 or 59.94. It is possible that you may have a set connected via HDMI that supports an odd framerate, but someone else might have set connected via the component output that does not.

24fps HD content displays just fine.

The problem with 24 fps videos had nothing to do with playback quality. The problem was (is?) a buffering problem. The stream will slow down progressively until after about an hour the DVP will start rebuffing. You won't see any problem on a video that is less than an hour long.

-JT

"Hammdo" wrote:
Audio is great. The video has 'scratchs' when playing. No issue on audio at all. These r true rips from an HD source and converts to mp4 using h.264 4000 Kbps and 23.97 fps @1280x720 using 48000 , 128 Kbps for audio. I'm doIng a different HD video to see if it is the software I'm converting with...

If they are "true rips" coming from HD DVD's wouldn't they be 1080p? You must be somehow converting them to 720p right?

Correct 1080p 23.976 framerate. What I had to do was follow the suggestion to run them @ 30fps and 720p (1280x720). This worked great with very little HD quality loss. I basicially used Ripbot for the HD rip then Wondershare Ultimate converter to get it to the IPad spec (which works great for Roku). Once I did that, it played great!

I'm not a broadcast engineer and really welcome the explanation presented -- made perfect sense to me -- so thank you all for your help. I'm streaming and enjoying the near HD quality (very close to what netflix and amazon show their HD content @!). Pretty awesome box! I also have a Blu-Ray DVD Samsung (5500C) with Samsung apps and it has problems that Roku does not! Their streaming is NOT even close to Roku and the setup is not as nice as I get with the Roksbox channel...

-Don

Does anyone know if any Roku model supports 720P 60fps? (I know it supports 30 fps).

Broadcast channels like ESPN send 720P 60fps.