Channel Issues & Questions

[dbrand666]

"philsoft" wrote:

"patwheel" wrote:


Yes. The videos do work, but only for 20 minutes. I tried with several different ones.
It keeps on buffering afterwards.

You also need to make sure "Large File Size" and "Web Optimized" are ticked. Also, what bitrate are you using? and what audio settings?

Also, check the frame rate of the output file. The first version of handbrake I tried wasn't giving me the frame rate I asked for. I upgraded and the new version got the frame rate right and no more rebuffering.

[RockyFord]

"shelleye" wrote:
1. What were your issues with "weird scaling"? Or, more to the point, if I have no 4x3 screens in my house, only 16:9, one 720p and one 1080p, do you think I could stick with 720? (I'm looking for best possible quality, and the idea of scaling down to scale up seems counter intuitive to me.)

I display on either 720p or 1080p 16x9 screens. When I leave the video at 720 pixels wide I sometimes get videos that will not fill the screen width when they should. I feel I should only see black side bars when I play 4:3 video, everything else should fit horizontally. Using 640 pixels wide with all aspect ratios just seems to work.

"shelleye" wrote:
2. Similar question regarding ac3 passthrough-- "won't work on all devices..." What kinds of devices gave you trouble? If I am only transcoding to stream via Roku to my widescreen tvs, do you imagine I could get away with it?

In order to play AC3 passthru your device needs to be DTS capable. The Roku passes the DTS(AC3) thru undecoded to the device so the device has to be able to decode the stream. My surround receiver does a great job with AC3 but my TV's won't play it.

"shelleye" wrote:
3. Lastly: following advice from a Handbrake guru over at the Tivo forum (he/she does not have a Roku, so is only speaking to coding issues), I tried a constant quality encode and compared it to the fixed bitrate encode, and I was really shocked by the difference in quality-- much better, to my eye, using constant quality than fixed bitrate. I'm not sure why this would be so, but I don't really care-- what are the reasons people around here don't use constant quality, and is there any reason why I shouldn't?

This one may be possible with the right settings. The problem is the Roku hardware again. The Roku has a maximum bitrate that it can handle, I understands that it maxes out around 3500kpbs, much over that and it chokes pretty badly. The constant quality setting may work very well if you can keep the bitrate below the max for Roku. I tried to encode a movie at 65 or 70 % quality (I can't remember exactly) and had spikes of over 6000kbps. Needless to say the Roku choked. Even if you find a setting that works with one movie that same setting will not work with every movie, or if it does the quality setting will likely be very low.
Keep trying and post your results.

[kc8pql]

"RockyFord" wrote:

This one may be possible with the right settings. The problem is the Roku hardware again. The Roku has a maximum bitrate that it can handle, I understands that it maxes out around 3500kpbs, much over that and it chokes pretty badly.

I don't believe that's correct. The Amazon HD/5.1 audio streams are + or- 4 Mbps and I seem to remember a post from Roku saying the box could handle streams of 10 to 12Mbps.

[PwrOverwhelming]

Not sure if this is the place, but has anyone had any luck getting Roksbox to handle 1080p encodes?

Near as I can tell, I'm following the guide from roksbox.com..

MP4
Strict Anamorphic with Keep Aspect Ratio
Video filters, Decomb is set to default
Video Framerate is 29.97, 2 pass turbo. Target size is manually set to 60% of source, which usually ends up being between 10g and 20g.

The encode goes great, and viewing on my PC through VLC works fine -- but when I try to view through the Roku (I have one of the Netgear models) with Roksbox, the playback has white lines originating from various points in the scene (headed right), and then starts rebuffering/reloading after a minute (Which I was under the impression a absolute framerate of 29.97 was to fix)

Does anyone have any suggestions ?

Thanks

[cariengon]

Any plans to allow more types of video file types? All of my video files are in .mkv or .avi.

Would love to use roksbox, but I'm not going to convert them all since I can view them using my PBO...

Thanks!

[WilDD]

"cariengon" wrote:
Any plans to allow more types of video file types? All of my video files are in .mkv or .avi.

Would love to use roksbox, but I'm not going to convert them all since I can view them using my PBO...

Thanks!

This is a Roku restriction, not a Roksbox restriction. Roksbox can only play what the Roku player supports. Maybe someday Roku will support these formats.

[djwurm]

I paid for Roxsbox but my account still wants me to pay for it again.. I dont see where I put in the registration code! I cant watch my shows!

[RockyFord]

Update: I solved some problems this morning by accident. It seems that the mongoose web server has bug that throws a "mp4 demux:sample overflow" error when streaming files larger then about 2.5 gb.

I had been having this error popup on some of my longer movies at about the 1:40 to 1:50 mark. I finally replaced mongoose with apache 2.2 and my problems vanished. I also discovered that the Roku will handle much higher bitrates then before, so far I've tried up to 6000 kbps and it worked. I still get the rebuffering on 24 frame material at the 1 hour mark but I'm hoping Mp4Box can fix that. I'll know soon.

[RockyFord]

"PwrOverwhelming" wrote:
Not sure if this is the place, but has anyone had any luck getting Roksbox to handle 1080p encodes?

Near as I can tell, I'm following the guide from roksbox.com..

MP4
Strict Anamorphic with Keep Aspect Ratio
Video filters, Decomb is set to default
Video Framerate is 29.97, 2 pass turbo. Target size is manually set to 60% of source, which usually ends up being between 10g and 20g.

The encode goes great, and viewing on my PC through VLC works fine -- but when I try to view through the Roku (I have one of the Netgear models) with Roksbox, the playback has white lines originating from various points in the scene (headed right), and then starts rebuffering/reloading after a minute (Which I was under the impression a absolute framerate of 29.97 was to fix)

Does anyone have any suggestions ?

Thanks

You may want to check your average bitrate. I bet it's way above 10000kbps you might be overloading the buffer.

"Roku SDK Encoding Guide" wrote:
3) For typical streaming video applications, we recommend a range of ~384Kbps to
~4.0Mbps. For USB playback, we recommend that you stay under 8.0 Mbps. This
provides a good balance between quality and support for a wide number of users. In
some cases lower and higher bitrates have been used, but this frequently results in poor
quality or limits the % of the installed base that can view this encoding.

I would try to keep the averge bitrate below 8000kbps and see if that works, also if you are using mongoose in windows that may be part of the problem, Try apache 2.2.
You can get the whole encoding guide with the Roku SDK you just have to sign up as a developer from your Roku account there are no fees.

[midiwall]

"RockyFord" wrote:
I finally replaced mongoose with apache 2.2...

A few pages ago I had turned my nose up to a user at the idea of installing Apache to support Roksbox, saying it wasn't needed and that Mongoose was easier to install and configure.

After reading this post, I finally gave in and installed Apache on my WHS. Mongoose is definitely easier to configure (the config file is much less cluttered, and it doesn't have all of Apache's over-complicated (for this task) options), but the speed difference with Apache serving is incredible. I didn't have any trouble with Mongoose before, but I'm certainly enjoying Apache now.

Complexity wise, if you've never worked with _any_ webserver before, Apache may not be something to jump into. But, the net number of changes required to a stock Apache config file in order to implement a dedicated Roksbox install on Windows is exactly "one" - just change DocumentRoot. What's silly is that the Apache config file can be VERY overwhelming and thus intimidating for a new-new user.