Channels & viewing

[Turambar]

I've been seeing similar but different behavior of audio dropping out infrequently but for longer periods of time (multiple seconds). It seems to happen more with Blu-ray rips than DVD rips, but everything has been transcoded to the same format via Handbrake: MKV container, H.264 video, first/default audio track downmixed to stereo AAC LC, second audio track 5.1 channel AC3. (The TV isn't connected to anything and picks the stereo track.)

It pretty much ruins the experience when the movie randomly goes silent for ~10 seconds multiple times during playback.

[Emissary35]

Seems like Roku still doesn't care about this issue, they broke the function when they forced their terrible OS 10 firmware on everyone and they still haven't fixed the audio issue. Makes me wonder why I should care about buying any future Roku products. They don't test properly before they FORCE updates and this is what we get, customer frustration for weeks that turns into months. Even when they finally fix this it's only a matter of time before their next big update breaks something else that used to function perfectly.

[profnobu]

This seriously is a huge bummer for me. It's been long enough. Does anyone have any suggestions on a new non-roku device I can buy that I can play videos from a thumb drive on?

[ooicedeepoo]

I went through the same thing. From what I can tell the AC3 codec is broken in the current build. So, if your video file uses this codec to compress it's sound, then Roku Media Player will have choppy sound or crackling. What's interesting is if you use "Play USB" then your file might work. I was surprised to find when encoding with hand break, I had put full audio tracks in both AC3 and AAC with some of my movies. "Roku Media Player" will prioritize the broken AC3, while "Play USB" will use the AAC. If you only have AC3 then "Play USB" will have silence instead of crackling.

To be able to play anything with an AC3 audio in Roku you need a media player that does not rely on Roku's programming for the codec, but has it's own. There are other players (with less features that I have not tried, like "Shelby Photo USB Player". Some with more that I hear work, but you have to be running a server program on a computer on your network (Plex, USB Media Box).

I personally am getting off Roku, I detest the company now for their lack of responsibility in this issue. I am going to use Kodi, which is a feature heavy media player. The problem with Kodi is that you have to use a amazon product or build your own using a Raspberry PI (which is what I am doing).

Otherwise best option is a smart tv, or a blu-ray player or a media player like the sell on ebay. I haven't tried these media players, because I was worried about user interface, but if all you want to do is play a couple of videos it is a good option.

[ect5150]

I have video content encoded with video and HE-AAC and get the stuttering as well thru the Roku Media Player (audio dropping for a split moment every 10 seconds or so).

The difference is I have three Roku devices and it stutters on two but not the other one.

In the hopes that posting info will allow Roku to do something about it, here we go:

The one that plays fine is:
Model 4800X - Roku Ultra
Build 10.0.0 4209-C2

The others that stutter are:
Model 4670X - Roku Ultra
Build 10.0.0 build 4209-46

Model 3810X - Roku Streaming Stick+
Build 10.0.0 4209-50

(above info is found in the about section)

Hopefully Roku will do something about this.  And soon... at least post some information that the problem is being worked on.

[McMike]

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@Nat2021 wrote:

A media player update just dropped I updated and restarted seems okay for now.

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I still have 5.5 build 9, no update. @Nat2021 what is the version number of your updated Roku Media Player?

[Nat2021]

Hi @McMike sorry for not replying sooner. The software version number is 10.0.0 and build is 4209.

I have noticed though that sometimes the sound issues comes back now and again but it is much much

better than before. I hope they get this sorted out soon its really annoying. Kind regards Nat.

[Avrution]

To be honest, I'm not sure if anyone should expect this issue to be resolved.  They still haven't fixed this same problem happening when streaming files over the network.  I opened a ticket for that back in Nov 2020.  Ultimately, I had to switch to using the USB port for any media files - of course until they also broke that function.

[ect5150]

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@Avrution wrote:

To be honest, I'm not sure if anyone should expect this issue to be resolved.  They still haven't fixed this same problem happening when streaming files over the network.  I opened a ticket for that back in Nov 2020.  Ultimately, I had to switch to using the USB port for any media files - of course until they also broke that function.

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SAD if true.

It doesn't affect me too greatly.  I have things on a DLNA home server (RaspPi for the win).  Most encoding I do winds up not being HE-AAC.  The bit-rates I use are high enough to keep it LC-ACC.

My fix is to just re-encode the few files that affects me with a higher audio bitrate.  Make a nice batch file to automate it and you're done.

That said, things like this will open the market up for alternatives to come in and cause people to switch.  It's Roku's market to lose here.

[Avrution]

Keep in mind this affects LC-ACC as well.  Most everything I use is encoded that way and still has the issue.

Do you use the media player app to play the files or something else like plex?  My stuff is also on a dlna server and previously I used Playon, but once this issue hit it impacted their app as well. 

Seems I have to encode in ac3 for anything to work correctly right now.