Channels & viewing

[OU812]

I'm tired of waiting. Roku has lost my entire family's support going forward (4+ households) over this. We got a new 4K disc player from SONY and it also handles all our hard drive movies without fuss. The added bonus is the 4k player does a better job in image quality somehow. The same movies are looking better through the SONY 4k player than they ever did before on the ROKU.

[phlegmer]

@RokuDanny-R 

As you can see, the lack of semi-regular feedback and engagement is making the customer base frustrated and moving on to other solutions...including myself.

Might want to revisit the support strategy of "we are looking into it" and nothing for weeks and weeks, to maybe a weekly blip of anything.  Even if there is no news, knowing that Roku at least sent out a message saying "yep still working on it" now and then is MUCH better than the extended silent treatment which then leads to "are they even looking into this anymore?"

My $.02

[ooicedeepoo]

I was all excited the other night, because there was a Roku update... but I still have files that won't play. My feeling is we continue to be ignored. What alternatives is everyone using... obviously Plex through the Roku or Kodi with a raspberry Pi. I liked the plug and play nature of the drive with the Roku ultra, but if it doesn't work... what are my other options everyone? Roku support if you are reading this, I wouldn't be asking if Roku tested and fixed things like they should.

[rumx]

I can't recommend Plex highly enough. In my case I have a media drive attached to my router, and Roku Media Player would read directly from it. With Plex I set up the server software on a spare laptop, mapped it to that same media drive, and it's good to go. Setup took about 10 minutes or so. Plex server consumes very little resources on the laptop. The features, interface, and functionality are light years ahead of the Roku Media Player. So while I am aggravated that this issue has gone on for months without a fix, I'm actually also glad because it forced me to find a solution that I am ultimately way happier with.

[phlegmer]

Almost 2 months since this was first reported.  Just saying...

[hpd611]

I attempted to play my .mp4 videos tonight with the Roku device in my bedroom. All I hear is the clicking noise described by all of the people here, and in other forums as well. It used to work just fine. I restarted, reinstalled the app, and could not figure out what the problem was, but spent a good hour troubleshooting the issue only to find here that Roku has been aware of it for MONTHS and has apparently done very little to address it!!!!!! I purchased this device as well as two more specifically because I needed to be able to stream video from my network drive. Roku has changed the ability of the device and therefore has rendered these devices useless to me. Please provide me with a solution, or with contact information and instructions on where I can return these useless devices to in order to receive a full refund. There is no reason that you couldn't have addressed this issue and provided further information by this time.

-Very disappointed and have recommended Roku and set it up for multiple friends and family.

[renojim]

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@hpd611 wrote:

I purchased this device as well as two more specifically because I needed to be able to stream video from my network drive.

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Unfortunately, this is your problem.  Roku has shown little to no interest in this use case over the years.  It will probably get fixed... eventually, but it's never going to be a high priority in their eyes.  I have yet to see this problem with my own videos and it's not clear why some do and some don't.  I've been using ffmpeg and the same format for almost all of my MP4s for years - two audio tracks, one AAC and one AC-3, and they are both almost always re-encoded from the best audio track available.  I've had problems just copying AC-3 tracks from the source as they won't always play, but that problem has existed long before the latest update.

[phlegmer]

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@renojim wrote:

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I've been using ffmpeg and the same format for almost all of my MP4s for years

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I've always used Handbrake and until a couple months ago, never had an issue.  All the encoded vids I've tried that don't work on the Roku work everywhere else.  And if there is a super secret Roku setting that needs to be set in Handbrake, re-encoding everything is not something I'm willing to do.

[hpd611]

@phlegmer 

Same as you, I've used Handbrake as well other very common, very mainstream, encoding options on videos and NONE of them work on my systems. None of them will play audio, regardless of encoding. I have had a business producing videos and am very experienced in rendering them and the various options and problems that can arise. From what I can tell from reading everything here, this is clearly a programing issue. It may only apply to units that have a certain production run, or certain internal components, but it is clearly a Roku problem that is fairly easy to fix. If they release an update but roll back the changes to the Roku Media Player, theoretically it should work fine again. Never had a product that I couldn't trust the mfg updates. This is a shame.

[Bob2050x]

I have MP4 and MKV videos that had the clicking sound and I used either Handbrake or Wondershare Video Converter Ultimate to fix most of them.  I either converted the entire video from MKV to MP4 using Wondershare or I just converted the audio only to AAC using Handbrake striping away any other audio and leaving the video alone.  If I ever have to fall back to my very old Roku devices that do not play MKV files is the reason for converting to MP4.  Very old Roku devices are no longer updated and most likely only good for Roku Media Player and any other apps that are on them and still working.  I have not used one of mine in well over a year.

I had some video files where the sound would not work at all and I used Avidemux to fix that problem.

The problem almost always seems to be more than one audio type and by using only AAC the updated Roku's work.  I still have my original files to run a test if and when Roku fixes the problem.

I hope that this information helps.