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BartZLederman
Roku Guru

Re: Roku Media Player: 1920 by 1080 stopped working

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The problem is with CABAC reference frames.  The specification says there can be up to 16.  Roku Media Player will play videos at 720p or less with 16 frames, but not 1080p with 16 frames.

This is very definitively a problem with the way Roku Media Player works.  It's possible that I just didn't run into this before, even though I have a 1080p video that has 16 frames that worked before and doesn't work now.

If Roku would properly document what works and what doesn't, this wouldn't have been a problem.

Now that I've done Roku's debugging for them, the least they could do is properly publish the specifications for what RMP does and does not accept.  I still think it's a fault on Roku's part that compression settings that are legal and works at 720p and below don't work at higher resolutions, and it's still Roku's fault for not providing proper documentation.

I was thinking of doing more testing to find out just what else is wrong, but I'm not going to put any more effort into this.  There is a simple work-around that seems to address the problem, so unless I run into another problem I'm done with this topic.

And if anyone cares, I tried quite a number of other DLNA servers before going with Windows Media Player, including Plex and Kodi and at least one other I don't remember, and I didn't like them.  I don't like the way they snoop on the user, keeping records on everything you do.  They also had other faults, like not working if fast forward and other problems I don't remember.  Yes, at least one of them would transcode videos on the fly, but that meant you couldn't move backwards to repeat something you missed, and it put a big load on the serving computers.  Say what you want about Microsoft (and after 50 years working with computers I could say a lot), Windows Media Player actually works quite well as a DLNA server, it puts only a trivial load on the computer running it, and it's one of Microsoft's better efforts: which is probably why they discontinued it.

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atc98092
Community Streaming Expert

Re: Roku Media Player: 1920 by 1080 stopped working

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@BartZLederman wrote:

They also had other faults, like not working if fast forward and other problems I don't remember.  Yes, at least one of them would transcode videos on the fly, but that meant you couldn't move backwards to repeat something you missed, and it put a big load on the serving computers.  


Yes, transcoding video, especially H.264 and H.265 requires some significant computer power. My server uses an i5 and 8 GB of ram. I also have a second server I test on, and it has a smaller AMD processor. Both have been sufficient for my home use, but most transcoding is only for audio on Roku devices, so not a real heavy power user.

Transcoding and retaining trick play (pause, FF, rewind, resume) is still possible with the right transcoding profile. I experimented with several, and using HLS (also known as applehttp) provides trick play on transcoded files using RMP.

I wish you luck getting Roku's attention with the RMP issues. As I said, at the moment it appears to be orphaned, with no active development being done. I was told several years ago by the previous RMP developer that RMP is merely a front end, and the actual player functionality is within the Roku OS itself. So resolving this might require more in depth OS work, and Roku seems to have its hands full just getting the OS working correctly for basic use. 

Dan

Roku Community Streaming Expert

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BartZLederman
Roku Guru

Re: Roku Media Player: 1920 by 1080 stopped working

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I'm not even going to try to get Roku to fix this: or even improve their documentation.  It's a complete waste of time.  They're more interested in adding new "features" like "The Buzz" than they are in getting the bugs out of even the most basic functionality.  I think we agree on this.

There is an old saying:

"Never try to teach a pig to sing: it wastes your time, and annoys the pig."

atc98092
Community Streaming Expert

Re: Roku Media Player: 1920 by 1080 stopped working

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I completely agree with annoying a pig... 😄

I checked a number of my 1080 Blu Ray rips, and none have a reference frame count higher than 8. I did find one of my 1080 test clips that has 12 frames, but Serviio and Roku seem to think the file is unplayable, as it isn't visible in RMP at all. SO I copied it onto a USB drive. Now my Ultra 4800 sees it, but gives me an error message saying the file might be damaged or corrupt. I tried playing it in Windows Media Player, and it froze the player. I tried the Windows 10 video player, but it wouldn't play (no error, no freezing). I tried playing it with VLC and was finally successful playing the file. I thin tried playing it on my Nvidia Shield, which can play virtually anything. It too had problems. It would play, but the video was jerky and out of sync with the audio. And it locked up my Shield to the point it rebooted itself and still wouldn't boot without a complete power cycle. I can't say if my particular file isn't playable because of the number of reference frames, but as you noted the standard allows a total of 16 and mine only has 12. I'm going to run my file through Handbrake and see if I can clean the file up. I'll see what the frame count is after I finish.

I'm curious why your media has such a high number of reference frames. All of my Blu Ray rips have no more than 5-6 ref frames. It doesn't seem necessary to have so many, although I assume a higher number is needed for higher compression settings. I'll have to look more deeply into those, and see if I can find any other of my files that can't be played because of this. 

Dan

Roku Community Streaming Expert

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BartZLederman
Roku Guru

Re: Roku Media Player: 1920 by 1080 stopped working

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A few of my videos have a reference count of 16 because that's the maximum value, and I've been experimenting with all of the available options to get the most compression for a given quality factor.  Up until now, all of the options I've tried either worked all of the time, or didn't.  A few won't play on my BluRay players, but that's understandable because they are at least 10 years old (probably closer to 20) and some of these options didn't exist when they were built.  VLC is probably the best at playing anything, even if it isn't compliant.  This is the first time I've run into an option that worked only part of the time: and since larger videos generally need more compression, it's counter-intuitive that a reference frame count that works at 720p and below won't work at 1080p.

My latest tests seem to indicate that the extra reference frames don't seem to make a significant difference, at least when encoding with the H264_QSV encoder.  That's the Intel Quick Sync codec that uses hardware acceleration, and it REALLY speeds things up.  Sometimes it 20 to 50 times faster than libx264.  It actually doesn't incorporate as many of the options that libx264 and other codecs allow, so there should actually be fewer chances of doing something that won't work right.

The default for IDC Level 4.1 is 4 reference frames, and that will always work.  Level 5.0 and up have 5 reference frames, but they won't play in Roku Media Player and many older programs and hardware. So if you're having problems, check the IDC level.  Going higher than 4.1 will cause problems: and going to a higher level only helps in the best case scenario if resolution is 1080p or more: I never go higher than L4.1 (except by accident), and videos will play even on my oldest BluRay player, and on TVs with a USB port, etc.

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atc98092
Community Streaming Expert

Re: Roku Media Player: 1920 by 1080 stopped working

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Yeah, while I was playing with Handbrake, I discovered the file that wouldn't play for me was L5.1 and 4K. So that matches your finding of not playing with more than four ref frames. After I used Handbrake to make it H.265, it plays perfectly. I'll keep that in mind when I encounter files that won't play in the future. I appreciate you making the effort to test the different settings. I have a feeling even Roku doesn't know exactly what their OS can play. Years later they still won't acknowledge that TS/M2TS files are playable. 

Dan

Roku Community Streaming Expert

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JCGoodwin
Roku Guru

Re: Roku Media Player: 1920 by 1080 stopped working

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I think that Roku Media Player is a great feature overall -- I have plenty of videos from YT and DM saved for ad-free viewing -- but some of the thumbnails for pictures don't appear in the gallery, and I'm not certain as to why.

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BartZLederman
Roku Guru

Re: Roku Media Player: 1920 by 1080 stopped working

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It may depend on what you're using as the DLNA server.  Sometimes there can be a small error in the video which won't stop it from playing but will cause a problem when the server scans for an image.

If you're using Windows Media Player as the server you can tell it to re-scan all media for changes. That sometimes helps.

I also found when I first set up my server that the thumbnail was being taken from the very beginning of the video, and if there was blank / black space at the beginning then that is what was used for the thumbnail. There is a third party program that runs on Windows called "Media Preview Configuration" from http://www.babelsoft.net/products.htm which I have found useful for getting WMP to show a thumbnail from somewhere further inside the video, and it also seems to fix other thumbnail options: not just for WMP but also for Windows Explorer if you have thumbnails turned on there (I don't).  You might want to give that a try.

If you still don't get a thumbnail then check the video to make sure it actually plays all of the way through without an error on your server.

 

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BartZLederman
Roku Guru

Re: Roku Media Player: 1920 by 1080 stopped working

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After reading this again I'm not sure if you meant that thumbnails for videos aren't appearing, or if thumbnails for still pictures (not videos) don't appear.   In both cases "Media Preview Configuration" and re-scanning with Windows Media Player should help: but it's also possible that the still picture is just too large for Roku Media Player (or possibly WMP) to handle.

If you're not on Windows, then let us know what you are using as a DLNA media server.

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JCGoodwin
Roku Guru

Re: Roku Media Player: 1920 by 1080 stopped working

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MP.jpg

Thanks for your response. I'm not fully versed in some of the terms that you're using, so I'll just show you what I mean. I'm using a Roku TV; not sure how WMP is related.

I've never, ever gotten thumbnail previews for videos; I'm not even sure if that's possible in RMP. I was referring to thumbnail previews for still images. Some of them don't appear. This isn't a 'problem,' just something that has me curious. Maybe the images are too big, like you said.

While you're here, can I ask if you know the cheapest way to convert a DVD video to mp4 format in the original DVD quality? I recently used a site called Cloud Convert, which is great in general, but it couldn't preserve the quality from a DVD.

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