Network - Wireless & Wired Connections

[PSUHammer]

Sorry for the necro-post, but since Roku indeed supports DLNA streaming on a LAN as well as Home Theater apps like Plex and Emby, it is indeed an oversight for them to not support a higher bit rate streaming option.  They advertise 802.11ac wireless on their top end models yet can not exceed 60-70mbps which is well below that spec.  Heck, my four year old phone gets double that throughput standing another room away from the router.

They may not "spec" for it in their support documentation, but they would essentially eliminate Nvidia Shield as a competitor for those of us that are hard core home theater peeps.

And, for those mentioning the cost of a GB Ethernet port...GB Ethernet NIC architecture has been the consumer grade norm for years.  I couldn't even find a 10/100 only NIC on Amazon.  The 2015 Shield has one.  

[PSUHammer]

"Radical32937" wrote:
FWIW
TCL Roku tv 6 series has gig Ethernet.  And Plex client on Roku  streams uncompressed 4k HDR beautifully well over 100 mbit.

This is false.  I have the 6 series and it is a 10/100 NIC.

[atc98092]

"PSUHammer" wrote:


They may not "spec" for it in their support documentation, but they would essentially eliminate Nvidia Shield as a competitor for those of us that are hard core home theater peeps.

Still wouldn't replace my Shield if for no other reason than lossless audio bitstreaming. The Shield gives me trueHD/Atmos and DTS:X. Roku won't bitstream anything higher than standard Dolby Digital and DTS. It also supports any caption track contained within my media, while Roku only supports external SRT files. It won't display any captions based on images (which is what all DVD and Blu Ray discs use). 

[fluke]

"atc98092" wrote:

"PSUHammer" wrote:

They may not "spec" for it in their support documentation, but they would essentially eliminate Nvidia Shield as a competitor for those of us that are hard core home theater peeps.

Still wouldn't replace my Shield if for no other reason than lossless audio bitstreaming. The Shield gives me trueHD/Atmos and DTS:X. Roku won't bitstream anything higher than standard Dolby Digital and DTS.

I think you hit a key reason right there why expecting a Shield killer from Roku does not make sense.  No matter what Roku does, they aren't going to get something that hits all the hard core home theater features of the Nvidia Shield and also hit a $200 price point.  The Nvidia Jetson platform that seems to be the basis of the Shield hardware has very few true competitors and the ones that do exist tend to be more expensive.  An example of the type of price you can expect to end up at as a third-party licensing the Jetson platform is the Nintendo Switch.  It is also based around the Jetson platform but costs $300.  The Switch also doesn't even attempt to compete as a media player.

So who would be willing to pay more than a Nvidia Shield for an alternative to it?  The OP points out to the feature of being able to stream uncompressed UHDs like Avengers Infinity War.  But Disney uses BD+ protection on that disc to try to discourage doing that.  Hence, it may not be a good look to content creators if Roku used that as a selling point.

Selling that feature to streaming services also is currently of limited value.  Several ISPs don't offer speeds above 100Mbps to allow Netflix to deliver uncompressed UHD quality.  I also don't think Netflix is even interested in delivering that quality level.  Samsung just announced last spring they will discontinue manufacturing new BluRay and UHD BluRay players.  Previous to that, the premium brand of OPPO had announced they would be ending their line of players.  Right now 125Mbps streaming quality is not a key issue for Netflix to be able to compete with.  They seem focused on retaining customers while Disney Plus and HBO Max enter into the streaming market.  Those new entries also don't seem to be looking to use 125Mbps steaming quality as a selling point either.

So who is these features for?  How many people make up that group?  How much are they willing to pay?

Realistically, I don't see how this will really provide a sizable increase in Roku market share no matter how much I would also like to see a premium Roku.

"atc98092" wrote:
It also supports any caption track contained within my media, while Roku only supports external SRT files. It won't display any captions based on images (which is what all DVD and Blu Ray discs use). 

I think you mean the Roku Media Player Channel only supports external SRT files.  Roku OS has additional capabilities but even if those were exposed, this is one area that Roku could do well to give some more love to for future versions.
The in-stream captioning support in Roku OS include EIA-608 and SMPTE-TT.  As far as I can tell, most video encoders don't support EIA-608 at all or support turning EIA-608 into an SRT, not an SRT back into an EIA-608.  It is an old standard that goes back to pre-HD broadcast television making use of the video stabilization bar which is a concept that doesn't really apply to HD.
Of SMPTE-TT which is a bloated over-engineered W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) specification, Roku only implements part of it.  They even seem to admit they haven't reach what could be considered minimal compliance.
The other disappointing thing is close captioning being restricted to the built-in Gotham font.  As has already been pointed out on this forum, the built-in font does not even include such characters as Cyrillic.  The Gotham font family has those characters but Roku doesn't seem to license that part of the font or provide a way for users to select to install it.  If they switched to the Google Noto font then they could skip having to pay licensing fees and hopefully someday provide a way for users to install additional language characters.
I'm under the impression better captioning support would make a bigger difference in the short term than getting a 1gbps network link to a home network switch.  While we will probably see a Roku with a 1gbps network interface sometime in the next couple years given how quickly they are coming down in price, but as mike.s has already pointed out there are other hardware constraints to bitrate playback than just the speed of the NIC.

[atc98092]

"fluke" wrote:

"atc98092" wrote:
It also supports any caption track contained within my media, while Roku only supports external SRT files. It won't display any captions based on images (which is what all DVD and Blu Ray discs use). 

I think you mean the Roku Media Player Channel only supports external SRT files.  Roku OS has additional capabilities but even if those were exposed, this is one area that Roku could do well to give some more love to for future versions.
The in-stream captioning support in Roku OS include EIA-608 and SMPTE-TT.  As far as I can tell, most video encoders don't support EIA-608 at all or support turning EIA-608 into an SRT, not an SRT back into an EIA-608.  It is an old standard that goes back to pre-HD broadcast television making use of the video stabilization bar which is a concept that doesn't really apply to HD.
Of SMPTE-TT which is a bloated over-engineered W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) specification, Roku only implements part of it.  They even seem to admit they haven't reach what could be considered minimal compliance.
The other disappointing thing is close captioning being restricted to the built-in Gotham font.  As has already been pointed out on this forum, the built-in font does not even include such characters as Cyrillic.  The Gotham font family has those characters but Roku doesn't seem to license that part of the font or provide a way for users to select to install it.  If they switched to the Google Noto font then they could skip having to pay licensing fees and hopefully someday provide a way for users to install additional language characters.
I'm under the impression better captioning support would make a bigger difference in the short term than getting a 1gbps network link to a home network switch.  While we will probably see a Roku with a 1gbps network interface sometime in the next couple years given how quickly they are coming down in price, but as mike.s has already pointed out there are other hardware constraints to bitrate playback than just the speed of the NIC.

I do have media with EIA-608 captions (OTA recordings). Yes, my Roku players do show them. I only recently figured out the best way to save my OTA recordings to preserve the captions, so I had forgotten that those now worked. I'm annoyed my Sony BD player doesn't seem to support my SRT files or the EIA-608 captions. But the TV with the Sony also has the Shield, so I'm good there. 
.
I don't think a Roku that supported Gigabit Ethernet or lossless audio bitstreaming would be as expensive as you estimate. I believe they could beat the Shield price sufficiently to meet the needs of the Home Theater enthusiast without becoming too expensive. And I think there would be enough buyers to support it. I know my family would happily use a Roku but balk at using the Shield. The Roku UI is so much easier to use. My wife doesn't want to learn how to use Kodi or MrMC. She has no issue at all using a Roku. 

[chickentender]

Gigabit Ethernet is ubiquitous, cheap and well established. Nearly every wireless router, consumer, enthusiast or professional, has Gigabit Ethernet. There's little reason for all the nay-saying and posturing (it doesn't need it - it isn't "necessary") I've viewed in this thread. There's chatter all about the web about manufacturers cheaping out and using 10/100 LAN in various multimedia. Roku. LG televisions. TCL sets. Sonos devices. etc etc. Everyone interested in this is coming from a position of streaming uncompressed UHD content in-home. Discussion about streaming services such as Netflix for this sort of data rate are moot and not applicable - most everyone asking the questions knows this already, but few giving the answers do.
At the end of the day, all LAN ports should be Gig capable in 2019. 10/100 LAN was commonplace around 2001, or quite literally a generation ago. There is no reason beyond nickle-pinching cost-savings to implement 10/100 LAN in streaming devices. Roku should have Gigabit Ethernet, and frankly, it is just weirdly disappointing that it doesn't.

[chrblack]

Absolutely Untrue..... An un-compressed 4K rip can and often does exceed 100MB. My PLEX server has Gig Ethernet, connected to a Gigabit router via CAT6, connected to a Roku Ultra using CAT6 and it consistently buffers with direct play. Even more than it does wireless on 802.11ac

[chickentender]

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@chrblack wrote:

Absolutely Untrue..... An un-compressed 4K rip can and often does exceed 100MB. My PLEX server has Gig Ethernet, connected to a Gigabit router via CAT6, connected to a Roku Ultra using CAT6 and it consistently buffers with direct play. Even more than it does wireless on 802.11ac

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I assume you're responding to the earlier replies that mention a 4K stream won't saturate a 10/100 connection? In which case I heartily agree with you.

[atc98092]

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@chickentender wrote:

Gigabit Ethernet is ubiquitous, cheap and well established. Nearly every wireless router, consumer, enthusiast or professional, has Gigabit Ethernet. 

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Nah, there are still lots of routers available with Fast Ethernet only. But I agree that everything today should be Gigabit Ethernet. I can't play any of my UHD movie rips on any of my Roku devices due to excessive buffering. My Shield (with Gigabit) plays them flawlessly. 

With the new Shield that was released last week, and a form factor that is similar to a Roku Stick, Roku can't touch one for streaming from a home media server. The Shield plays everything without transcoding, shows any captions, supports lossless audio, has Gigabit Ethernet, and is selling for about $150. 

Roku needs to step up their game if this is where they want to compete. 

[chickentender]

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@atc98092 wrote:

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@chickentender wrote:

Gigabit Ethernet is ubiquitous, cheap and well established. Nearly every wireless router, consumer, enthusiast or professional, has Gigabit Ethernet. 

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Nah, there are still lots of routers available with Fast Ethernet only. But I agree that everything today should be Gigabit Ethernet. I can't play any of my UHD movie rips on any of my Roku devices due to excessive buffering. My Shield (with Gigabit) plays them flawlessly. 

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Yeah, they're out there, but almost always in uber-budget models from Chinese vendors like TrendNet and Tenda and many others that come and go as quickly. If not those, then they're routers that are at the very bottom of the range for all the well-known manufacturers. Case in point, the Roku Ultra isn't the bottom of the range, and you're right, they need to step it up. It'll only take a nudge.