"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.
"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.
"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.
"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).
"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.
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.
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
@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
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.
@chickentender wrote:Gigabit Ethernet is ubiquitous, cheap and well established. Nearly every wireless router, consumer, enthusiast or professional, has Gigabit Ethernet.
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.
@atc98092 wrote:
@chickentender wrote:Gigabit Ethernet is ubiquitous, cheap and well established. Nearly every wireless router, consumer, enthusiast or professional, has Gigabit Ethernet.
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.
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.