Roku Developer Program

[destruk]

Will Roku 3 or Roku 4 support these video formats for 4K TVs? 3840 x 2160 UHD with either h264 or the beta h265 codecs?

[destruk]

No answer, trade secret?

[EnTerr]

Well, speaking of secrets - i am still waiting to hear if Roku output is fixed at 60 Hz refresh 😉

I think it's safe to guess that no Roku player currently in existence will ever play 4K content. For multiple reasons, like memory and bandwidth requirements. Encoding guide lists player at H.264/AVC high profile level 4, which requires memory for at least 4 reference frames + 1 currently decoded + 1 on screen, x8MB each = ~50MB for 1920x1080 video. In the case of 4K that will require 4x more, 200MB RAM. I read that the high-efficiency video coding (H.265) can do 4K with "as little as 20-30 Mbps of bandwidth" and the maximum Roku does is 8 Mbps... over USB. Over network, Netflix's "SuperHD" 5-6Mbps has recently been implicated in causing player reboots.

And as personal opinion goes, i think Roku shouldn't even try to, unless 4K becomes broadly available, which i doubt. It's my impression that RokuCo follows the "law of the vital few" (or 80/20 rule if you will), by satisfying most existing needs with a minimal complexity solution.

[ddevonb]

I think a Roku 4 would be wise to offer h.265 and 4k capability.

[dcrandall]

Wow, EnTerr, don't ever think your contributions go unappreciated.

My 0.02...
The PS4 just got 4k turned-on for video playback this year. With all the respect in the world to Roku, the PS4 is running about $400 right now with the traditional profit margin of consoles where they get no margin or take a loss...so the hardware is just a teensy bit better. If nothing else, the PS4 does have an 'off' switch for a reason...the lights dim when heavy computation is going on. 😉

At least my personal initial reaction to 4k was, "this is good, but I wouldn't pay for it." 1080p is still awfully darn good, and 4k just doesn't have the wow factor.

Last but not least...the content that really supports it, is limited. Like, content that uses the full resolution and color depth. Sure, there may be content that will use all the pixels, but was it natively filmed that way? All I have is maybe some CGI movies and if they decide to do another Blue Earth.

[squirreltown]

I think 4k is going to remain in the realm of professionals and people with lots of disposable income for the foreseeable future. Ask yourself how many playback devices you have that can do 192 khz audio. I owned a DAT machine a while back, it was awesome and was as good as 1/2 track R to R. I'm sure that the manufacturers thought it was going to replace audio cassettes - but oops! people decided that CD's were more convenient even though the audio quality was less, and then everyone really stepped off the audio-quality cliff and adopted ipods, which had pretty inferior audio quality to most everything, but the convenience just blew away all those other considerations . I wouldn't be surprised to see a similar thing happen to video.

[EnTerr]

"squirreltown" wrote:
... 192 khz audio. I owned a DAT machine a while back, it was awesome and was as good as 1/2 track R to R. I'm sure that the manufacturers thought it was going to replace audio cassettes - but oops! people decided that CD's were more convenient even though the audio quality was less, and then everyone really stepped off the audio-quality cliff and adopted ipods, which had pretty inferior audio quality to most everything...

Monty Montgomery would like to have a word with you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIQ9IXSUzuM#t=663 (just after the 11th minute mark). Audio cassettes mixed at home were 6-bit equivalent while the best open-reel studio decks were 13-bit (for reference, audio CDs are 16-bit).

For a detailed explanation (with pictures! i like pictures) why the 24/192 "invention" is BS - a glutten-free snake-oil - see http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html
After reading "Schiit Happened: The Story of the World's Most Improbable Start-Up" for a while, i am inclined to think it's crappy DACs and analog stages that are to be blamed for bad reproduction - not the 16/44.1 format.

[TheEndless]

"squirreltown" wrote:
I think 4k is going to remain in the realm of professionals and people with lots of disposable income for the foreseeable future.

I don't think that's true at all. 4k TVs are now comfortably in the mid-level consumer price range, newer phones are now supporting 4k video recording, and YouTube even supports 4k uploads now. It'll be awhile before it's mainstream for broadcast, cable, and satellite, but I don't think it's far off on the streaming/on-demand side of things.

[squirreltown]

EnTerr
Bits schmitz I say.

I used to have a home studio. That is to say I had three references. One - the sound that came out of all the digital boxes and passed live through the mixer into the amp/speakers.
Two - the same source recorded on 15ips 1/2 track 1/4 inch tape , and three - the same source recorded on a 48khz DAT tape.
No recording ever matched the live sound. The DAT and the RtoR were roughly equivalent in quality, although they sounded a little different.
Burning a CD produced something that was distinctively less then the two formats above. Blame it on DAC's if you want, not an unreasonable position, but this is my actual experience.

if you think 24/192 is snake oil, with all due respect you are either:
• full of it
• are taking someone else's word for it
• don't know what to listen for

There is no fourth option. Having been there and seen (um..heard) the ghosts myself, I know they exist.

[squirreltown]

"TheEndless" wrote:

"squirreltown" wrote:
I think 4k is going to remain in the realm of professionals and people with lots of disposable income for the foreseeable future.

I don't think that's true at all. 4k TVs are now comfortably in the mid-level consumer price range, newer phones are now supporting 4k video recording, and YouTube even supports 4k uploads now. It'll be awhile before it's mainstream for broadcast, cable, and satellite, but I don't think it's far off on the streaming/on-demand side of things.

You could be right Endless, perhaps the foreseeable future is a much shorter time then i imagine.