Roku Developer Program

[jwentzel]

There appears to be a problem with files that have been encoded with mp4 encoding (for example files encoded for an ipod touch). Prior to the 2.8 upgrade these files played correctly (2.6 and 2.7 code), now if you have a 16x9 file it seems to get squished in to the 4x3 space so the people in the picture and really thin and tall.

As a Test I encoded the same video 2 different ways the setting below show what worked and what didn't.

(the encoder settings that I have an issue with are below, this is how all of my existing mpeg4 files are encoded)
The mp4 encoding I used was mpeg4 + aac
Video fixed Bitrate 1337kbps
Audio 64kbps Dolby ProLogic II
Frame Resolution 720x310

(the encoder settings that seem to work, I tried this just as a test)
mp4 (h264 + aac)
Fixed Bitrate 1009kbps
Audio 32kbps 5.1 Multichannel
Frame Resolution 720x312

I opened a ticket with the Roku support desk and they had me do a hard reset of the box which didn't make any difference and are now telling me to call support to RMA the 2 boxes that I have. Roku may want to make their technical support desk more aware of the known problems that exist with the 2.8 code before they start to send out a lot of replacement boxes and customers find that the problem isn't resolved with a hardware change.

[TheEndless]

"jwentzel" wrote:
There appears to be a problem with files that have been encoded with mp4 encoding (for example files encoded for an ipod touch). Prior to the 2.8 upgrade these files played correctly (2.6 and 2.7 code), now if you have a 16x9 file it seems to get squished in to the 4x3 space so the people in the picture and really thin and tall.

Have you updated to build 1158? The original 2.8 release had the issue you described, but the new 1158 build should have addressed most cases of the squeezed video.

[renojim]

Build 1158 addressed the HLS problem, but not mp4 files as noted in this thread:
viewtopic.php?f=34&t=33885&start=0

-JT

[Hexamon]

Hate to be a pain with this but given all these issues, wouldn't it be a good idea to:

1. Provide better diagnostics for the developer community (or better documentation on understanding how to use the exiting ones) in identifying the issues related to the player?
2. Provide a way to either temporarily disable automatic updates of the firmware or a mechanism to fall back to a known-to-be-good version of it?

Thanks,

regards
gg

[TheEndless]

"renojim" wrote:
Build 1158 addressed the HLS problem, but not mp4 files as noted in this thread:
viewtopic.php?f=34&t=33885&start=0

HLS is still MP4, so I can't imagine they'd only have addressed HLS exclusively. I understand that they didn't address all issues with HLS and MP4, but jwentzel didn't mention which version of the firmware he was running. If not the latest, then his report may or may not be valid anymore.

[kbenson]

"Hexamon" wrote:
Hate to be a pain with this but given all these issues, wouldn't it be a good idea to:

Don't worry, I'm sure I'm a pain all the time. 🙂

1. Provide better diagnostics for the developer community (or better documentation on understanding how to use the exiting ones) in identifying the issues related to the player?

There's supposed to be some enhancements coming to the debugger soon (maybe some are in 2.8? I should look). See viewtopic.php?f=34&t=32853

I think the best thing we can do as developers is get into the beta program and make sure to test extensively there. This may mean getting a second unit so one can be in the beta and one not for better test coverage, but at $60 for a base model it shouldn't be too hard to get that second model.

2. Provide a way to either temporarily disable automatic updates of the firmware or a mechanism to fall back to a known-to-be-good version of it?

This has been discussed extensively. I think if you really think about the ramifications of allowing people to hold their player back from newer firmware releases, you'll come to the same conclusion I did (and Roku has, obviously). I think a group of users running an ever expanding set of different firmware releases complaining about features not working, bug that were long ago fixed, and inconsistent look and feel would greatly outweigh any benefit gained, especially when more active participation in the beta will probably keep most of the problems from this release cycle from happening again.

P.S. You can say temporarily, but I think in practice if it's available to users they will find a way to make it permanent.