Roku Developer Program

[greubel]

Is there a MAX bandwidth that if exceeded, Roku does funny things ?

I've noticed that on the newer models, when you pause the video player, the progress bar is slow to respond, the remote buttons are slow and sometimes the Roku crashes.

Running on my local network, the BANDWIDTH log entry shows in the range of 27000. I'm assuming that's 27 megabits per second. I have the video player set to report progress once a second and I get queuing. Where I have multiple video posts that have not been handled. Which says something is very busy. When you click the remote, there is often a delay of five to ten seconds before you get a response. Also the progress bar is not responsive or erratic.

[greubel]

Any comments ? Suggestions ?
I put in code to slow the server rate below 10 mbs and it appears to work better but still fails once in a while.
But this would only work for my channel server and not the other media servers like Serviio and Twonky.

[greubel]

Somebody reply, please ! Is this a known problem ? The Roku buffers too much and eventually crashes ?

[destruk]

<somebody> I don't have an answer for you. The roku encoding guide says 4mbps for streaming, 8mbps for USB - with a peak bitrate of 1.5 times the average (so max of 12 mbps) ?
"For typical streaming video applications, we recommend a range of ~800Kbps to ~4.0Mbps. For USB playback, we recommend that you stay under 8.0 Mbps. This provides a good balance between quality and support for a wide number of users. In some cases lower and higher bitrates have been used, but this frequently results in poor quality or limits the % of the installed base that can view this encoding."

But then that page was written prior to 2010 so a lot could have changed since then.

[RokuDale]

By max bandwidth do you mean the playback bitrate? Or do you mean the bandwidth of your network?

[greubel]

I'm displaying the bandwidth from the roSystemLog event which is kbs.
If I don't clamp a limit, it sometimes exceeds 27000. Limiting, it shows in the 9000 to 10000 range.
In my setup, I have a Mac, lan connected to my router and then Wifi to the Roku.
I'm also trying to get Wake on Lan to work and I noticed that the Roku will still play for 10 minutes after putting the Mac to sleep.
How much does it buffer ? Sounds like it is trying to use all the available memory which would cause erratic behavior.

[RokuDale]

There should be no problem with high network bandwidths. The Roku should not be requesting more than it can buffer, it usually uses range requests so you shouldn't be sending more than requested.
If these fasts transfers are actually causing trouble (I use wired ethernet between my development Roku and my host boxes) then this would be a bug in the firmware.

[greubel]

The range requests from Roku only have a starting point. So the servers send from that point to the end of file or till the socket gets dropped.
I don't know how you test but I very rarely watch a whole movie. The problem I'm describing usually occurs midway to the end of a video.
But again, ten minutes would take up a lot of memory.

[RokuDale]

These are tcp requests though so they should get automatically throttled.

[greubel]

Roku stammers, stumbles then crashes and burns after playing a video for 30 minutes to an hour.
Reboot and resume, might play to completion or plays for awhile more and crashes.

I can get the videos to play if I limit the bandwidth from my server to below 10 mbs. BUT I have no control over other media servers.
They, ( Twonky, Serviio ) still crash and burn.
Over the weekend I have tried to see if setting the Stream roAssociativeArray bitrate variable to different values had any effect. But to no avail.

Would it be possible to have someone (ROKU) look at the NUMEROUS dumps to isolate the problem ?
Roku(5.5 453) Model 3100X SN 13A17U042094

Is there anyway to limit the amount of memory that roVideoPlayer uses ?
If this is a known problem, could you say so and when will it be fixed. I've seen a lot of other users complain of this !