Roku Developer Program

[greubel]

The Chaneru beta has been updated to include a streaming option for VLC transcoding. This option greatly reduces the cpu overhead of VLC transcoding. Before, VLC ran as fast as it could to encode the file. Now he is limited by having to pass the data through a network stream. But still it requires a fairly fast processor. All the media streams contained in the h264 transport are sequence checked. A dropped block indicator is provided in the server's window. So if you are dropping blocks, it's time for a new PC.

Also added a "Connect" button in the server's options that will broadcast the server's IP address using Roku's ECP protocol. This will restart ALL the Roku devices found on the local network. Hopefully this will resolve some of those "unable to connect" problems.

Added a new file type for VLC, a (.vlc) playlist. It should be able to pass multiple videos to be concatenated together but so far I can't get VLC to append the data, he overlays it.

Also applied a couple fixes for non Chaneru server's, a fix for & characters in playlist file names and a rewrite of a subroutine that scanned for artwork items. The last to maybe speed up scrolling on large folders.

Question:
Does anyone know of a way to get Roku to fast start on a video file ?
Also what are the optimal video parameters for Roku ? (IPBb blocks, rate)

You would think that with transcoding, we could drive the video to Roku's requirements.

[gonzotek]

"greubel" wrote:
Also added a "Connect" button in the server's options that will broadcast the server's IP address using Roku's ECP protocol. This will restart ALL the Roku devices found on the local network. Hopefully this will resolve some of those "unable to connect" problems.

I haven't been keeping up with Chaneru development(sorry 🙂 ). I'm a little confused as to what this does. Can you explain a little more? Do you mean there's a way to force rokus to reboot, directly via ECP (eek!)? Thanks!

[greubel]

Not reboot but load the Chaneru app and pass the server's IP address. It's part of UPnP discovery. I send out a query to find available servers and devices on the network. The Roku answers with it's address. Then I post a query to the Roku to get available apps. Hopefully I find Chaneru, then I post a load request and pass it my IP address. This is semi dangerous because it hits all the Roku devices, might interrupt someones movie.

[gonzotek]

"greubel" wrote:
Not reboot but load the Chaneru app and pass the server's IP address. It's part of UPnP discovery. I send out a query to find available servers and devices on the network. The Roku answers with it's address. Then I post a query to the Roku to get available apps. Hopefully I find Chaneru, then I post a load request and pass it my IP address. This is semi dangerous because it hits all the Roku devices, might interrupt someones movie.

Whew, ok, I just misunderstood your other post, sorry. Sounds like a great way to get the clients and server talking fast, and a great use for those parts of ECP. I'll be playing with it later this weekend.

[greubel]

New Update.
1. Moved Connect button to main screen.
2. Change to prevent windows XP from sleeping.
3. Added code to enable embedded subtitles with VLC transcoding.

Placing the connect button on the main window makes it a little easier to access. Using the connect button has another advantage. Have you ever noticed that you have been streaming audio for two days ? Well the connect feature will shut down any app and park ALL of your Roku boxes in Chaneru's first screen.

Roku doesn't handle embedded subtitles but by transcoding, VLC will burn the subtitles into the video stream.

[greubel]

New update.

04/14 - Channel
1. Display and stop on "Unsupported Format" audio files.

04/14 - Server
1. Fix segment fault when changing transcode stream option while playing.
2. Fix segment fault while getting server version response.
3. Added default VLC path for windows.

Note: The default path for VLC is C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC or C:\Program Files (x86)\VideoLAN\VLC
If the executable is not there, the server will ask for the path.

[LossAngeles]

"greubel" wrote:
New update.

04/14 - Channel
1. Display and stop on "Unsupported Format" audio files.

04/14 - Server
1. Fix segment fault when changing transcode stream option while playing.
2. Fix segment fault while getting server version response.
3. Added default VLC path for windows.

Note: The default path for VLC is C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC or C:\Program Files (x86)\VideoLAN\VLC
If the executable is not there, the server will ask for the path.

Fantastic work you are doing 😃 I've tested this with about every file I can throw at it and it plays everything thanks to the VLC transcoding. I won't have to wait months for Roku to support streaming MKVs ; but being able to play AVIs is a huge jump over the competition 😃
-Greg