Roku Developer Program

[rraheja]

"renojim" wrote:

"rraheja" wrote:
I have an issue with Handbrake HD encoded files not playing. The MKV movie was encoded using RF=22, Web Optimized and 29.97 frame rate. The Roku starts loading it about half way, then slows down the loading and then just stops.

This is only happening for the HD 1280x720 files - the other SD videos all play fine. Does MyMedia support these large HD files or is my encoding incorrect?

I haven't tried any HD file that big. I'm not sure how I'd produce one. Was this a BluRay rip?

-JT

Yes, this was a BluRay rip to an MKV file (around 5GB), which I then encoded using HB to m4v (less than 4GB). This movie was also a long one (>3hrs), but the file plays fine in QT; and as I mentioned it initially starts loading fine till the bar reaches half way and then stops. I noticed that initially my network traffic also shows lot of data being transmitted (>1-2MBps) and then it slows down to a few KBps and then just stops (note network connection is up all this time; and I can play all other SD files even up to 90 minutes; immediately after this without issues). Similarly, the log file also shows the partial requests and then just stops. Interestingly, the log snippet shows the range requested number jumping back; not sure if that is expected behavior.

Thanks

[vhavle]

"vhavle" wrote:

"vhavle" wrote:
Thanks,

Now I could get the correct version of server. But my channel does'nt show MyVideo Folder. MyMusic, MyPhotos etc is fine.

Thanks,
Vhavle

Opps, I spelt Video folder wrongly, may be because of this it does'nt show. I try again

Now I am able to play Videos. Thank you very much for your great support. My next question will be how can I play avi (DVD, Divx, Xvid) videos. Is there any plan to have transcoding on the fly feature. At least can I use "my streams" to stream my video of any format (using VLC) and watch it on Roku? Currently My Streams only supports mp3.

Thanks,
Vhavle

[renojim]

Transcoding on the fly is something I looked at a while back with mixed results. I think the only way to get this to work is to transcode to HLS and at the time I looked into it, vlc was just adding that support. Like I said, sometimes it seemed to work and sometimes it didn't, so I gave up on it. I may look into it again, but personally I don't mind encoding the videos I have into a supported format.

-JT

[renojim]

rraheja, can you try fast-forwarding a little bit into the video and see if it will play? I have a short video (less than 90 seconds) that displays a similar behavior (it loads about halfway then stops) and I can get it to play if I fast-forward a bit. Nothing I do gets the beginning of the video to play. Not that this is a solution, but it would be interesting to see if you get the same result.

-JT

[rraheja]

"renojim" wrote:
rraheja, can you try fast-forwarding a little bit into the video and see if it will play? I have a short video (less than 90 seconds) that displays a similar behavior (it loads about halfway then stops) and I can get it to play if I fast-forward a bit. Nothing I do gets the beginning of the video to play. Not that this is a solution, but it would be interesting to see if you get the same result.

-JT

Yes, that makes it work! I ff approx 10 minutes and it was now able to load completely and play in full HD.
Is this an app issue then or some specific encoding. I am planning to encode all of my DVD/BR movies to watch on Roku and if it is an encoding issue, then hopefully I can make the change once.

Also, any insight on the dual audio tracks - AC3 and AAC - would that work with any fixes?
Thanks!

[dgrace]

Just sharing my first attempts with streams. I wanted to see if I could stream from podcasts and simply got the url of each mp3 podcast and used that, including the file name and extension and they play fine. I made a stream for about ten episodes of a podcast giving each the series name. Nice.

[Lowcountry]

Hey, sorry if this has been previously posted...
I just picked up a second roku for our bedroom and wanted to add My Media to it. Is this possible? Is it just a matter of adding the new roku ip address to the config file?
My Media server is an XP box.

Thanks so much for the help with this really fun channel!

EDIT--I figured it out!
Basically, I copied my settings/server folder then renamed it, editted my config file to match the new roku and installed the client to the new roku. Took about 10 min. This is awesome!

[renojim]

"rraheja" wrote:
Yes, that makes it work! I ff approx 10 minutes and it was now able to load completely and play in full HD.
Is this an app issue then or some specific encoding. I am planning to encode all of my DVD/BR movies to watch on Roku and if it is an encoding issue, then hopefully I can make the change once.

It's something about the encoding and not an app issue. There isn't much going on when the app tells the box to play a video, so there isn't much of a chance of screwing something up on that end. I'm not sure what the issue is, so I'm not sure what to tell you about what settings to use. You didn't say what audio codec you were using, but you might want to experiment. Officially, the Roku supports AAC LC (CBR) and AC3 Passthrough. I think I'm going to ask the Roku guys to take a look at a couple of samples.

"rraheja" wrote:
Also, any insight on the dual audio tracks - AC3 and AAC - would that work with any fixes?

According to RokuKevin, the support for multiple audio tracks is working in an internal build of the firmware, so I would expect the support to come in the very near future.

-JT

[MAT123]

I just got my Roku and everything has been working great. MYMedia is one of the channels I am most excited about trying out and having spent much time trying to scan through the 71 pages of posts here I am thoroughly confused but thought I'd give it a go. Having failed miserably I'd appreciate any help youcould give a computer illiterate relic.

I downloaded the private channel and got the code from the Roku. Logged in and got to the Python 2.6 page from the instruction but I'm confused about which link to download. Can someone tell me which of these 6 links to use or if I am in the wrong place completely.

•Gzipped source tar ball (2.6.6) (sig)
•Bzipped source tar ball (2.6.6) (sig)
•Windows x86 MSI Installer (2.6.6) (sig)
•Windows X86-64 MSI Installer (2.6.6) [1] (sig)
•Windows help file (sig)
•Mac Installer disk image (2.6.6) (sig)

Thanks....

[rraheja]

"renojim" wrote:

"rraheja" wrote:
Yes, that makes it work! I ff approx 10 minutes and it was now able to load completely and play in full HD.
Is this an app issue then or some specific encoding. I am planning to encode all of my DVD/BR movies to watch on Roku and if it is an encoding issue, then hopefully I can make the change once.

It's something about the encoding and not an app issue. There isn't much going on when the app tells the box to play a video, so there isn't much of a chance of screwing something up on that end. I'm not sure what the issue is, so I'm not sure what to tell you about what settings to use. You didn't say what audio codec you were using, but you might want to experiment. Officially, the Roku supports AAC LC (CBR) and AC3 Passthrough. I think I'm going to ask the Roku guys to take a look at a couple of samples.

"rraheja" wrote:
Also, any insight on the dual audio tracks - AC3 and AAC - would that work with any fixes?

According to RokuKevin, the support for multiple audio tracks is working in an internal build of the firmware, so I would expect the support to come in the very near future.

-JT

I am using 2ch AAC faac LC (CBR), nothing fancy. Of a few movies I encoded only a couple give this problem.