Roku Developer Program

[dgrace]

I will try your video. The ones I've been streaming from my computer to the roku are from our Flip camera and in HD and mp4 format. I've been hooked up via wireless until I started the troubleshooting, thus hooking up wired (no difference). I usually have no problem with Netflix, just rarely, but when trying to stream using Mediafly channels, fairly often, and am at a loss as to why the debugging shows numbers all over a large range (I understand that those programs are from various parts of the world/country, so there's that).
I've been adding to another stream just about this issue, but it seems to have died out of popularity
viewtopic.php?f=28&t=35002&p=234722#p225940 where others have reported the same thing, with no answers or fixes.
I have very good service with my Linksys, and get 'net speeds ABOVE what my provider says I will (8Mbps). This shouldn't affect the speed from router to roku though.
I'm at a loss as to your suggestion to hook up directly to my modem. That would then cut the roku out of the system, since I need both pc and roku connected to stream.
Thanks for reading/responding.

Update: Dropped that file into the video folder and the debugger said 1.5 mbps stream on my 7.9mbps network and it played fine. Tried one of my videos, and it also played fine, although now the debugger reports a slower network speed, and a decline in each new video I tried, until it was down to a 4.3 mpbs network speed. Why all over the board when it's the same network connection to/from my desktop machine and roku?
Yesterday, before hard wiring the router to the roku I added enough cat5 to get it line of sight to the roku, no difference. I've changed channels on the router to avoid the few neighbors nearby (rural Montana with 2 to 5 acre lots, miles out of town).
Also, forgot to mention that I have a Wii in another area of the house, probably further away than the roku, and it has always streamed Netflix prefectly on wireless. Maybe better Ethernet in it and more memory?
Would be nice to be able to know that the roku buffer memory is being flushed each time, and/or have the ability to add more buffer memory with a SD card.

[renojim]

I misread what you said about Netflix. I thought it said Mediafly has problems as does Netflix. You could still try hooking up the Roku directly to your modem to see what effect it has on Mediafly.

You could try my speedtest channel and see what kind of throughput it shows. It's not the most reliable measure, but I generally get very consistent results and when they start to become inconsistent I know something is wrong. My XDS box suddenly developed a wireless issue while my original N1000 had none, but I live in a congested area so I suspect a neighbor is creating some kind of interference. It's strange that the N1000 can handle it with no problem but the XDS can't.

I still can't imagine how you could have problems streaming from your server with a wired connection unless it's really a video problem. There might be two separate issues here - one that affects Mediafly and one that affects your videos. I think the original box had about 64 Meg of RAM and the new ones have even more, so if your videos are shorter than that I would think they would be pretty much downloaded completely shortly after the video starts playing.

I'd also say it's not unusual for my boxes to get into some kind of strange state where only a reboot will fix things. Also, don't forget that having too many channels can cause strange things to happen.

-JT

[bytron]

hello!! i just got my roku yesterday and i'm trying to setup "my media" on it as i have a huge library of movies and tv shows that i imported from my collection using handbrake. i'm on a mac running 10.6.6 and can't get this setup. i went through the super easy tutorial that czarjosh posted, but i'm getting an error from my roku that says, "contact with server has not been established. check your settings and that the server is running." i have checked and re-checked the settings and verified that the server is running with the python application. i'm not sure what i'm doing wrong here (or even really what i'm doing, i just want to stream my stuff off my computer to the roku) and would be extremely appreciative of any help you could offer...thanks so much!!

[dgrace]

"renojim" wrote:
I misread what you said about Netflix. I thought it said Mediafly has problems as does Netflix. You could still try hooking up the Roku directly to your modem to see what effect it has on Mediafly.

You could try my speedtest channel and see what kind of throughput it shows. It's not the most reliable measure, but I generally get very consistent results and when they start to become inconsistent I know something is wrong. My XDS box suddenly developed a wireless issue while my original N1000 had none, but I live in a congested area so I suspect a neighbor is creating some kind of interference. It's strange that the N1000 can handle it with no problem but the XDS can't.

I still can't imagine how you could have problems streaming from your server with a wired connection unless it's really a video problem. There might be two separate issues here - one that affects Mediafly and one that affects your videos. I think the original box had about 64 Meg of RAM and the new ones have even more, so if your videos are shorter than that I would think they would be pretty much downloaded completely shortly after the video starts playing.

I'd also say it's not unusual for my boxes to get into some kind of strange state where only a reboot will fix things. Also, don't forget that having too many channels can cause strange things to happen.

-JT

Just ran the speedtest. First thing it said was the Netflix test was unavailable. I assume it's testing against the nearest server it finds, which is Missoula, about 12 miles from me. The initial latency is 50.8ms, which is about what I see (midrange) when testing from a browser (38 to 80ms or there about). The other tests look as if they test with increasing sized packets, and the latency goes 450, 737, 1401, 2454, 4535 and 8434ms. The kbytes/sec range from 600 to 973. Also, a question on "too many channels". I only have Netflix, Amazon, Pandora, MyMedia, MediaFly and TuneIn Radio. Wouldn't think that were too many. Would the saved favs in Pandora, TuneIn and MediaFly also count against this, or are they retrieved when selected? For instance, I have about four "stations" set up in Pandora, but I can delete those via a browser so think they reside on their site, maybe I'm wrong.
As for the size of my Flip videos I've been streaming, they range too from very short 1 or 2 minute, to probably over the 64meg buffer memory.
I can't imagine the bottleneck is my router, as I've also been researching getting the best settings in it for my usage. I still want to think it's something in the roku, as I've never had a rebuffering with my Wii and Netflix, but have had on occasion with the roku. Same network, different performance. I may play around with video codecs on the Flip mp4 files and see what I get. If the picture quality suffers then I'll give that up, but would like to find out why MediaFly vids often rebuffer.
Thanks for the tip on the speedtest, but in the interest of fewer channels I suppose it aught to come out.
Updated: More questions. When I ping the roku from a laptop on my LAN (50 pings) I get min of 2ms and a max of 150ms and an average of 21ms. Should there be that much of a range internally here? I ping (from same laptop) to other computer, or a printer or the router and they vary a little but seem much lower.

[renojim]

"bytron" wrote:
hello!! i just got my roku yesterday and i'm trying to setup "my media" on it as i have a huge library of movies and tv shows that i imported from my collection using handbrake. i'm on a mac running 10.6.6 and can't get this setup. i went through the super easy tutorial that czarjosh posted, but i'm getting an error from my roku that says, "contact with server has not been established. check your settings and that the server is running." i have checked and re-checked the settings and verified that the server is running with the python application. i'm not sure what i'm doing wrong here (or even really what i'm doing, i just want to stream my stuff off my computer to the roku) and would be extremely appreciative of any help you could offer...thanks so much!!

Have you tested your server from a browser? From your Mac, you should be able to browse to http://localhost:8001/feed and then click on "My Videos" to see your videos. If you can, you should also try it from a different computer than the one the server is running on. You'll need to know the IP address of your Mac. For example, I would browse to http://192.168.1.115:8001/feed. I know next to nothing about Macs, so I don't know if they have a built-in firewall, but you'll need to open port 8001 if they do.

Hope this helps!
-JT

[bytron]

"renojim" wrote:

"bytron" wrote:
hello!! i just got my roku yesterday and i'm trying to setup "my media" on it as i have a huge library of movies and tv shows that i imported from my collection using handbrake. i'm on a mac running 10.6.6 and can't get this setup. i went through the super easy tutorial that czarjosh posted, but i'm getting an error from my roku that says, "contact with server has not been established. check your settings and that the server is running." i have checked and re-checked the settings and verified that the server is running with the python application. i'm not sure what i'm doing wrong here (or even really what i'm doing, i just want to stream my stuff off my computer to the roku) and would be extremely appreciative of any help you could offer...thanks so much!!

Have you tested your server from a browser? From your Mac, you should be able to browse to http://localhost:8001/feed and then click on "My Videos" to see your videos. If you can, you should also try it from a different computer than the one the server is running on. You'll need to know the IP address of your Mac. For example, I would browse to http://192.168.1.115:8001/feed. I know next to nothing about Macs, so I don't know if they have a built-in firewall, but you'll need to open port 8001 if they do.

Hope this helps!
-JT

i forgot to mention that i did test this out and got the response...

Safari can’t open the page “http://192.168.1.4:8001/feed” because Safari can’t connect to the server “192.168.1.4”.

so, i've obviously screwed up somewhere, i just don't know where...

[renojim]

"dgrace" wrote:
Just ran the speedtest. First thing it said was the Netflix test was unavailable.

Apparently Netflix took down their speed test. I was hoping it was just temporary and it would come back, but it doesn't look like it's going to. I know they used to tell customers to run the test and give them the results when the customer had a problem. I wonder what they do now.

"dgrace" wrote:
I assume it's testing against the nearest server it finds, which is Missoula, about 12 miles from me.

Yes. I may add an option to pick the server in the future.

"dgrace" wrote:
The initial latency is 50.8ms, which is about what I see (midrange) when testing from a browser (38 to 80ms or there about). The other tests look as if they test with increasing sized packets, and the latency goes 450, 737, 1401, 2454, 4535 and 8434ms. The kbytes/sec range from 600 to 973.

Yes, it tests with increasing sized files. The numbers for the tests given in milliseconds aren't the latency but the total time it took to transfer the file (minus the initial latency). The rest is just math. If you take the size of the file and divide it by the time it took you'll get the kbytes/sec number. Multiply that by 8 and you'll get the kbits/sec number.

"dgrace" wrote:
Also, a question on "too many channels". I only have Netflix, Amazon, Pandora, MyMedia, MediaFly and TuneIn Radio. Wouldn't think that were too many.

MyMedia is needlessly huge. I sent el.wubo an update before Christmas that stripped out all (well, most) of the unnecessary stuff and it's less than 1/10th the size of the current channel. I guess I'm going to have to contact him and see if he's still interested in this project.

"dgrace" wrote:
Would the saved favs in Pandora, TuneIn and MediaFly also count against this, or are they retrieved when selected? For instance, I have about four "stations" set up in Pandora, but I can delete those via a browser so think they reside on their site, maybe I'm wrong.

I believe you're right about that, so they wouldn't count against the number of channels.

"dgrace" wrote:
As for the size of my Flip videos I've been streaming, they range too from very short 1 or 2 minute, to probably over the 64meg buffer memory.
I can't imagine the bottleneck is my router, as I've also been researching getting the best settings in it for my usage. I still want to think it's something in the roku, as I've never had a rebuffering with my Wii and Netflix, but have had on occasion with the roku. Same network, different performance.

Keep in mind that the Wii uses different Netflix streams than the Roku, so the comparison isn't necessarily relevant.

"dgrace" wrote:
I may play around with video codecs on the Flip mp4 files and see what I get. If the picture quality suffers then I'll give that up, but would like to find out why MediaFly vids often rebuffer.

It's worth a shot. I haven't tried MediaFly, but I still think it would be worth trying to bypass the router to see if it makes a difference, especially if you find a video that always rebuffers.

"dgrace" wrote:
Thanks for the tip on the speedtest, but in the interest of fewer channels I suppose it aught to come out.

The speedtest channel is tiny (14kB), so you wouldn't gain much by removing it.

"dgrace" wrote:
Updated: More questions. When I ping the roku from a laptop on my LAN (50 pings) I get min of 2ms and a max of 150ms and an average of 21ms. Should there be that much of a range internally here? I ping (from same laptop) to other computer, or a printer or the router and they vary a little but seem much lower.

That seems kind of strange. When I ping my Rokus I generally get 1 to 8ms. I know latency plays some part in the operation, but I don't really know how much. It still makes me think it's a router issue.

-JT

[dgrace]

I can try without the router, but will have to think about that. Would that work by connecting my desktop ethernet to the one on the roku, so it can stream from my HDD? Having a time wrapping my head around that. Seems I need to keep some connection, it isn't magic. Would direct from my modem to roku work for testing streaming of other server based content? Hmmm....
Also, the comparison of netflix on Wii is that the router is sending adequate signal for it to run well. I also just tried the ping to both the roku and the wii from a wired to router machine and got the same kind of results. Lower ping times, but still varied. Must be pinging wireless to wireless makes the trip more varied.
Been playing with handbrake and they definitely play smoother, just the couple I've done have had no audio. I'm most likely not going to convert all of the flip videos, not that important to me.
Thanks

[renojim]

You might be able to connect it directly to your desktop computer for local streaming, but you'd have to run a dhcp server on your PC so the Roku can get an IP address. You wouldn't be able to get through the network setup on the Roku since it wouldn't be able to connect to the Internet unless you were using some sort of Internet connection sharing (which would require two network cards in your PC), but maybe if the setup was already completed you could then switch the cable to your PC. There's also the issue of whether or not a crossover cable is required. I don't know if the Roku autosenses and I don't know how prevalent autosensing is in PC NICs either. I may have to try it just to see if it will work.

Edit: It does work! I didn't even need a crossover cable, so either my laptop or the Roku autosenses. I had the Roku setup for a wired connection then I rebooted it and connected it to my laptop which was running dhcpd32 and I could connect to my MyMedia server. I'm not sure what it proves, but it was interesting nonetheless.

You should be able to connect the Roku directly to your modem for Netflix/MediaFly streaming. It would also be worthwhile to run the speedtest with your Roku connected directly to the modem.

The Roku can be pretty particular about what videos it will play. I use HandBrake with the same settings every time and I'd say about one in ten videos won't play. I've never tried to track down the issue. If I really want to see the video, I usually use a different program (like FormatFactory) to convert the original video to some other format and then HandBrake to convert it back to MP4. I'm not concerned about the loss of quality two conversion causes.

-JT

[hi_jp]

I recently got roku xds player and was surprised to know that it has no option to access the pictures and movies from my windows computer. I think the MyMedia is the solution for it, although i am lost on the setup

1. I added the channel to roku
2. downloaded python 2.6
3. downloaded PIl 1.7 version
4. Added python to the path(env variable), and went to command prompt and gave "python rss_server.py" it said no such file
Where can I get "rss_server.py".
Also after starting the server..what are the next steps ???

Thanks in advance..