Roku Developer Program

[alexrup]

I'm working on a Roku application for a client, that displays content in poster screens and plays videos. We've recently discovered a small number of video files that won't play on the Roku devices and we can't determine why. These videos play fine in google chrome, mozilla firefox, on Android/GoogleTV, and iOS devices. The only devices that don't seem to be able to play these files are our Rokus. Included below are the results from running mediainfo on 2 files, the first one working, and the second one not. They are consecutive episodes from the same show, and were encoded the same way.

MuslceCar 2012, Episode 6, Working
Video URL: http://r.onescreen.net/a/1202487/mf/632 ... 067acc6f27

General
Complete name : musclecar2012e6.mp4
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media
Codec ID : isom
File size : 93.9 MiB
Duration : 15mn 48s
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 831 Kbps
Encoded date : UTC 2012-09-25 07:04:58
Tagged date : UTC 2012-09-25 07:04:58

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : Baseline@L2.1
Format settings, CABAC : No
Format settings, ReFrames : 3 frames
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 15mn 48s
Bit rate : 700 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 1 728 Kbps
Width : 480 pixels
Height : 270 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 30.000 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.180
Stream size : 79.1 MiB (84%)
Writing library : Zencoder Video Encoding System
Encoded date : UTC 2012-09-25 07:03:03
Tagged date : UTC 2012-09-25 07:04:59

Audio
ID : 2
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile : LC
Codec ID : 40
Duration : 15mn 48s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 128 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 152 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 14.4 MiB (15%)
Encoded date : UTC 2012-09-25 07:04:59
Tagged date : UTC 2012-09-25 07:04:59

Musclecar 2012, Episode 7, Not Working
Video URL: http://r.onescreen.net/a/1202487/mf/632 ... 5a7479b01f

General
Complete name : musclecar2012e7.mp4
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media
Codec ID : isom
File size : 45.7 MiB
Duration : 16mn 11s
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 395 Kbps
Encoded date : UTC 2012-06-14 20:39:57
Tagged date : UTC 2012-06-14 20:39:57

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : Baseline@L1.3
Format settings, CABAC : No
Format settings, ReFrames : 3 frames
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 16mn 11s
Bit rate : 264 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 912 Kbps
Width : 320 pixels
Height : 180 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 30.000 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.153
Stream size : 30.6 MiB (67%)
Writing library : Zencoder Video Encoding System
Encoded date : UTC 2012-06-14 20:37:48
Tagged date : UTC 2012-06-14 20:39:58

Audio
ID : 2
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile : LC
Codec ID : 40
Duration : 16mn 11s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 128 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 147 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 14.8 MiB (32%)
Encoded date : UTC 2012-06-14 20:39:57
Tagged date : UTC 2012-06-14 20:39:58

We have tested on a Roku XR and a Roku LT device, and neither can play the second file. The only real differences I can see between the 2 files aside from size and bitrate, are the Video Format profile (Baseline@L2.1 for the working file, vs Baseline@L1.3 for the non-working file). I've compared these files to the supported types listed in the Roku documentation, and they should be supported as far as I can tell. Could these issues be due to our video encoding process, or could it be a Roku decoder bug of some kind? Any advice or feedback would be greatly appreciated. If there's any necessary information I've left out, let me know and I'll update this post as quickly as possible. Thanks for the help!

[RokuMarkn]

I don't know if this is the issue, but I note that one file is encoded at Baseline Profile 1.3 and the other is Baseline Profile 2.1. This is odd if they were really encoded the same way.

--Mark

[alexrup]

They actually may have been encoded differently, I don't actually work on encoding for our company. Somebody else is handling that, and I'm just using the content in the apps. Still, when I compare the files with mediainfo, there are no differences that explain why the file doesn't play.
Regarding Baseline Profile 1.3 vs 2.1, I spent some time researching the Roku encoding guide (http://sdkdocs.roku.com/display/RokuSDK ... ding+Guide) and wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Levels). According to the encoding guide, Roku should support Baseline Profile 4.0. These standards are fully backwards compatible, and there shouldn't be a reason why the Roku fails on the 1.3 file.

[alexrup]

Both files play fine on all Android and iOS devices we've tried, on our Boxee, and under all major browsers. It's only the Roku that has any issue with the second file. I'm wondering if there's some kind of bug with the Roku's video decoding with lower Baseline Profiles?

[renojim]

They both play for me on my Roku 1 XD|S and my Roku 2 XS (my XS is on beta v4.10) from my local server. Could it be a server issue?

-JT

[alexrup]

So I just started working on a simple application to demonstrate the problem, consisting of a poster screen containing just the 2 videos. To my surprise, they both play fine. In my main app though, I cannot get the second file to play at all. I'm loading a collection of videos from a JSON feed, and 95% of the videos are playing with no problem. I was worried I might have an issue with my parser or app, but the fact that my other videos from the same playlist work, as well as the fact that it works fine in the simple app has me very confused. Could this be some kind of memory issue with the device, we have a large number of videos loaded (over 100)?