Roku Developer Program

[w1ndy]

Does anybody know if there is channel in the works that would allow us to stream from a windows or samba share?

[bcl]

Several of us are working on home streaming solutions. But you aren't going to find one that streams from a file share. The Roku SDK requires a HTTP server that recognizes the Byte-Range header so you are going to need a server app of some kind.

Also, the player is a bit picky about what formats it will play. What you have may or may not work with the player.

[aeproberts]

Do .avi and .mp3 (or unprotected aac files) work?

[KennyJ]

.avi does not work. Roku only supports h264 mpeg4 (mp4,m4v,mov) and VC-1 (.wmv).

Mp3's work fine. Roku supports mp3 and wma.

[Shlepzig]

I have successfully converted AVI files to MP4 files useing ffmpeg and gotten them to stream fine.

The AVI quality was not spectacular to begin with, and I don't think I did it any favors converting it again. But it wasn't any worse than it would have been to begin with.

I have also successfully streamed YouTube videos that were downloaded as MP4 files. I have not yet gotten a direct link to YouTube bookmarked videos to stream (ok I haven't tried yet).

-Shlep'

[w1ndy]

Streaming from an http server rather than a share actually sounds better!

With the use of open source software like ffmpeg you would be able to convert most popular media formats and you could use thttpd as the server to stream the media, and yes thttpd does support "Byte-Range" headers.

http://acme.com/software/thttpd/
http://ffmpeg.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thttpd

[Burkhardi]

"w1ndy" wrote:
Streaming from an http server rather than a share actually sounds better!

With the use of open source software like ffmpeg you would be able to convert most popular media formats and you could use thttpd as the server to stream the media, and yes thttpd does support "Byte-Range" headers.

http://acme.com/software/thttpd/
http://ffmpeg.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thttpd

Why run a server for the client when you could just mount the share?

Does anyone know if the box can support UPnP, I assume not.

[dupondt]

Matt,

Does anyone know if the box can support UPnP, I assume not.

your assumption is right. There's no UPnP(-AV) support in the firmware, and IMO it's unlikely that it will be added because the DVP's memory is very limited.

Greetings
dupondt

[Burkhardi]

It seems to have the same abount of memory as the older Roku DVP. The latter had 64MB of DRAM (and 16MB of internal flash for the firmware) and worked great with UPnP and could mount network shares and such untill the cows came home. however, that FLASH RAM was shared between the system and video and I don't know how the N-Series does it. However, some of the larger apps needed more DRAM and could bog the system down so the REV-B version (with 128MB verse 64MB)came out. The work around was a swap file. The Roku-XR has a USB port, would be need to use a flash drive for a swap file.

Let me check the specs on the N-Series and see if the DRAM is shared between the system and video.

"dupondt" wrote:
Matt,

Does anyone know if the box can support UPnP, I assume not.

your assumption is right. There's no UPnP(-AV) support in the firmware, and IMO it's unlikely that it will be added because the DVP's memory is very limited.

Greetings
dupondt

[bcl]

"Burkhardi" wrote:

Why run a server for the client when you could just mount the share?

Because you can't mount a share. :?

The other problem is that there is a wide range of formats that people already have their media stored in, and it is stored on a wide range of devices and operating systems.

Ideally what I want to come up with is a Python based application that handles serving up the content and allowing the user to manage the feeds via a web interface.