Roku Developer Program

[tunilopez]

Hello everyone,

As the title says, I have a Roku + Wowza application but the videos are not streaming from Roku 1.
The encoding should not be a problem if they work in Roku 2. I tried to move one of the videos to a usb drive and they also play in Roku 1.

What can be the cause to get a Video Request Failure only from Roku 1?

The videos are mp4 and I am using something like this:

videoclip = CreateObject("roAssociativeArray")
data = AppData()
videoclip.StreamBitrates = [0]
videoclip.StreamUrls = [ "http://****/vod/mp4:trailer.mp4/playlist.m3u8" ]
videoclip.StreamQualities = ["SD"]
videoclip.StreamFormat = "hls"
videoclip.Title = movie.Title
screen.SetContent(videoclip)

Any ideas? How is this working in Roku 2 and not 1? 😞

[TheEndless]

What is the error message and error code associated with the isRequestFailed() event? Have you tried listening to the roSystemLog to see if there are any "http.error" events logged?

Also, the video working on a Roku 2 does not automatically mean it will work on the Roku 1. The two have different hardware and firmware, so while in most cases video should work on both, it's entirely possible that the Roku 2s have better support for your chosen video encoding than the Roku 1. What video and audio codecs do your streams use?

[RokuJoel]

The most common cause of this situation is an HLS stream with audio encoded as .mp3 instead of AAC. The Roku2 will (unofficially) play HLS video with mp3 audio, but the original series will not.

- Joel

[tunilopez]

"RokuJoel" wrote:
The most common cause of this situation is an HLS stream with audio encoded as .mp3 instead of AAC. The Roku2 will (unofficially) play HLS video with mp3 audio, but the original series will not.

- Joel

Thanks for the reply. I am really not very experienced with video encoding but I have downloaded mediainfo and passed it trough one of the files. I think everything is fine... could you please take a look?

General
Complete name                            : AddisonsWall-Trailer.mp4
Format                                   : MPEG-4
Format profile                           : Base Media
Codec ID                                 : isom
File size                                : 32.5 MiB
Duration                                 : 3mn 23s
Overall bit rate mode                    : Variable
Overall bit rate                         : 1 337 Kbps
Writing application                      : Lavf52.64.2

Video
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : AVC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                           : High@L3.0
Format settings, CABAC                   : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames                : 3 frames
Codec ID                                 : avc1
Codec ID/Info                            : Advanced Video Coding
Duration                                 : 3mn 23s
Bit rate                                 : 1 262 Kbps
Width                                    : 720 pixels
Height                                   : 352 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 1.647
Original display aspect ratio            : 1.85:1
Frame rate mode                          : Variable
Frame rate                               : 29.915 fps
Original frame rate                      : 23.976 fps
Minimum frame rate                       : 13.315 fps
Maximum frame rate                       : 29.981 fps
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.166
Stream size                              : 30.6 MiB (94%)
Writing library                          : x264 core 79
Encoding settings                        : cabac=1 / ref=3 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=hex / subme=7 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.0:0.0 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=12 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / mbaff=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=0 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / wpredb=1 / wpredp=2 / keyint=240 / keyint_min=24 / scenecut=40 / rc_lookahead=50 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=20.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Color primaries                          : BT.601 NTSC
Transfer characteristics                 : BT.709
Matrix coefficients                      : BT.601

Audio
ID                                       : 2
Format                                   : AAC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile                           : LC
Codec ID                                 : 40
Duration                                 : 3mn 23s
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : 68.0 Kbps
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Channel positions                        : Front: L R
Sampling rate                            : 44.1 KHz
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Delay relative to video                  : 100ms
Stream size                              : 1.65 MiB (5%)
Language                                 : English

Menu
00:00:00.000                             : Chapter 1

Thanks in advance!

[tunilopez]

"TheEndless" wrote:
What is the error message and error code associated with the isRequestFailed() event? Have you tried listening to the roSystemLog to see if there are any "http.error" events logged?

Also, the video working on a Roku 2 does not automatically mean it will work on the Roku 1. The two have different hardware and firmware, so while in most cases video should work on both, it's entirely possible that the Roku 2s have better support for your chosen video encoding than the Roku 1. What video and audio codecs do your streams use?

Thanks for the reply! I will use roSystemLog tomorrow and check for any errors. I will post here results tomorrow.

I have pasted above what are the encodings for a demo file I am using right now. Could you please take a look and see if anything is wrong with it? (As I said before, I don't have much experience with video encoding).

Thanks in advance!

[RokuMarkn]

That's an MP4 file. In your original post, you were setting StreamFormat="hls" and setting the URL to an m3u8 file, not mp4. Are you using MP4 or HLS?

--Mark

[tunilopez]

Hmm to be honest I am not quite sure about the difference between those two formats.
What I can say is that I am using Wowza with the default "vod" application and that I have placed my videos in the content folder.
All my videos are in the MP4 format with ACC for the audio from what I saw with mediainfo.

As I read here... http://www.wowza.com/forums/content.php ... dia-Server I ended up using the example "Big Buck Bunny test stream from Wowza" which uses hls.... but as it worked anyways in Roku 2 I left it that way.

Should I try something like this? or How?

videoclip = CreateObject("roAssociativeArray")
data = AppData()
videoclip.StreamBitrates = [0]
videoclip.StreamUrls = [ "http://****/vod/mp4:trailer.mp4/playlist.m3u8" ]   <--- How should I change this url? Do you know? Should I remove the playlist.m3u8 part?
videoclip.StreamQualities = ["SD"]
videoclip.StreamFormat = "mp4"   <--- change here
videoclip.Title = movie.Title
screen.SetContent(videoclip)

Your help is greatly appreciated :).

[RokuKevin]

Hi tunilopez,

If you can post an url to your stream we can better assist. If this is something you'd not like to share publicly, you can send me a private message and I will take a look.

--Kevin

[RokuKevin]

tunilopez was able to privately share his stream with me and I had a look and wanted to share the solution in case others run into something similar...

Roku 1 has a default minimum bandwidth of 250 kbps. So if all your bitrates are lower than that, there is nothing to play.

The solution is to set it to a low value so that all your video streams (but not audio only streams) are included. Example:

videoclip.minBandwidth = 10

--Kevin

[OddScott]

"RokuJoel" wrote:
The most common cause of this situation is an HLS stream with audio encoded as .mp3 instead of AAC. The Roku2 will (unofficially) play HLS video with mp3 audio, but the original series will not.

- Joel

Isn't that the other way around? The original series _may_ play HLS w/MP3 but Roku2 requires AAC?

I could have sworn I had a Wowza HLS w/MP3 audio stream playing fine on an older XD box, but had to get an AAC plugin for my encoder to make it play on a Roku2.