Roku Developer Program

[joetesta]

Hi -
Currently I am encoding movies in 2 bitrates.
I have added a new server for hosting the encoded files. For my test video on this new server, roku at first tries to play the high bitrate (4 dots) then goes to the low bitrate (2 dots). On the original server, the same video plays fine with 4 dots. As far as I can tell the apache configuration is identical and the servers are very similar in hardware. I have verified the bandwidth is fine - the high bitrate file plays fine on my browser with no freezing or buffering.
In fact I copied over 3 other titles and they're all playing the 4 dot high bitrate from the new server without a problem. However the test is consistently playing only the 2 dot low bitrate on the new server.
Anyone have any idea why roku would consistently be choosing the play the low bitrate for this file?
TYVMIA

[RokuMarkn]

Generally the reason would be that the Roku is measuring the bandwidth to your server as too low to play the high bitrate stream. You can confirm this by turning on playback debugging and seeing what bitrate it's measuring. A separate bitrate measurement is kept for each channel.

--Mark

[joetesta]

Thank you Mark, I'd forgotten about playback debugging mode. Now for this movie I see the message:

Cannot play 2.5 mbps stream on your 5.1 mbps network because starting at 1:23:53 the stream needs 83.3 MB in the next 35 seconds (20.0 mbps).

What the heck? Why is the bandwidth requirement so much higher than my bitrate of 2.5 mbps? Did something go wrong with the encoding? And why is roku looking at 1:23:53 to decide what bitrate should be used at the beginning? I need to go read some manuals... I appreciate any suggestions!

[RokuMarkn]

Yes, it sounds like something wrong, or at least undesired, in the encoding. Some encoders let you specify a maximum bit rate for VBR encodings, you might check that out. The player looks at the entire file to predict whether (and when) rebuffers will occur before it starts playing. In your case it saw that it could not play that section of the file, when it came to it, without excessive rebuffering, so it chose the other stream.

--Mark

[bandal]

I can't get into Playback Debugging at all on my Roku 2 XS 4.1 2669. I do have the Developer Debug on. I turned it off too and still can't get in. Is there a way other than what is listed in the 2.9 SDK Documents?

DA