Roku setup

[djo_34]

I have been streaming 720 and 1080 MKVs for over a decade using my LG BD390 Bluray players throughout my home. They support H264, DTS, AC3 in virtually any container. I was looking for a replacement to handle HEVC and EAC3 as well. I did my research and picked the Roku Ultra over the NVidia Shield Pro.

I uninstalled all the apps and **bleep** I didn't want or need and installed the Roku Media Player, which found my DLNA server immediately and displayed all of my folders. Sadly, the count in parenthesis next to the folder shows (1) for every folder despite hundreds of subfolders containing MKV files. And when drilling down to a folder containing an MKV, it says "No compatible videos found in: xxxxx".

How pathetic! My Sony TVs can see and play them. My iPads can see and play them. My PC can see and play them via DLNA using VLC Player. But not Roku. It's DLNA. It's a standardized streaming platform. Roku hasn't figured it out yet.

I was going to spend some time troubleshooting, but the menu in the app a disgrace. You literally see 10 folders at a time with HUGE folder icons and MASSIVE text so you can't even read the title of the movies. It's an app for children or blind seniors. The decade-old LG BD player shows 40 folders on the screen at a time. I guess I'll just update to newer LG Bluray players.

[andyross · Accepted solution]

Roku's are primarily designed for INTERNET STREAMING. Local streaming is an afterthought. The Roku Media Player is pathetic, and there are no 3rd party players. Not sure why, but may be restrictions in the Roku SDK or even developer agreement required.

[djo_34]

Streaming is streaming. It doesn't matter if it comes from the Internet or the local network. I disagree with your assessment. Local streaming wasn't an afterthought. There was NO THOUGHT put into it. When you read the specifications, you'd think the Internet streaming through apps was the afterthought and their primary objective was developing a means to stream local media. What a disgrace.

When I bought my LG Bluray player back in 2010 or 2011, the primary purpose of the unit was to play BD and DVDs. And yet, it's still the best DLNA player. I don't think I've watched anything on disc since 2013. So it's a waste of space and with no firmware updates, can handle HEVC or EAC3. But it handles AVI, DIVX, MKV, MP4, AVCHD, H264, X264... you name it. Guess I'll be upgrading to an LG BP175.

[atc98092]

As @andyross mentioned, DLNA playback was/is an afterthought for Roku. They don't have the codec support for very many audio and video codecs that are used on DVD/BD/UHD discs. Yes, they will play MPEG-2 (H.262)/H.264/H.265 video, as long as they are in supported containers (MKV/MP4/MOV/TS). For audio, they only support AAC (two channel only), PCM and AC-3/Dolby Digital. If your media is in the MKV container, it will bitstream passthrough the core DTS audio to a supporting AVR/soundbar via HDMI. It will not play any lossless codec (Dolby TrueHD/Atmos, DTS Master Audio/DTS:X). 

The original Roku player was designed solely for Netflix playback. Over the years they have added thousands of channels for streaming material from online sources. Roku Media Player came well after those initial channels/apps.

Roku used to have an excellent programmer that was dedicated to making RMP a great player. However, he retired and no one has picked up RMP and continued support. They made a half-hearted attempt to update it for a short while, but right now it hasn't had any updates for video playback in close to three years and it has some serious flaws. For example, any media in the TS/M2TS container will only play. You can't pause it, rewind or fast forward, and if you stop playback you can't resume where you stopped. 

You mention your LG player. I too had great success with BD players in the past, but they too have been losing support for DLNA. My older Sony BD players would bitstream TrueHD and DTS-MA to my AVR. Then I bought a new Sony, and while TrueHD would still bitstream it would no longer send DTS-MA to my AVR, only the lossy DTS core, same as the Roku does. 

Don't be surprised if you find the LG BP175 won't bitstream those same lossless audio codecs. I tried an LG UHD player shortly after they came out, and it didn't work like I expected. I moved to the Nvidia Shield for my local media playback, using Kodi as my player app. It will bitstream almost everything (no support for AV1 video, AC-4 audio or YouTube HDR), even though it's now close to a 5 year old device. 

[andyross]

I'm not fully familiar with it, but will Plex worK? I assume you would need to set up a Plex server (which I think needs a subscription), and then the Plex app might be able to access your library?

[atc98092]

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@andyross wrote:

I'm not fully familiar with it, but will Plex worK? I assume you would need to set up a Plex server (which I think needs a subscription), and then the Plex app might be able to access your library?

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Plex works just fine on any Roku device. Yes, a Plex server is required. No, there's no cost to installing Plex on a computer or NAS. After many years I finally paid for Plex Plus, mostly because I felt they deserved payment for providing a decent product that I use when I travel. 

Plex pushes any required transcoding of unsupported files to the server, and streams compatible video and audio to the Roku. Audio transcoding doesn't take much computer power, so it's not a big deal to transcode the lossless audio into standard AC3. However, you will lose the height channels from Atmos/DTS:X when the audio is transcoded. 

I have Plex installed on the same computer that runs Serviio (my DLNA server app). Of course, Serviio will transcode the unsupported media the same as Plex will, but it won't show unsupported captions like Plex will. Just be aware that playing unsupported captions (and virtually all ripped movie/TV discs will have unsupported captions) requires burning them into the video feed, which does require much more computing power. If someone has questions about the computer power needed, I'd be happy to discuss it further. But I won't clutter this thread with it unless the OP has questions.