Solving playback issues

[Graemev2]

I've been looking a FFMPG (underpins Handbrake)  and I've had some success, but still the majority of saved videos have issues (won't play, won't skip etc) . Still, having to reecode everything in my collection to support one TV is probably more trouble than it worth. I already encode everything as mpeg2 (in a .mpg) and h.264 in a .avi , because my old Sony only handles mpg and the newer Samsung & LG play .mpg and .avi but won't allow fast forward/rewind on .mpg .

Having built this into a TV, Hisense need to understand they need to do at least as well as all the other TV manufacturers . As a plug-in box , if the the ROKU  can't play a format I can plug in another box, but the if the TV only plays 10% of what other TVs offer, then I'll get a different TV.

Interestingly I discovered a QNAP app in the ROKU store. It CAN see all the .avi on my qnap ... but sadly can play none of them. If I do:

ffmpeg -fflags +genpts -i ${file} -c:v copy -c:a copy ${file}.mkv

Then if can play SOME of them, and that's almost , "straight copy" , hardly any work at all  ...but of course another N Terabytes of space used.

As I get used the the new TV there are also many other things it fails to support. I have  music and plays/podcasts in mp3 format, these are both named (track01-foo, track02-bar, track03...) AND the MP3 tags for album1-track1, album1-track2 etc ...some players use the tags , other the names. The ROKU seems to use neither and plays in a seemingly random order

[boogernose]

I actually had another problem with Audio after I posted.

My solution is and has always been to just feed it over from my

computer with a longer HDMI cable. I was just toying with Handbrake

but this business of transcoding seems mre trouble than its worth.

[atc98092]

I think you will find that TVs are also restricted on what they can play. They will all support MPEG2 and H.264 video, but not all containers. I found years ago that a DLNA server is the best overall choice. It takes care of any unsupported media, and makes your media available for anything on your network. I can answer any questions you might have about several different products. 

[boogernose]

Recently got the Plex Channel as I saw it has come along with content.

I haven't had a chance to mess with it much yet.

But its just out of curiosity. As I use a HDMI cable to feed my bigger tv..

@atc98092youre not saying the TV's are fussy with containers ported thru

Roku USB and its Media Player? I dont own a "smart" tv.

[Graemev2]

My TV has builtin ROKU. If you're just using a HDMI cable to the TV it really can't see the container format ...the only Gotcha here is ESP.. SONY TVs. Mine was paranoid about DMR , so refused to play videos from my Camcorder (no copyright data to check) which lead to a life time ban on Sony for me . Previously I'd exclusively bought Sony.

[atc98092]

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@Graemev2 wrote:

My TV has builtin ROKU. If you're just using a HDMI cable to the TV it really can't see the container format ...the only Gotcha here is ESP.. SONY TVs. Mine was paranoid about DMR , so refused to play videos from my Camcorder (no copyright data to check) which lead to a life time ban on Sony for me . Previously I'd exclusively bought Sony.

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If you're watching your media via the Roku Media Player (RMP) the TV absolutely knows what the container is. Doesn't matter if you're using a DLNA server or have a drive connected to the TV via USB. The TV will recognize the container, video and audio codecs, and some caption formats. If any one of the three are unsupported, you won't get successful playback. Roku devices (TVs and players) only support a handful of containers (MP4, MKV, MOV and TS) and even fewer codecs. 

If you're using some other device as the player (such as a Roku player or Blu Ray player), then yes the TV doesn't know anything about the media container. The external player is the one that handles that.

I've never owned a Sony TV, so can't comment about them from personal use. I just bought a new LG set a week ago, and I did look at a couple of Sonys. However, neither of the Sony TVs would recognize any media when I connected a portable USB drive, so I couldn't test them the way I wanted. The LG did everything I wanted, so they got my money. But there's still media on my server that the LG won't play, so I just stick with my Shield and Roku players. 

[atc98092]

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@boogernose wrote:

@atc98092you're not saying the TV's are fussy with containers ported thru Roku USB and its Media Player? I don't own a "smart" tv.

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Yes, if you're playing the media on a Roku device (TV or player) via USB or DLNA, the Roku absolutely knows what the container is and if it's supported. Unsupported containers (such as AVI) won't even appear in RMP. Roku only supports four containers: MP4, MKV, MOV and TS (M2TS and TS). If the media isn't in one of those four containers, Roku won't even display it, let alone play it. If the container is supported, then the codecs must be supported. Again, not all codecs are supported. For video, MPEG-2 (on players released since about 2017 and all TVs), H.264, MP4, and 4K players support H.265. That's it. For audio, there's more codecs supported, but none of the lossless codecs will play. So the audio tracks from must Blu Rays and all UHD Blu Rays will not play.

And that's where the DLNA server comes in. If the container is not supported but the codecs are, then the server can transmux the audio and video into a supported container. This takes very little computer power. If the audio isn''t supported, the server transcodes it into AC3, which again takes little power. If the video is unsupported, then it must be transcoded and that takes far more computer power. 

[Graemev2]

I think we have slightly crossed wires here:

boogernose said: " .... the TV's are fussy with containers ..."  He (I believe) has a ROKU Box plugged into a TV via HDMI. The ROKU box might be sensitive to the video file container/encoding ...but over HDMI only the video will flow, so the TV won't know how the video was stored ... The bit I added was to the effect that HDCP  does act over HDMI cables ...and my sad tale of the Sony.

Just to add fuel 😞  , my TV with ROKU built says on it's specification page:

...

Accessories

Remote Control
Yes

Batteries (Remote Control)
AAAx2

Quick Set Up Guide
Yes

User Manual
Yes

DMP Format

Picture
.jpeg,.bmp,.PNG,.GIF,.mpo

Video
.AVI, .WMV, .MP4, .MOV, .3GP, .MKV, .MPG, .MPEG, .VOB, .FLV, .WebM, .OGM,

Container Formats
AVI,MP4,MKV,TS,FLV OGG

Audio
.wma,.wmv,.mp4,.FLAC,.MP2,.MP3 music (mp3 aac wma wav)

(I suspect they have simply used boilerplate text from their non-ROKU TVs)

[Graemev2]

I hope this isn't seen as hijacking the thread. OP asked about USB, but  DLNA server appears to be "sort of" the answer. Given there appear to be some knowledgable folks here (who also appear to have it working). Can you tell be what I should expect:

Q1:  An H.264 video + AAC audio, put into an "avi" file, stored on my NAS (DNLA sever).

        I view this on ROKU TV, choosing "folder" ..navigate to the correct folder.

   Should I see the file? Should I be able to play it ?

Q2: An <unsupported> video + mp2 audio in a .mkv file (full container, not just extension)

        I view this on ROKU TV, choosing "folder" ..navigate to the correct folder

  I guess I should see the file?  Should play "full featured" (skip, rewind etc) or just end-to-end?

  is it getting transcoded in the DNLA server?

[atc98092]

I've tried to answer this twice, but the forum keeps erroring out. If this makes it through I'll try again. 

OK, that worked. I'll try again but make it shorter.

Q1: this file will not be visible in the Roku Media Player unless the DLNA server transcodes (redoes the video and audio in a new container) or transmuxes (leaves the video an audio alone and copies them into a different container) the file.

Q2: This file might be visible, but will not play because of the unsupported video. If the video was instead the supported codec, it would likely play but without sound. 

I have lots more I can add, but the forum is being wonky. 😄