Solving playback issues

[atc98092]

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@Graemev2 wrote:

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.

Yes, I was clarifying that it's the player that is container-fussy. If the TV is the player, then the TV does care about the container. If the player is external to the TV, then the TV doesn't care, because all it gets from the external player is the video and audio stream over HDMI.

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)

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I suspect you are correct :D. I've never seen a Roku that supported the AVI container. On the Roku media support web page here, the only difference they list for the TVs is the support for H.262 (MPEG-2) video, which is now also supported in the latest Roku players as well. 

[boogernose]

I also have a ton of .avi's....

I was going to put in a feature request but its owned and was developed by Microsoft

so that is probably the issue in the first place.

[atc98092]

Yep. Roku avoids any codecs that require a licensing fee unless it's something that's absolutely required, such as DD+. 

[lesmikesell]

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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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Current Sony's run Android TV OS and would let you install a variety of apps to play videos, including Kodi and VLC that play about anything.

[lesmikesell]

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@boogernose wrote:

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.

Plex is pretty good about transcoding/re-muxing on the fly to match the capabilities of whatever client is playing.  And it has chapter support if your files maintain them.

[boogernose]

@lesmikesell 

Thats good to know.

I'm leaving on a business trip tomorrow but I'll mess with it later.

Have you actually had success with running .avi's on Plex?

[lesmikesell]

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@boogernose wrote:

Have you actually had success with running .avi's on Plex?

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I only have a few .avi files but yes, plex recognizes them and makes them play on various devices.   Normally I use handbreak to make mp4 or mkvs with h.264 or h.265 encoding and retain chapter support, but if your plex server is fast enough it can transcode on the fly.

[Graemev2]

I checked the logs on my QNAP, and it is transcoding (on-the-fly) but I'm just not seeing the .avi on the ROKU.

WRT Plex. I've avoided using it because it requires an account, so this implies it's got a server "outside my house"  and I can't firewall it , due to this interaction. I don't want to discover videos of my wife feeding our babies sitting out there on somebody else's server. (the QNAP supports plex server)

[atc98092]

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@Graemev2 wrote:

I checked the logs on my QNAP, and it is transcoding (on-the-fly) but I'm just not seeing the .avi on the ROKU.

WRT Plex. I've avoided using it because it requires an account, so this implies it's got a server "outside my house"  and I can't firewall it , due to this interaction. I don't want to discover videos of my wife feeding our babies sitting out there on somebody else's server. (the QNAP supports plex server)

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If you don't have port 32400 in your firewall/router forwarded to your Plex server, It won't be visible outside your network. I think that Plex makes your server available via their web site, but that requires authentication and also requires you authorizing some other account to access it. 

Are you using Plex on your QNAP, or just the included package (which is usually Mini-DLNA)? It might not recognize that your AVIs need transcoding, which would explain why they don't appear. I'm not a fan of DLNA servers like that when they don't offer more control. 

[rdunn3208]

Just ran into same issue.  Went through a chat session with customer service. He couldn't fix it. 

I found that you can fool the Roku media player into playing the file. Just change the file extention (not the file itself) to another format. I used .mkv That worked.