Solving playback issues

[JJBinks]

I recently got into ripping my movies and streaming from my server. I use Handbrake to compress the movies. I downloaded it last week directly from their site so it should be up-to-date. When using the Roku presets that are built in, I am unable to play the movies on my 55" Sharp Roku TV. They play from on the Ultra in the living room, just not on the Sharp TV. The MKV's straight from the rip play, but not the files that are compressed using the Roku presets in handbrake. Any ideas?

[DBDukes]

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@JJBinks wrote:

I recently got into ripping my movies and streaming from my server. I use Handbrake to compress the movies. I downloaded it last week directly from their site so it should be up-to-date. When using the Roku presets that are built in, I am unable to play the movies on my 55" Sharp Roku TV. They play from on the Ultra in the living room, just not on the Sharp TV. The MKV's straight from the rip play, but not the files that are compressed using the Roku presets in handbrake. Any ideas?

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Does anything play from the USB on your old Sharp Roku TV? Have you tried MP4s or other file formats as a test to see if the USB is reading correctly?

Oh, and the Roku Media Player does launch on the Sharp Roku TV? And it reads the drive and displays the titles? Just won't play?

[dathead2]

What Roku model is the Sharp tv connected too?  If you’re using the HandBrake preset for 4k with h.265 maybe that model doesn’t support 265? Try any of the other presets that all do 264

[atc98092]

Remember that MKV is just a container. Within that container are audio and video codecs, and sometimes caption tracks. Roku devices only support a limited number of video and audio codecs, as well as only a few containers. 

Video must be the H.264/AVC/MP4 codec, and the newer players and all TVs support MPEG-2. If it's a 4K Roku device, then it also supports H.265. For audio there's a few more options, namely PCM, AC3 (Dolby Digital), AAC (2 channel only). If you are connected to an AVR via HDMI with the proper support, you can also bitstream DTS from the MKV or TS container. Video must be in a MKV/MP4/MOV/TS container. 

You might find it far less effort to simply use a DLNA server on a computer on your network, and let it transcode any unsupported codec or container. I use Serviio, but there are others available. You can also use Plex or Emby, which both have their own channel for Roku devices and offer a Netflix-like user interface. 

[JJBinks]

If I play the same file on a usb stick plugged into the USB port on the TV. It will play no problem. The file is an MP4, H.264 with AC3 passthru and AAC audio. The original MKV and I think and MOV worked.

RMP loads, displays both the USB and my DLNA server. Shows the title, launches the video but once it shows it as being loaded about 25% it goes back to the library.

[JJBinks]

I have tried Plex, but have found that on both the Sharp Roku TV and my Sony AndroidTV, the Plex app REALLY makes the videos dark. Streaming to the built in media player on the Sony and RMP on the Roku does not make the video dark. I am using a Western Digital My Cloud Home as my file storage and running the Plex app with it to. I am stuck with Plex as the server as I don't want to have it running on my desktop. I just need to find a good format to encode to. I do not understand why the Roku presets in Handbrake are not working for this TV. 

[JJBinks]

It's a Sharp LC-55LBU591U, which has Roku built into it. I have tried the Roku 1080and I believe the 720 preset with no luck. I have had very little luck with the mp4 presets even though they are H.264 and AAC. The MKV's have worked. I may just need to fine tune the MKV presets as they have seemed to degrade the image more than the MP4's.

[atc98092]

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@JJBinks wrote:

If I play the same file on a usb stick plugged into the USB port on the TV. It will play no problem.

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That's actually not always the case. Some TV manufacturers have different media support for DLNA and direct playback from a connected drive. But with Roku TVs, I believe that is usually true. But it's not a given.

A video in an MP4 container, with H.264 video and AAC audio should always play. AC3 audio shouldn't make a difference either. But I have noticed that some of my videos load just fine, while others exhibit the same issue you list here. But those are usually being transcoded for audio support, using HLS as the transcoding streaming protocol. I know the developer is working on something significant for an upcoming OS update, but he's not even telling the beta testers what it might be. Just have to wait and see I guess. 

[JJBinks]

That’s good to hear that a significant update is coming. I think I found something that will work. I modified the Roku preset in Handbrake a little and think I have found something that’ll work. I did a few video’s last night, so I‘ll test them tonight and verify it’s working. The first movie did work though.

If the video plays via usb, it should be able to play without transcoding over dlna correct?

[atc98092]

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@JJBinks wrote:

If the video plays via usb, it should be able to play without transcoding over dlna correct?

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I certainly would expect that, yes. I've only used a few MKV files on a USB stick for bitrate testing, so not much experience with playing via USB.