Solving playback issues

[erosoft]

Hi ALL, 

This is my first post in the community, usually i found the solution just googleing... but this time... don't know how to solve the issue.

Since last 2/3 months i'm no longer able to play my 4K movies i use to play before. 

When i play the title, system start buffering as usual, but takes more time...then, the movie start for less than 1 sec and re-start buffering.

This is happening only during playing the 4K movies i always use to do it before.

I have a 1080P sony TV as before, no hardware change

All my movies are stored in a NAS connected to my local network by Cable, including my Roku Ultra.

In the Past, i faced similar issues and i found out that there was an issue with one of the Audio Streaming. So i changed to AC3 and it works back, but not this time.

I tried to change streaming mode...from Direct to Transcoded...but still the same issue.

I don't have any other idea...

Anyone of you guys faced same issue in the past?

Will be appreciated.

Thank you so much in advance.

[erosoft]

Hi ALL,

i forgot to mention that i'm using PLEX (always updated with latest version).

So nobody is facing this issue or faced the same in the past. 😞

Thanks

[AZDesertGal]

I am having the same problem when streaming movies using Plex.  I don't have a clue what 4K is or if I even have it.

On my TV screen it says something about check a network connection (?) or try a lower quality (?).  Don't have a clue what all this stufff even means.

I guess I will just have to give up and go back to having to pay those enormous cable bills once again.  It was great while it lasted (6-7 yrs).

[StreamerUser]

@AZDesertGal 

Try rebooting/restarting all of your devices (modem/router/gateway/Roku)

Otherwise, you might consider posting over in the Plex forums:   https://forums.plex.tv/

[erosoft]

Thank you for your suggestion.

To be honest, the funny part is that all my 4k (UHD) movies play smoothly via Windows 10 PLEX software.

Anyway, i will try your recommendation, adding rebooting of router and NAS as well, since Roku player has been already resterted several times.

I will post the results

Thanks

[atc98092]

Ripped 4K Blu Ray movies have bitrates that exceed the capacity of the Fast Ethernet connection on any wired Roku device. No device has a Gigabit Ethernet connection. My UHD rips all have a base bitrate between 60-80 Mbps, but there are constant peaks that can approach 200 Mbps. Fast Ethernet cannot handle that. I have never been able to stream my UHD movies to a Roku device. In theory a WiFi connection using 802.11n or .11ac should have sufficient bandwidth to handle the UHD movies, but I've never been able to make it work. It's one of the reasons I also use an Nvidia Shield on my two large screen TVs, since it has a Gigabit Ethernet connection.

They only way you can watch ripped UHD movies on a Roku is to limit the bitrate at the server. Plex can do this, but your server must have a lot of CPU power to transcode UHD bitrates. And if you do that, you'll most likely lose HDR/Dolby Vision encoding. When I've watched HDR content on a non-HDR display, it looked very dull. I would expect transcoded HDR content to have a similar issue.

[KSrB2000]

That's a cop out.  They can buffer the data.  My AppleTV has no problem playing 4K videos in the same that my Roku Premiere fails.  With a wireless ac connection you should have no problem getting speeds fast enough to play 4K.

[atc98092]

Roku devices cannot buffer much. Some devices have 512 MB of operational memory, a few have 1 GB, and the Ultra 4800 has 2 GB. From what I can find online, the Apple TV 4K has 3 GB or more of operational memory, as well as onboard storage. No Roku device has onboard storage. They have channel storage, but that can't be used for operational purposes, and it's not enough to make a significant difference anyway.

802.11ac has great theoretical speed, but not every device that supports it can meet those speeds. Other things can be a bottleneck, including the processor in use, as well as the wireless chipset. I have a number of test videos that have different video bitrates that I can play from an attached USB drive. My Ultra 4800 does OK up to about 125 Mbps, but then it begins buffering. Over 150 Mbps is unwatchable, and I have UHD movie rips that easily exceed that in peak bitrates. Personally, I can't enjoy watching anything that buffers at all.

Remember that Roku players are primarily designed for Internet streaming. As such, they don't expect to see bitrates much in excess of 25 Mbps. Considering even 1080 Blu Ray rips can exceed 50 Mbps, I think Roku devices do pretty well overall for local media. But they weren't designed for that. They don't support the type of captions used on DVDs or BS discs. They don't support bitstreaming any lossless audio codecs, except perhaps LPCM. But they won't do TrueHD-Atmos or DTS:X. 

Honestly, if you want a media player that gives your the best experience for playing ripped local media, you need an Nvidia Shield. There is no other player that can do what it does, including an Apple TV. It supports almost every audio and video codec. It supports any type of caption. It has a Gigabit Ethernet connection. But as great as it is for local media, it still has a few things it can't do that a Roku can. This includes YouTube HDR, and the new Ultra 4800 support the AC-4 audio codec, which will become more important over the coming years. 

At this time, there simply isn't a single media player that does it "all". You will find a number of users on this forum, as well as other AV forums, that advocate for having multiple players. Until the day comes that there really is one that does everything, having multiple players is a necessity. 

[KSrB2000]

Love your knowledge and the detail Dan!  They should be paying you!

Honestly that should be the answer to about 75% of these open playback issues with local playback.  Buy an AppleTV or Shield if you care about local playback.