Suggest a Feature

[Lyncredible]

DLNA casting support would be super awesome to have on Roku.

Yes I am aware that Roku Media Player can play videos from a DLNA server. I am not talking about that. This is about DLNA casting, i.e. the Renderer described in this article: iQiYi, Youku, Tencent Video), yet none of them has a Roku channel. MiBox, a direct competitor to Roku products, supports DLNA casting, not to mention that apps for these video providers already exist on android devices. That is a huge competitive disadvantage to Roku, and IMHO it should be addressed ASAP.

[clab]

I agree, DLNA casting would be so useful. Ideally the roku would always present itself as a DLNA renderer, and switch to that as soon as something starts pushing content to it.

With my previous TV I used bubbleupnp to pick videos to watch and start streaming them to a chromecast.
After getting a Roku TV I found myself still using the chromecast just because it is so much more convenient to use.
Even if bubbleupnp supports DLNA casting, I can't use it directly with my TV. The roku media player channel is pathetic
I'm now considering either getting a chromecast ultra, or alternatives to bubbleupnp that allow me to pick what to watch from my phone and don't require a media server running on a PC.

[atc98092]

I'm not saying that it might be a useful function. But I would guess that such a small percentage of Roku users would have any idea such a function even exists that it would be of almost no use. Not a good use of limited development funds and time. And I find the Roku Media Player works just fine with my DLNA server. Not sure why you feel it's "pathetic".

[clab]

The beauty of it is that roku users wouldn't even have to know it exists, they will just notice that third party apps that don't have a roku channel all of the sudden can stream to their roku. No need to wait for a channel to load too! And selecting what to watch from a smartphone is so much better than using a remote.
A quick overview of how it works can be found here https://www.soundandvision.com/content/ ... a-renderer

My judgment of the roku media player mainly comes from the user interface and how clunky it feels. But media formats support is rather good and the ability to play content from dlna servers is there, so I was probably a bit too harsh

[atc98092]

Well, I disagree with your statement that casting from a phone/tablet is "better" than using a single remote, but that's great for you if you do.  😄 I don't like needing another device available to use my player, which is why I don't care at all for a Chromecast. Since the Roku remote also controls my AVR volume, it's all I need to have in hand. 
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That's what is great about free choice, we can all select what we prefer. I agree it would most likely be transparent to most users, but again it has to make business sense for Roku. That means it needs to be a feature that provides a benefit to the majority of users. It's the same reason we don't get lossless audio passthrough, it doesn't benefit enough users to justify the expense of programming and licensing. 

[mc510]

I've asked about this several years ago, then forgot about it, and now in 2019 it really seems like this has become essential for Roku to implement. Screen mirroring/casting has become a commonplace feature, but Roku's compatibility is terrible, and the common response to "buy a Chromecast" is one that should set off alarm bells at Roku HQ. 

Roku relies on Miracast for screen mirroring, but Miracast is poorly/unevenly supported in Windows and Android, and not supported at all in iOS or MacOS (which rely on AirPlay) or ChromeOS (Chromecast only) and in Linux only by wizards. Since there is no universally available mirroring technology, it makes sense to at least fully support the universally available casting technology, namely DLNA. Fortunately, through @RokuChris's Media Player app, Roku already has DLNA support; it just needs to be extended to advertise itself as a renderer. Since this is a standard part of the DLNA specification, I have to assume that it's quite feasible. Now, this would require that a use start up the Roku Media Player app before casting to it, but that's better than nothing. Much better would be for this to run in the background, much as the screen mirroring Miracast function does, popping up an authorization request whenever a device attempts to cast to the Roku ... this, I imagine, could be a much more involved coding project, so I imagine that it makes sense to start by simply having the RMP app advertise itself as a renderer. 

Would only a few people use this? I don't know, but I'm comfortable asserting that it would be used by more people than other features that Roku has added, like Guest Mode. Heck, Google has sold tens of millions of Chromecast devices, so clearly there's user interest in casting. There's also no license fees for DLNA, so the only cost is coding.

[zipbamboom]

Yes, these channels should be added asap - to watch them on television, I currently have to connect my computer via a cord, which is RIDICULOUS!!! There should be apps for these networks.