Wi-Fi & connectivity

[Badlilstang]

Roku is giving bogus info about needed speeds for 4k play back.  Not happy with my streambar.  This may be accurate for 4k streaming over the internet but those using local network with large files need much faster as I am going far above 50mbps when they claim 25mbps is all you need.  The spike in bandwidth is enormous when you try to fast forward through files that are 4k remux and 90gb in size.  I get a lot don't do this.. but there are many in groups that do and every other wifi device is connecting at full speed yet Roku is limiting  the speed which I have noticed after searching reddit.  My Roku i connecting at 173mbps which they say is more than enough (Average user...sure).  My old 4k fire stick connects at 866mbps which is it's full capable speed.  Both are AC wifi.  I have tested MANY streamers and the Roku is the only one that connects slow and struggles with large 4k content on a local network which is when this speed matters.  It literally chokes the device trying to play these large files yet my weaker devices can play it with less sluggishness.  I do not understand why the wifi bandwidth is so poor on this device.  Even older 802.11N was capable of 300mbps... nearly double what the "AC" wifi card is getting in this device.  Why did you do this Roku?  You only thought about internet streaming services and not local storage like EVERY other streamer our there thought about...

[atc98092]

Roku devices are, for the most part, designed and built for Internet streaming. There's no available Internet streaming provider that requires more than around 25 Mbps for streaming. 

The best speed I've seen from my Ultra 4800 over WiFi is about 205 Mbps. That's more than enough for even the UHD rips I have on my media server. However, the Roku itself can't handle a video stream at that speed. I've tested the 4800 playing test H.265 videos of fixed bitrates using the USB port, so no network interface speed limitations. At 120 Mbps I start seeing an occasional hesitation in playback, and at 160 it's enough to be annoying. My 250 Mbps file is unwatchable because of constant buffering.

Roku devices are not the best available for viewing home media from ripped discs. Not only for the network speed limitations, or the processor limits, but because they won't bitstream the lossless audio codecs. If someone has invested the time and energy to rip UHD discs, and has a display device for watching these videos at the highest quality, they most likely have a sound system that goes along with such a setup. To watch such media with the highest quality image and sound, you need something different. For myself, that's the Nvidia Shield. It has a Gigabit Ethernet jack, and its WiFi is also sufficient for the task. It will play almost any video codec and bitstream any audio codec. It will display the captions from a ripped disc (something else the Roku cannot do). There are also some very inexpensive Android TV based players that do most of this as well. The Onn 4K Streaming Player (Walmart house brand) does everything my Shield does, except for bitstreaming the lossless audio tracks. But the Onn is only $25. I use Kodi as the player on both of them, but there are many other player apps available. 

My support of the Shield does not imply that the Roku products are not worthwhile. For anything other than watching my ripped discs, we still use Roku players on all of our TVs. I still travel with a Roku Stick. A Roku player is still one of the best values for home streaming on the market. The Shield is $150-200, while the great Express 4K+ is only $40.

[Badlilstang]

Dan, I agree and honestly was not aware a streamer of this magnitude like fireTV devices, Apple devices and Nvidia would not be able to connect at full speed AC wireless and handle large local media.  Every other device I have used connects at full AC speed in my home and can handle large bluray remux files.  Even a cheap older 4k firestick handles it better.  I had high hopes for this Roku device but it is clearly not for me.  I am sure it fits 99% of the rest of the population and seems to be just a bandwidth problem away from supporting my needs.  Thanks for the feedback.

[atc98092]

Roku is great for what it's designed for. Even if the WiFi card connected at full .11AC speed, the processing speed would be a limiting factor. While I can successfully play my UHD rips on my 4800 using WiFi, my DLNA server has to transcode the audio to standard Dolby Digital, so I lose the TrueHD/Atmos or DTS-MA/X tracks.

My UHD rips have an average video bitrate in the high double digits, but I have seen peaks exceed 150 Mbps. The Roku seems to handle those brief peaks OK, but if the bitrate gets too high or stays there too long I begin seeing the buffering. 

The unfortunate truth is that there's no single streaming player available that can do "everything". Even the Shield has its limits (No HDR on YouTube, no AV-1 video or AC-4 audio). So most home streamers accept that they need more than one device to cover everything.