Official Roku HD/XD/XDS Owners Thread - Page 6

That's exactly how I would have it setup. If you don't mind the long reboot time when you change resolutions on the Roku, you can set it to 480 for SD contents and 720 for 720 contents. That way upscaling is done only once and by the most potent piece of gear in the chain (the 1120).

Thats fine, I have mine at 720p, then my Duo scales it to 1080p for the set.

On Hulu+, I dropped the free week, because the HD PQ is very unimpressive.

Ive been looking at the Roku XD closely today. With all my effort the past year going into my theater, my wife has been a gem about letting me be.
She doesnt like movies as much as old TV series and I'd like to get streaming up into the living room.
Can anyone comment on Standard Definition PQ comparison between the Roku (streaming Netflix SD) and Dish network SD? My 7mbs wireless is likely light for HD but my main goal is acceptable SD.

You should have no problem with 480p SD with that bandwidth.

Vudu Test 1 Mbps
YouTube Test 1.5 Mbps
SpeedTest.net 2.5 Mbps

Download speeds.

I set my Roku to 480p Anamorphic.

I directly compared the same movies streamed from Netflix (and available in HD) with the 720p setting and the 480p Anamorphic setting. The 480p setting looked much better. Also less buffering. I almost never get buffering stops on Netflix with my DL speed and Netflix with the 480p Ana setting.

Hope that helps.

Thanks Escape,

Yes that helps alot. Good tip on the 480p setting. I ended up buying a repop HD-XR from Rokus ebay store. The one year warranty direct made it easier to gamble a bit, but we'll see on that

I can't compare it to DISH but to my eyes it looks better than SD on FiOS, sometimes a lot better. I was watching old episodes of "The Pretender" on Hulu Plus and I was pleased with the PQ. "The Highlander" looked soft and oddly colored but that may be the way it was shot.

Be aware that the Roku is extremely sensitive to placement, at least when using Wi-fi. My XD is located in my bedroom and can give me fits on the video end at times. As an experiment, I moved it about five feet, to the other side of the wall into the living room. It worked like a dream. The issue wasn't bandwidth (I have FiOS 25/25) but what I'm guessing is a very small Wi-fi antenna that has low tolerance for interference.

By chance, is the Roku USB tied in to the wifi, like a PC motherboard?
I have 'extended' the range on my htpc before with a zonet antenna, and using a 15' monoprice Mini-B/USB cable. Its a lot more practical to position the small antenna.

Another note.

There is also a 480p Letterboxed setting.


These settings also affect the speed of the navigation system, with load times. 720p is agonizingly slow (with MY Download Speeds). 480p Letterboxed is noticeably faster than 480p Anamorphic. But I split the difference on video quality and speed.

I dont know about that, but I have no problems using Wireless G to connect. Buffalo WHR-HP-G54.

I have an older style discontinued Roku HD, just acquired this month, I wanted the Roku HD-XR with the Wireless N, a USB Port and 1080p upgradability, but went with the $50 used HD instead, just to test the waters. I didnt have the bandwidth or a Wireless N router, so, no big deal really. Ill upgrade in the future if need be. I do like the extra connections on the older boxes though Im not using them currently.

PS Extoker

Im not saying that 720p wont look better on your setup with more bandwidth. Its just that I lacked the bandwidth for it, and because of that, 480p Anamorphic looks better on my setup.

At 480p Anamorphic, I am basically getting DVD quality (which I find pleasing on the 42" 1080p LCD Vizio). Technically I dont have the throughput of DVD (10 Mbps), but I am very pleased with the quality non the less.

Netflix does drop the quality to 3 and sometimes 2 dots.....2 dots is getting into objectionable but still watchable territory, on the 42" screen, especially dropping detail in dark areas of the screen. However with your bandwidth, even if its really only half of 7 MBps (I think I have 3 MBps DSL), you should be OK.

I'm just looking for 'quality' 480p so I should be good I think. I can get 12mbps but am reluctant as our area isnt plumbed with fiber optic. That means my upload speeds for other tasks are limited. The tradeoff isnt worth it to me for the added $$. I'll just get the disc if needed.
If I can get good 480p with little/no buffering, I'll be happy. Our Sammy 40" does a pretty good job of scaling, so we should be able to find a good mix somewhere.

Thanks

I have a couple questions for you Roku owners out there:

Does the unit go into standby or could I leave it on 24/7/365?
I know there are various channels to choose from. Is it possible to never leave one channel?

I'm asking these questions because I'm looking for a way for my grandmother to be able to watch some TV in her nursing home. I thought a streaming box would be better than a DVD player because she wouldn't have to switch discs or have to deal with a complicated remote. Something like this would have to be stupid proof for her to use it, though. I don't want her to have to worry about turning it on (hence the standby mode question) or finding her content (I figure when I set it up I'll choose one channel, probably Amazon VOD, and leave it. I want her to never have to find that channel from the channel list again, hence my second question).

If you can think of any other potential issues, I'd be very grateful to hear them.

It does not get shut off, it'll go into standby with a screen saver.

I'd be curious about this answer too. My media system is clear across the house from where the DSL antenna is. And would be willing to use the USB port to use an external antenna if that was an option (had to do that for one of the kids upstairs for their PC).

very new to Roku, would like to buy the Roku XDS. does anyone watch Xvid/Avi files via their home network? I use Windows Home Server and also Playon and I can get my Sony BDP-s370 to play these files. Would like to mess with the Roku XDS and see if this works.

I don't want to connect a local hard drive to the roku rather I'd like to stream these .avi (endcoded XVID) to the Roku and hopefully buy multiple Roku's to put in my kids rooms.

thanks,

/tim

Just off the phone with Roku support. (excellent btw). The wifi will pick up a remote external antenna signal plugged into the USB port. Great range extender

Thanks !!!

Looks like I will be joining the Roku group then as this was my only real concern (well perhaps running out of beer while I set things up but other than that ... )

Assuming you arent a guzzler, if you have one beer on hand you wont run out.

Heh well I think the easy part will be the Roku.

But I have my whole media system controlled via a Logitech Harmony One so the wife can use the system without panicing

So I need to make sure I add a new command sequence into the controller. And I haven't set any codes for the Harmony One in 2 years so it may take me a while to remember how to do that, password to the logitech site, etc.

But now that I think of it, there is no reason to wait for the Roku to set up my Harmony One. I can do that now and have everything ready. That's the ticket

Hello guys. Over on the Roku forums they posted a network remote back in 2009. I just got a XDS and took the remote program and modified it to use the new buttons. They say the older players can use the new functions of the new remotes all you have to do is buy one.

Well here is a program to test it. It also includes the source script so you can modify it and recompile it.

It was done with a program called autoit.

http://www.autoitscript.com


You can get your Roku IP address in the player info menu on your Roku. This uses Telnet to communicate with the Roku and you can telnet to your Roku by Start>run>cmd to get a DOS window and then enter telnet 192.168.1.X 8080 where X is your Roku IP address.

Enjoy!

 

rokuRemote(v2.0).zip 354.728515625k . file

Be aware that the telnet commands are now deprecated and are not guaranteed to be supported in future firmware releases. The External Control API in the 2.7 SDK is the officially supported means of remotely interacting with the Roku.

Roku does not natively support XVID or .avi.

Here is a table of supported file formats and codecs.

Is it even worth it to buy more than the XD, or the HD for that matter, if they aren't suited to streaming content off your local network?

Dual band is definitely nice but by no means necessary for me :P

A component connection and optical out is a necessity for me so I'll be getting the XD/S. I was holding out hoping for a Black Friday or Cyber Monday sale but they only discounted the XD.

Yeah I saw that. I was kinda hoping for an even better deal as well.

Don't you need something extra to use the component connection also?

The XDS component cable is sold separately.

http://shop.roku.com/Webpage2.aspx?WebpageId=2

I have successfully streamed local video content to my Roku using the MyMedia private channel, but that was a LONG time ago, when it first came out. Back then people were still trying to figure out the correct encoding settings in Handbrake to get the files to play past 1 hour -- I think they've got that solved now. Anyway, the 1 hour "bug" that was present back then combined with the tedious effort of re-encoding all my content quickly drove me away from using my Roku for playing back local video content. It's just too much of a hassle, frankly. Especially when you consider there are so many other players out there that do it WAY better and easier. Roku is great for Netflix and other online content, but is severely lacking when it comes to playing local content - especially video.

Sorry I can't be of much help. I would suggest taking your questions to the Roku forums, if you haven't already. There are (very long) threads for each of the private local content channels, where in most instances you can interact with the developer directly.