Official Roku HD/XD/XDS Owners Thread - Page 9

I'm looking for the best possible Netflix box without regard to price and considering the Roku, PS3, and Apple TV as candidates.

Question: How is the Roku scaling?

I have a 1080p TV and I'm not too sure I like it's built in scaler. I'd like to feed it just 1080p video. Can the Roku output 1080p video when receiving both SD and HD 720p streams?

Is the output resolution a selectable option?

I assume that for 99 bucks it can't have a very good scaler.

Has anyone done a side-by-side with the PS3 for PQ?

I do not have a PS3, so can't make a comparison. From what I've read, Netflix provides different streams to different platforms, so any comparison that is made between STB's can be heavily dependent on the stream being fed to each box.

The XD, XDS and the older XR models are capable of playing 1080p24 or 1080p30 video. However, I believe it will only output 1080p when playing content that is fed to it at 1080p. It will NOT upscale SD or 720p to 1080p. I believe it will upscale SD to 720p, though.

The output resolution is selectable, subject to the above stated limitations.

Also, the UI is only output at 720p, even if 1080p is selected.

I got an Apple TV for Xmas. It only does 720p, and on my 82" display doesn't look as good as blu-ray. How good is the 1080p content on the Roku, and is there a lot available. Thanx...

Well I bought both the Roku and the PS3, and the PS3 looks noticeably better on HD streams. I activated debug mode on the Roku and I can see that I am getting a 3.8 mbps stream which I believe is the maximum for HD on that device. On the PS3 I don't know the bitrate, but it says X-High HD in the info window. (Starts at Low SD and ramps up through 6 levels. Pretty cool to watch the PQ improve along the way).

So PS3 is clearly beating Roku XDS at this point. I wonder why though. Assuming they are both receiving 720p streams, it could be the scaler in the PS3 is better than the one in my TV thus putting the Roku at a disadvantage.

There really isn't much 1080p content on the Roku yet. About the only places I think you can get any 1080p content at all is YouTube and Vimeo, which isn't exactly all that useful.

The X-high setting on the PS3 isn't720p. It is 1080p. The PS3 is the only device available today that supports 1080p from Netflix.

The selection of X-high is relatively limited though.

-Suntan

I don't think this is correct. I get X-high on pretty much every HD movie I've viewed so far, and I really doubt they are all 1080. Also, I only have a 6mbps cable modem.

It appears you are right. They talk about it on the second page of the 1080p tracking thread:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1297186

X-high can be either 720p or 1080p. But 1080p is always X-high.

-Suntan

Hello,

I want to buy the roku XDS mainly for Amazon VOD to get the HD Version of the Movies.

For Netflix I use the PS3.

I have some question to this:

a) How high is the price? It is the same price for HD roku Version as the normal PC-Version?

b) What kind of resolution do you have at the Amazon VOD will look this better than the Amazon unbox Version for the PC?

c) How fast should be the internet connection? I'm not from the USA and will use a DNS Service to get into the movies.

Thanks for you help.

How do you connect Roku to Playon?

Is there any word on xhigh, 5.1, or 1080p coming to the Roku or other netflix devices?

You have to install the private PlayOn channel on your Roku. It's not available in the Roku Channel Store. Search the PlayOn forum for the private channel code. Then, of course, you'll need to run the PlayOn software on your PC.

Thank you.
Playon already running, that's why it's important to me.
But, I guess, I just go with DLNA-compliant device, and that's all.

Just received my XDS today. I have two options for the network connection and will report on which one performed better.

I can either "go native" from the Roku using the on board wireless (Dual band) or attach it to my DLink DAP1522 wireless bridge (also Dual band) both paths going to my not-so-great DSL modem/router.

I joined the XDS club yesterday as well.... I've not had too much time to play with it but so far I'm very happy. The picture quality absolutely decimates the Wii (not surprisingly but I was impressed at how much the improvement was).

I've got it hard wired and I have 15Mbs FIOS. On Netflix I get the highest quality HD (when they have HD films). I'm very happy...

The only issues I've noticed is motion "judder" on some movies. The picture quality is great but the motion stutters during horizontal or vertical panning. I played a few minutes of "Up" and there were some scenes that drove me nuts with the non-smooth video motion. Picture quality was beautiful, it was just he motion that was bad. It did not seem like any sort of bandwidth issue... more like the encoding of the stream induced some judder. I also saw this on the Wii with some movies so I don't think it is Roku specific.

I have noticed this on my rokus and my PS3 from time to time. It has never been as bad as on PC playback and like you see, it is only on some, but not all encodes.

Personally, I too think it is on the encode end. Netflix needs to do better quality control on the encodes they make available.

-Suntan

Since there seems to be some new interest in the Roku players, I'll just take a second to point out Vimeo as a good channel to take a look at. Think Youtube but for grownups.

We use it almost exclusively to upload home videos of our kids so the grandparents can watch them, within the vimeo channel on the roku, you can link it to your personal Vimeo account so that all of your videos show up in order on the Roku. Much easier than trying to get grandma to click a video link in an email.

Even if you don't upload video footage on your own, it might be worth a look if you are so inclined as they attract a lot of short movie-type uploads from people trying to make something creative (abet, still amateur) as opposed to the video clips of 15 yr olds making online video reviews of their new webcam aka youtube.

-Suntan

Hi I am new on this forum. I was told I could possibly get some help setting up a Roku box. I have a MacMini running SnowLeopard, hooked to high-speed cable ethernet. It has an AirPortExtreme card. I have it set up to run a password-protected computer to computer network via internet sharing, which makes it act as a router of sorts. The network is fine for multiple wireless devices throughout the house, including a wii box. While trying to set up the roku, it keeps telling me it has detected my main network but cannot connect to my local network. I have had three computer- literate people working on this for several days,including a Mac tech, and we tried all the logical steps we could think of, and the Roku "tech" I spoke with knows less about computers than my sixth-grader. I could not even get it across to him that it was not a Base Station, there is no Airport Utility to log into, etc... Can anyone help, or send me to the right forum?
I really don't want to have to connect this thing via ethernet, and I will not buy a router just for it.

Have you tried asking your question at the Roku forums? Here's a link to the Roku Streaming Player General Discussion section, which is probably the most appropriate place to ask:

http://forums.roku.com/viewforum.php?f=28

I am very familiar with the Roku boxes, but unfortunately I'm not a Mac guy, so can't help you there. Good luck!

Got the XDS hooked up and registered yesterday.

Started with using the wireless Dual band option and the picture, so far, has been excellent. For Netflix, during the "retrieving" process I get the four "dots". See no reason to switch to a wired route (but to the wireless bridge so no gain to speak of I would guess - may be even a step down).

All the HD choices, so far, are being displayed in 720P.

Sound is optical to my 4802 (until the 4310 comes back with the replaced network card).

Have not tried playing music from the PC server yet. Need to establish a Pandora account.

This is normal. Netflix does not have anything better than 720p for their HD content at the moment. I believe the only places you'll currently find any 1080p content on the internet for the Roku are on Youtube (private channel) and Vimeo.

I'm in the market for an easy-to-use Netflix streamer device and the Roku XD|S is currently leading my list. I do have one question that I have not yet been able to find an answer for anywhere else:

Are the composite, component and HDMI video interfaces all simultaneously active, or is only one selectable at a time?

The reason I ask this is that there are times I just want to casually watch 15-20 minutes of some programme and don't want/need to bring up my full surround sound system and receiver. If the Roku were to support simultaneous output resolutions, I would connect the component (or composite) video as a direct run with analogue audio to the display for casual viewing, and then have the HDMI connected to the receiver (and then on to the display HDMI input) for longer session viewing.

The goal here is to not have to engage the receiver for brief viewing intervals when all I would really need was display + Roku.

Yes, I believe all video and audio outputs are active simultaneously. Here are a few posts on the Roku forums which seem to confirm:

http://forums.roku.com/viewtopic.php...151335#p151335
http://forums.roku.com/viewtopic.php...36333&p=234904
http://forums.roku.com/viewtopic.php...117704#p117704

Excellent, thank you hps70w.

Same here.... Thanks. So far this is a great addition to my home theater and the content access and picture quality is exceeding my expectations.

Roku screwed up my access to their site/forums a few days ago. I emailed every contact point they have on their site and the only reply i received was the assigned a case number to my problem. It wouldn't seem rocket science to resolve a user name/password problem. Has anyone had a similar problem if so how did you resolve it.
With the Netflix problems i see in this forum would like to do some more research before i drop a c note on Roku. At first glance their support seems to be a bit shaky to say the least.

Roku released the Roku USB Media Player today, it supports MKV, unfortunately almost my entire collection is in the .ts container. I hope they add support for .ts soon.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/01/a...nnel-mkv-cont/

MKV!

I don't have a Roku, but this is good news nonetheless.

SWEET!!! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

"We're told that MKV playback has also been added"

The vast majority of my collection is mkv and I've been hoping this upgrade might come along sometime. I guess I should temper my enthusiam until I download the new version and try but this is excellent news that they are trying to open up the USB to play other formats.

I would definitely temper your enthusiasm until you try your mkv files. The new USB channel supports h.264 inside the mkv container, but unless they've loosened up their codec settings requirements as well, compatibility could certainly be an issue.