Official Roku HD/XD/XDS Owners Thread - Page 12

I am thinking of picking up a Roku box, primarily for MLB.TV. Does anyone have experience with that service that can provide comment? I have read that the 2010 season started off kind of shaky but the quality picked up toward the end. Does anyone else have any experiences to share?

Head on over to the Roku forums - there's a ton of feedback on last season.

http://forums.roku.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=27361

1959 posts on 131 pages in that thread alone. Have fun.

Beta testing of this year's Roku MLB channel is just starting right now.

Apple TV just added MLB.TV also. So that could be an option also.

That was a surprise to me with the latest update to Apple TV. I have both ATV and Roku XDS and thought I would have to wait until the actual season started before I could get the games streamed. PQ is quite good on ATV--I have watched several games this week and am really enjoying the ability to see the Spring Training games.

Didn't realize there was a Roku forum. Thanks!

I called Roku, and they recommended 5mbps for HD movie streaming and HD MKV movie through USB. I didn't know that playing HD MKV movie required internet to operate. It seems that Roku tied everything to internet. Most of the time my internet is above 5mbps, but it drop below 5mbps at high peak once in a while. They said that it will freeze when the internet speed drop below the requirement.

Uh...what? How in the world is local playback through the USB port dependent on your internet connection speed? I don't know who you talked to at Roku, but either they were confused, or you misunderstood what they were telling you. There's no way that's correct.

I repeated the same question several times and I requested him to escalate to higher up technical staff. He put me on hold for two minutes, and he returned with the same answer. If you want to verify it, please try to play HD MKV movie through USB without internet connection (make sure to remove Ethernet cable and disable wireless network from XDS). You'll find out and it'll not work without internet connection. It might work for a while, and it'll look internet connection after a while.

It didn't make sense to me at first. That prompted me to ask this question several times.

With all that said- if you have weak internet connection, I wouldn't recommend Roku XDS for HD streaming or playing HD movie through USB. It never happened to me with the PS3 and my previous HD media player. If the internet connection is weak, PS3 automatically stream at lower version. It never rebooted itself, and the reboots on XDS drove me nut.

Oh, one other thing. If you set the display to 1080P on XDS, it may freeze when you try to play 720P video or wise versa. After I heard all of these things from their tech, I'm very disappointed. Roku could have configured the XDS similar to PS3 or other HD media players in the market.

If your connection is weak, can you switch to 720p to watch movies?
Thanks
Len

I must admit I've never used my XDS for local playback with the USB port. I use my Dune for local network streaming. I'll have to give the scenario you describe a try.

Having said that, what you describe now is a little different than what you said initially. That is, having a slow internet connection is not exactly the same as no internet connection or local network connection at all. I think what you might be experiencing is some sort of issue related to the Roku pinging to see if it's connected to your network and/or the internet, and running into a problem when it doesn't get a response because you've completely disconnected it from everything. I do know it is fairly aggressive in this regard, pinging your network at very close intervals. Having said that, I can't believe having an internet connection of less than 5Mbps would in anyway affect your ability to play HD MKV files locally through the USB port. I'm guessing if anything, it just needs an internet connection period.

Do you experience playback issues when you disconnect your local network from the internet, but leave the box connected to your local network? Just wondering if the problem is related to local network connectivity or just internet connectivity.

If this is truly an issue, I'm a little surprised it hasn't shown up all over the Roku forums. Although, I guess most people wouldn't be using it as a stand-alone USB player not connected to your local network and the internet.

I thought that I'm very clear on several scenarios. With weak network connection, it’ll play HD videos through streaming and USB but it’ll freeze the player and reboot. It might not happen at the beginning of the movie, but it’ll freeze and reboot. Without network connection, it will not stream any video and it'll not play HD MKV video through USB either. You can try it by disconnect the Ethernet cable and disable wireless network from XDS. I'm not sure why Roku decided to setup and configured XDS this way. The display setting has to match HD MKV video format to play movie through USB too. If the movie is in 720P format, the display has to be set at 720P.

Unfortunately, the HD 720P and 1080P formats are set at the same spec for the network connection requirement in XDS. But for the display setting it has to match the video format to play HD MKV movie through USB (I'm not certain with the streaming display setting).

It is the first time I encountered HD media play setup and configured this way. I owned and own several well known HD media players (PS3, Xbox, Iomega, etc).

This is not true. I know this for a fact, as I've been tinkering with USB playback and all my MKV files all week...... trust me. I have my XDS set to 1080p and 5.1 for audio. I downloaded 'Jackass 3' in MKV 1080p and the rip must have been bad, because it kept reloading constantly during the intro of the movie. I then downloaded a 720p MKV of the same movie (with DTS 5.1 sound ) and it played back great, just a few hiccups on my surround sound here and there, but the picture was superb. I did not change my settings either, I kept it on 1080p for video source.

I've had my Roku since last November, for what its worth

I've been posting on the Roku forums about my frustrations with certain MKVs working and others not working.

Here's the thread for those who are looking for more info:

http://forums.roku.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=36754


I posted this the other day:

"I've been nothing but frustrated trying to play my MKV files lately.

I've read over all the posts in this thread and still cannot figure out why certain MKV 1080p movies play fine, where others are constantly reloading the progress bar and hiccuping my surround sound.

I thought the Roku USB playback was my answer to a long 2 weeks of nothing but frustration from my Samsung PN63C550 plasma and its inadequate USB playback functionality.

I've come to the conclusion that I'm just asking too much from these devices and the sad reality is neither my Roku XDS or my Samsung PN63C550 are capable of rendering high volume 1080p MKV movies. May it be the processing power or something else, we are in the infancy stages of this wonderful idea for technology.

As I sit here typing this very post, yet another MKV movie is constantly reloading and driving me nuts.

I'll keep trying to figure out the bitrate problem and hopefully I can get a decent parameter of what an MKV file should have."

Well you don't have to take my word for it. You can call Roku to find out. I was told by the lower tier of Roku technical staff and he escalated to higher tier. They all told me the same way. If you want to avoid hiccup and trouble free playback, the display setting have to match with HD MKV format.

I have been using HD media players forever, and I don't have any problem with playback HD formats. Since I bought the Roku for streaming, I removed the other HD media players because I'm lack of room for everything in my entertainment center cabinet. I don't like cluttering my entertainment center either.

With all that said, when XDS is playing the video and audio from HD MKV formats are great. It is slightly better than my previous HD AVI format on other HD media players.

I hope that Roku can come up with more firmware to smooth out their XDS playback in the near future.

Have you had any of your MKV files not play?

Cause mine are hit or miss. Some play and some won't even load. I don't know if it's the bitrate or just a bad torrent.

Any ideas?

How is Stockton, CA? I used to live there in the entire 80's to late 90's.

All my HD MKV movies played on XDS fine. As I stated, it reloaded and rebooted whenever my internet connection is weak especially during high peak time.

I need a better COX modem!

Now come to think of it, I watched HD movies and HD shows on PS3 and DirecTV2PC all these times and it is on the same network as the XDS. I never encountered any issue with weak internet connection with it. I never have any hiccup with PS3 and DirecTV2PC playback. The HD video and audio are always great on it.

Why is XDS having issue with weak connection on the same network? It must be an issue with its firmware or hardware. If my network connection is weak, I should encounter the same problem when streaming on PS3 and DirecTV2PC.

If Roku is reading this, please look into these issues. XDS shouldn't reboot itself when network connection is slightly fluctuated, the operation of USB shouldn't rely on network connection and third, we shouldn't have to set the display setting to match the video format for XDS to operate properly. Thanks.

I hope that no one will say this- PS3 and DirecTV2PC are playing and streaming HD video very well because it is a lot more expensive than XDS.

I wouldn't count on anyone from Roku reading your post here. Your best bet would be to post in their forums:

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

Crowded! LOL

I've lived here all my life (I'm nearly 29) and it's more crowded than ever. City is laying off people left and right, housing market is very bad, we were just named "Most Miserable City in America" by Forbes

But in reality it's not that bad, I live on the west part of the city, so it's nice to me.

As for the problem at hand, I've noticed any MKVs over 10GB have major issues. I have about 4 or 5 10GB+ MKVs that refuse to play. I've noticed if you keep it under 10GB, there doesn't seem to be a problem. I've also noticed if you include "1080p" in the file name, the Roku seems to process it better. I just downloaded 'The Fighter' in 1080p MKV, about to test it out right now. We'll see how it goes.

I've also switched from my 16GB Lexar retrax flash drive to my Western Digital 1 TB USB 3.0/2.0 passport and the files seem to be playing better off of this drive.

I'm conducting a ton of trial and error processes to see what the best MKVs are to use.

Like I said before, some of mine play flawlessly and some refuse to even load, which drives me nuts. I for one am done with MP4 all together, they don't seem to like the Roku at all, and I cannot for the life of me get surround sound to work with an MP4. The MKVs on the other hand play surround sound everytime.



I still fail to see the correlation of the network connectivity with the Roku's ability to playback data over the USB drive. I guess the only way to fully test this is to unplug my modem and kill my internet and then see if I can playback a file via USB.

I just got Comcast installed the 1st of this month, couldn't stand crappy AT&T and their horrible DSL service. I'm now getting ~20Mbps down and 2-3 Mbps up during the day. Much better than DSL and their sub 1Mbps downstream during the daytime!

I'll be sure to report back here with my findings as my trial and error process' go on.

Upgrade to Cox's best package:55mbps down/8mbps up and get a DOCSIS 3.0 modem. Mine's blazing fast!

It is more fun in Stockton in the 80's. I know all about housing bubble there. My mother and my brother's families still live there. I still visit them one or twice a year. They are at Weston Ranch and my mother live in the North side of town.

All my HD MKV movies are in 1080P and it work great on my HTC PC and my previous HD media player. When the connection is stable, the video/audio playback are great on XDS.

It is beyond me too. I never have this problem with my previous HD media player. If you want to try it, you don't have to disconnect the modem. You can disconnect the Ethernet cable to XDS and disable wireless on it.

I believe Stockton had the pleasure of being the city with the most houses under water with their mortgages than any other city in the country. Other than that, it's close to Sacramento....

I have the COX Preferred option, and it work fine when streaming HD video on PS3, Vudu and DirecTV2pc. Vudu gave me the highest HD version every time with the same network.

There must some limitation with XDS current firmware. I hope that Roku will come out with an update soon!

You can blame all the smart investors from bay area for the housing bubble in the central valley. They invested in it during the housing boom, but they retreated after the housing market collapsed!

Let get back to Roku...and sorry for brought up Stockton to this discussion.

I have an older non HD tv

Would the $59.99 roku be fine just for Netflix & hulu also the other free channels ?


The tv is not 720p or 1080p its standard

And theres no hdmi slots in the tv

I dont plan on hooking up a drive to it

Since your TV is a standard TV, I would say that the $59 model is fine. If you want a better wireless connevitivity, I'm recommending the $79 model: Roku

Yep. The $60 one will work fine as it has a composite video and 2 ch analog (RCA) outputs. Can't comment on the wireless as both of my rokus are wired.

If/when you update to a newer TV with HDMI, it will work with that one too.

-Suntan

According to THIS thread at the Roku forums, having "1080p" in the filename is what triggers playback in 1080p.

Are you saying that Avatar.mkv need to rename to 1080P_Avatar.mkv? If that is true, it is terrible. I don't think that it is true. There is no 1080P in any of my HD 1080P MKV movie file. It playbacks fine most of the time, especially during the off-peak hour of the network. It is still terrible. I never have any problem streaming or playback any HD video using the same network with my other HD sources at anytime of the day.

If the speculation is true, it has to be a firmware flaw in XDS!

Yes, that's what the post says - "1080p" in the filename is what triggers 1080p playback. Like I stated earlier, I don't use my XDS for local playback, so I can't confirm or deny that it's true. That being said, the post I referenced was from a Roku engineer (RokuPatrick), and it's also stated in their support documentation HERE, so I have no reason to believe it's false. Perhaps the fact that you don't have "1080p" in your HD MKV filenames is what's causing part of your problems.

Also note that the support documentation I linked to above states that 1080p playback is at 30 fps by default. You need to add "1080p24", "1080p-24" or "1080p_24" to the filename if it was encoded at 24 fps. 1080p60 is not supported by Roku.