*Official* Roku 2 Media Streamer Thread - Page 23

Hmm, have the same WHS and PlayON. Will have to try that again. Did you upgrade the processor for the EX490? Transcoding might be a little difficult for the Celeron, though it does run at 2.2GHz. Just curious as I have a spare E5200 (the CPU in the EX495) and have been tempted to upgrade in part to make PlayOn run a bit better.

Philip

I did upgrade the CPU (to Intel E8500) and doubled the RAM (to 4GB).

Looks like TWC supports HBO Go on Roku Now - here



cheers

You might be getting VUDU ....

http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/06/walmart-roku-vudu-leak/

My BD player will hardly get any use if that happens. I might sell it and put up with the noise and power consumption of my PS3 for the rare instances of my watching a BD.

Looking at getting a Roku (still deciding between that or ATV). Is it worth getting the 1080p-capable devices? From what I've read elsewhere there really are very few channels offering 1080, and there's little noticeable difference between the ones that do and the other 720p channels.

Most importantly Netflix has 1080p encodings, available if you can sustain 6-7 Mbps on your connection to their servers. Whether they make a difference for you or not can be checked out with screencaps from forum member msgohan's "Netflix PS3 streaming comparison PIX" thread. There you'll find the same frame of titles from Netflix taken from the 720p and 1080p encodings which can be compared side-by-side. (I suggest the bottom pair of frame in this post, chosen for its plethora of tiny little details).

To compare these, I usually open them in separate tabs of Chrome (I prefer Chrome because fullscreen means fullscreen--no scrollbars if the resolution is the same or less than your monitor is set for). Load the tabs and hit F11 to switch to fullscreen, then hit CTRL-TAB to flip back and forth.

EDIT: Hmmm--there seems to be something weird there. When I open these, I don't get the 1080x1920 images that used to be available. I thought it might be this forum software but I tried downloading them with GetRight and get the same reduced images. There's no sense in comparing the reduced ones that pop up now. (I've got some of them saved, but when I upload them to the forum they get hugely reduced in resolution). I've alerted msgohan by PM; maybe he can solve it.

This new forum software sucks so very hard I'm surprised it doesn't implode. What made them switch from vBulletin to this crap is beyond me. The days of AVS Forum being cool to use are behind us.
Edited by michaeltscott - 6/7/12 at 3:35pm

Well, I sure can't spot any difference in 720 vs 1080 in those thumbnails! Realistically though, would my untrained eye be able to discern any difference in 720 or 1080 as a movie was playing? I probably could if you put two still shots right in front of me side by side, but I don't plan on using my Roku for that We've been watching through the Xbox 360, which is 720 I believe, and have no complaints.

The connection speed shouldn't be a problem, either.

Comparing those images from the titles of that movie that I linked to, the difference is slap-in-your-face clear. It's like looking at the same picture through an out-of-focus lens. Whether you can see it or not is not something that I can predict.

At Amazon right now, the Roku 2 XD is $70 (as it is at Roku with free shipping). Roku wants $60 & shipping for the Roku 2 HD; with ground shipping the price is identical. You can get a refurb XD from Roku for $60 with free shipping. Might as well get a model with 1080p.

Netflix and VUDU offer 1080p. Yes, its worth getting a device that supports that. You can tell a difference certainly, even on smaller screens. If you're paying for the service each month, get the most out of it as you can.

I guess I have my answer then - I can see some very, very subtle differences. Nothing that I think I'd notice though in a moving scene.

This is probably the best argument I've heard, actually. I think I'll go ahead and order the 2 XD from Amazon like Mr. Scott suggested.

What exactly is the basis of that thought? Every frame will be just as soft as the previous one. Perhaps blurred moving objects won't be much different, but background details are going to be sharper in 1080p. An example might be broadcasts of tennis matches on ESPN (720p) and NBC (1080i), a comparison I've made--on the former, shots of the net are blurry mess, but nice and sharp in 1080i. Of course, 720p is supposedly better for sports in general, though maybe not tennis, since the focus is on only a handful of moving objects, unlike football or similar team sports or various kinds of races.

Well, I see that you've decided to buy the higher-spec product already, so it's not worth arguing .
Edited by michaeltscott - 6/9/12 at 2:21pm

Anyone know the Minimum MBPS for the Roku ?......


Thanx in Advance

Roku runs dozens of different video services and all of them will have different bandwidth requirements. Presuming that you're talking about Netflix (and this goes for any device streaming Netflix, not just Roku), a title with HD video will have encodings at 235-, 375-, 560-, 750-, 1050-, 1400-, 1750-, 2350-, 3600- and 4800 Kpbs. 2350 and 3600 are 720p24, 4800 is 1080p24 and all the rest are 480p24 (p30 for older TV or p25 for British content). Add 192 for stereo sound or 384 for 5.1 channel DD+ (for that subset of titles with 5.1 sound). Multiply by 1.3 and you'll get roughly the amount of bandwidth necessary to sustain that encoding. This will vary a little with the title, since the encodings are typically highly variable bit rate; you might manage to stream the 1080p encoding of a non-action title for significantly less bandwidth than the 6.7 Mbps that my forumula indicates.

There are so many encodings because Netflix on newer devices (and PS3, Xbox and the PC web player) uses some tech called Adaptive Bit Rate Streaming. To put it in simple terms, the player will read content as fast as it can until it fills it's buffer; if it cannot keep the buffer full with its currently selected encoding it will request the next lower quality, lower bit rate encoding; if it's keeping the buffer full easily it will try a higher bit rate encoding with higher picture quality. If it changes encodings it will do it smoothly without pausing; on the best players this looks like the focus of a lens becoming gradually sharper or softer. The bit rate that a player can keep up with depends on multiple factors, principally available bandwidth on your connection to Netflix's servers and those servers' current responsiveness; if you can accept content faster than your server can find time to shovel it to you, it won't do you any good. Note that available bandwidth on your connection to Netflix's servers is somewhat independent of your Internet service's rated speed--that's only a limit, and you're not guaranteed to get that on a connection to any arbitrary node on the net.
Edited by michaeltscott - 6/8/12 at 11:07am

Dave Zatz has update the story about this on his blog to indicate that he's been told by Roku that the VUDU logo was a Walmart misprint.

So I've had a Roku 2 XS for about two weeks and have really enjoyed the stability, ease of use, and quality. However, I noticed both on Friday and Saturday night, that our streams from Netflix would randomly get incredibly pixelated and full of artifacts. It looked like the image quality dropped to below standard def (the look you often see when your stream first loads, as it ramps up quality). These were HD titles, and they were at prime time (around 9 - 10 on Friday and Saturday evening). I connect wired to my modem and have Charter cable 12 Mps package, but everytime I do a speed test, day or night, I get anywhere from 12 -16 Mbps down. After some phone time wasted with Netflix, and then double-checking with my ISP in terms of anything they could "see" wrong, I called Roku. I was told by the CSR that I should "refresh" the connection between the TV and Roku player by turning them both off, unplugging the HDMI cable and reversing the ends (yes, take the end that was in the Roku and stick in the TV and vice versa), plug them back in and see how things go. Has anyone heard of such a "fix"? What could this possibly accomplish?

Back to reality here, does anyone else with a solid high speed internet connection still experience this quality drop during peak times, probably due to Netflix server traffic? Do I just need to get over the fact that for $8/month (very small price for the amount of content), it's going to wane during peak usage times? Or, do I just need to reverse my HDMI cable? LOL.

The HDMI cable reversing seems like complete and utter nonsense.

I know. I think it tops the charts on some of the things I've heard out of the mouth's of CSR's. No offense intended if that is your job...if you are on this forum, you are probably a really good one.

...or could you also say, "utter bovine fecal matter"?

I don't think that reversing the HDMI cable does anything. On the other hand, disconnecting and reconnecting both ends of a HDMI cable several times can wipe the contacts and make a better connection.

It's possible that the HDMI cable wasn't fully seated and when he reversed the cable he seated it fully.

Randy

Has there been any info on a new line of Roku boxes this year?

I agree with this statement, but my case is that basically the resolution is changing from 1080p to something really low like less than 480p, then back up solid. In my experience, I poorly seated HDMI cable causes complete drop-outs or flickering black screens, not pixelization and artifacts.

It did cross my mind to say that (I used the phrase in a PM to Gracepreacher).

Other than the Roku Streaming Stick I haven't heard anything (and only very late model televisions will have the MHL port required for it).

I also connect my Roku 2 XS via Ethernet. There have been occasional moments when the picture dropped back from HD to poor-definition. If it doesn't go back to HD within a minute or so, I just stop the program and go back to the Roku menu showing the instant queue for Netflix. When I restart, the film or TV show, it goes back up to high-def and stays there. So these are occasional blips, I assume this is something happening either on Netflix or that there has been a temporary slowdown of my internet service (via cable modem).

The idea of reversing the HDMI cable sounds like B.S. to me, too--but it does do the same thing as my procedure: You are exiting Netflix and restarting the program. But the tech's advice reminds me of a Dell tech person who told me to unplug my computer for a few minutes "to let all of the bad electrricity evaporate."

One thought that comes to mind is to immediately use some other streaming player, like a PC, to try the very same movie. If it looks the same on another player then it's an issue with Netflix and your network's connection all the way back to them. It's not just about your speed to the ISP, it's also about the ISP's speed to the Netflix content distribution network. You could have a very fast connection to your ISP, but if their links over to Netflix are slow then your link speed would be irrelevant. Testing the playback on another device or computer is one way to narrow down where the problems lie.

I'm coming to understand that there is this also this issue of my speed between me and the Netflix servers. Though Netflix doesn't like to talk about this. So the question is, what can be done to increase the speed to the Netflix servers? Anything?

Thanks, pbarak, for the info sharing. Can I ask how often you see this? What is your typical ISP connection speed?

It wasn't just you. I had the same issue.

Ah ha!

So is this a Roku thing? Netflix thing? A Roku with Netflix thing? Because I have not noticed this on my other streamers...they tend to just rebuffer if something gets really rough...not sure which is worse honestly...it was a pretty ugly picture.