*Official* Roku 2 Media Streamer Thread - Page 31

Sorry, should have mentioned this was on VUDU. The OPPO is a blu-ray player. The ROKU looks like a large thumb drive that plugs into one of the three HDMI ports on the player. I will try one of the other HDMI ports and see if that makes a difference. Thanks for your concern.
Edited by elphillips - 3/2/13 at 11:44am

Did you try it just plugged straight into your TV, not looped through the Oppo? Do that first to rule out the Oppo as a possible problem.

But it's more likely an issue with the speed and throughput of your home network internet connection, not the Roku. What does using a website like speedtest.net have to say about your internet speeds? Not just what your ISP says you get, test it. If you don't have a fast enough link then just about any player is going to have problems, not just a Roku. Some might hide this better for you by defaulting to a lower resolution or silently dropping back.

That and did you have other big transfers going on at the same time? Like something else downloading or streaming? Those would also affect streaming performance.

So I doubt it's the Roku as the problem there...

Thank you, I'll check the network speed out. This ROKU device is sold by OPPO specifically for their players. http://www.oppodigital.com/proddetail.asp?prod=RokuSSB

That's a product called the "Roku Streaming Stick"; anyone can buy it and use it with any device with an MHL input.

You can test available network bandwidth in your VUDU player, under the My VUDU tab "Info & Settings" section. It'll tell you the best quality level you can currently handle. I think that have to sustain a minimum of 6 Mbps for HDX, and 9 Mbps for the highest quality.

I moved the Roku stick from the front of the OPPO player to the rear, giving it a little better line-of-sight to the router. This got the Vudu signal up to 4.5 which Vudu says I can use HDX. That must be barely the minimum. I'll will contact my provider, Cox, and see if I can upgrade my download speed. Speedtest.net shows 34.01 currently. I appreciate your help very much. Learned a good deal about Roku this morning.

My provider is increasing my internet speed from 50 Mbps to 150Mbps. That should do it.
Edited by elphillips - 3/2/13 at 12:44pm

If the 34.01 is Mbps that's more than sufficient for Vudu HDX. What device did you measure the 34.01 on and how was it connected to the router - Wired or Wireless?

It sounds like the issue is your Wireless connection speed to the Roku.

What kind of router and at what distance is the Roku from the router?

I don't know that the speed increase is going to get you better wireless speed. Let us know if it does.

4.5 Mbps is the bare minimum for HDX, "1 bar"; 3 bar HDX is noticeably sharper.

It will be like the Phoenix Suns winning their next game by 40 points instead of 10.
30 points they didn't need.

The 34.1 is from speedtest.net, wired from the modem to the router if that is what you are asking. The router is a Netgear and is about 20 feet from the Roku stick. I have ordered a Male to Female HDMI cord which will allow the Roku to be about 15 feet from the router and full line-of-sight.

My DL speed is 11mg and using wireless, I am trouble free on NF 99% of the time. There may be more to your situation than DL speed.

Yes you have plenty of download speed - so it is likely to be the connection between the router and Roku.

Do you know the model number of the Netgear router? How old is it? What wireless standards does it support?

At 20 ft you really shouldn't have problems router unless there is a lot of interference or some other major obstruction between the router and Roku.

You may want to look at this as well.

http://support.roku.com/entries/420570-how-do-i-improve-my-roku-player-connection-to-content-servers

This is correct. It does not that much to deliver a single stream, provided the link isn't also swamped by other traffic at the same time.

I'd wonder how well your wireless network is functioning. Whether you've got interference or other factors that might be slowing it down. One test would be to use a PC connected wirelessly and do the speedtest again. Doing it with a wired connection only tells you the wired speed, not the wireless. That and what netgear router are you using, and how is it's wifi speed configured. Could be it's not a very fast router or it's not configured to use a faster speed.

So figure that stuff out first before dumping on the Roku gear...

Sorry I dumped on the Roku gear. Trying different things, I rebooted the router and now have 9+ on the vudu scale. Mr Kearney is correct. the problem was with the router.

Go search in the roku forums. There apparently is an issue with the vudu channel. I believe it's still not fixed, but I might be wrong.

My son had a 3 year old Linksys router and was having all kinds of streaming problems. Being an Apple fanboy he bought an Apple Airport Extreme router and all his problems disappeared. I personally think there is nothing like a hard wired connection, of course that is not an option with the Roku Stick. My 2XS is connected via Cat6 to a gigabit network to a gigabit router connected to a 50/5 Internet connection, needless to say I don't have streaming problems.

Yes, we know.

He has a very high end blu-ray/streamer (Oppo 105) Assume he's using a Roku stick to USB. I'm disappointed to hear this as I was considering the same setup.

Glad to help. Given all the layers of stuff that's involved it's important to make sure they're all configured right and running properly. Hard to do sometimes, especially when it's only something new that 'seems' to have problems. Lots of times there's been something else going wrong for 'a while' and the new stuff just happens to make it obvious.

There's a lot of crappy routers out there. That and wifi for bulk traffic is just really never a great idea. Combine the two and, well, you've seen what it's like. Me, I favor using a wired connection whenever possible and to keep the wireless network as lightly loaded as possible.

+1

Anyone have a link for info on the new Roku?

Go to roku dot com / streamingstick

Oh, I thought there was a new box or something. Not too many sets 'stick ready' at this point. I'm pleased its the stick, I just bought a new 2.

I have to 2 xs myself. Works great.

Do a Goggle search for "Roku 3"

Dammit, good thing these are relatively inexpensive, I seem to be buying one a year. Of course, my relatives love the hand me downs.

March 8th.

It's March 8th now? I thought people said it was March 6th at first? The same day as the TiVo Mini gets released.

Here it is. http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2013-03/roku-3-remote-sports-a-headphone-jack/

"Sorry, should have mentioned this was on VUDU. The OPPO is a blu-ray player. The ROKU looks like a large thumb drive that plugs into one of the three HDMI ports on the player. I will try one of the other HDMI ports and see if that makes a difference. Thanks for your concern."
Pretty sure you can only plug the Roku stick into the front HDMI port. It's the only one that is MHL.

I rarely use Vudu but had never had a problem until 3 days ago. I rented Argo and was immediately confronted with the dreaded constant (every 45 seconds to 2 minutes) rebuffering on all quality levels. It was simply unwatchable.
So I gave up on Vudu for the night and immediately started streaming Amazon and Netflix HD with absolutely no issues. The problem was clearly Vudu.

The next morning, I tried again. Same thing. After reading up on the Roku forums, I found that I was not the only one to experience such issues with the Roku Vudu channel over the last month or two. First I followed the advice to try and run the speed test from within Vudu. I could NOT even run the test because of a network error. So I followed the next recommendations to delete the Vudu channel, reboot the Roku and reinstall the channel.

That worked perfectly. I then ran the speed test and easily maxed it out. I played Argo without a single hiccup or glitch.

Speculation on some forums is that there is some conflict between Netflix and Vudu Roku channels that Vudu needs to fix since their's is the only one that seems to "break" after using other services.

I don't know. But I do know that I am NOT going to go through that nut roll everytime I want to use Vudu. If it keeps working for me, great. If not, I'll stick with Amazon and Netflix.

Vudu is great for rentals of the newest titles available at the highest streaming resolutions available at a higher cost. But it isn't worth it if it stays buggy.
Edited by Bob58 - 3/4/13 at 7:37pm