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Some questions about media streaming?

PostPosted: Tue Dec 22, 2020 7:35 am
by RileyDylan
Im thinking about getting a Roku streaming stick and Roku Express+ for a couple of tvs and before I do, I wanted to get some experiences that some of you may have had with roku and serviio.
How does it work, Are there any issues or complications?
Does Roku have cinavia protection?
Would you recommend a completely different media streamer altogether?
I have heard good things about roku but I just had those questions in the back of my head and I couldn't find any answers online. I hope that someone can answer some of these questions and I thank you in advance for any and all help related to my post.
Thanks again in advance and have a good day

Re: Some questions about media streaming?

PostPosted: Tue Dec 22, 2020 4:13 pm
by atc98092
The Roku devices are overall an adequate streaming player. I don't give them higher than that because they only support a limited number of codecs and containers. They don't support image based captions (such as DVD or Blu Ray captions). But for general streaming they are quite good. I have a number of Roku players and TVs, and I am the author of the Roku profiles included with Serviio.

I don't recommend the Express. There are far too many users with WiFi connection issues with that player. You mentioned the Express+, which is not a current model. If you were looking at the version with analog outputs, that device was released over three years ago, and replaced with a newer version two years ago. And the newer versions don't have analog. The Streaming Stick is a good player. The latest Roku 4K players also now support AirPlay2.

I've never encountered any copy protection issues with any of my players. I've been using Roku devices for about 8 years now, with Serviio always as my media server.

An absolute top notch player is the Nvidia Shield, using Kodi or MrMC as the player app. But they cost a lot more. They do support virtually all codecs and containers, so no transcoding required. I use them on my two main big screens, along with AV receivers for all the surround channels. The Rokus will bitstream DD and DTS, but not the lossless audio codecs.