Serviio

Hey everyone, I have this 2017 Roku Streaming stick and I tried to use it for m3u8s particularly for live streams. I followed previous threads regarding this with the groovy plugin and the online resource thing and I got it work. I was able to access the media server through the Roku Media Player app on my Roku.

But, my problems are these:

When I use the default Roku Media Player profile on Serviio, all of the files show up and it plays with sound but it buffers frequently exactly 10 seconds after the file is played. I assume this buffering is caused by the controlled bitrate that this profile has. I tried tinkering with the Roku MP profile on the profiles.xml through increasing the maxVBitrate but to no avail. I also tried the bandwidth secret menu on the Roku but i can't access it on my device for some reason.

I then tried the Roku 1080 Media Player (2016+) profile as I saw that the bitrate is not controlled in this which I hoped it could relieve my buffering woes. But on this profile, my .m3u8 and .m3u playlists don't show up, only the .ts streams and other video files like .mkv show up. I tried playing a .ts stream and it worked with sound and no buffering but the streams I am looking to play are the .m3u8 and .m3u which don't show up.

I also attempted to use other profiles like the Generic DLNA profile and the streams showed up and it wasn't buffering anymore. However, when I played the m3u files, there was no sound at all.

Here's an example of an m3u8 file (which is in an m3u playlist) that I used which works fine without buffering on VLC's Open Network Stream (Ctrl +N) on PC. It also plays with sound on the default Roku MP profile but it buffers a lot.



m3u8 link: https://gma2.blab.email/fs2.m3u8
other example with same problem: https://content.uplynk.com/channel/ff80 ... 444b5.m3u8

Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

I'm the author of the Roku profiles. You are correct that the default RMP profile bitrate limits all streams. That's because the older players, such as the 2 XS, simply can't handle a bitstream of 20 Mbps or higher. The last versions of the Roku 2 and 3 can probably do better, but the Roku 4 was the next generation that I purchased and I went from there.

Roku only advertises support for PLS and M3U playlists. I have both versions and they work just fine on every Roku device I have, which includes a Premiere, 3 models of Ultra and two different TVs. Your M3U playlist doesn't look anything like mine, which were created using Playlist Creator 3 on a Windows PC.

I also have to mention that Roku has made some significant changes to RMP within the past year, and in the process has broken some functionality. They are actively working to resolve the issues, but I can't say if anything they are doing will resolve your issues.

Looking at the screenshot you provided for the online stream (thanks for that!), I don't recognize the audio codec. I did a quick search and it appears to be form of AAC, but might have some special extension that is the cause for the lack of audio during playback.

There's one other thing that might have something to do with this. The Serviio profiles have a separate section for online transcoding, which I have done nothing with. Assuming Serviio is using that portion of the profile, they are all identical across each Roku profile. Since you are seeing different results with different profiles, maybe it's not using that section. Maybe Zip can respond on how Serviio handles online sources within a playlist file.

Here's an example of an m3u playlist that I used: https://iptv-org.github.io/iptv/categories/sport.m3u

It consists of live m3u8 streams and after checking the media information, most of them have the same ADTS audio codec. It could be possibly using the online transcoding section since all of the videos I am trying to play are streamed online, not stored locally. If Zip could shed some light on this that would be cool.

Temporary solution: I tried playing the m3u playlist on a Chromecast 2nd gen through web casting and it works well, with audio and no buffering. I guess the problem could be the Roku and how they handle these streams, so I'll 'stick' with the Chromecast when playing these files for now rather than the Roku stick (no pun intended lol).

Thanks for the help!