Roku Profile Needed - Now Supports DLNA

Hi DonPearson,
I don't believe the profiles have changed, however there is a new Roku Media Player that turned off ff and rew for all transcoded files. are you interested in testing a beta version of the Roku Media Player? Are you a member of the Roku forums and would you be interested in joining the beta program for Roku Media Player?
dale

Yeah I would like to test a beta version of Roku Media Player, yes I'm a member of the forums user donpearson

i sent a pm to donpearson on the roku forum.

I've tried the proposed profile and it seems to work well so far. The only issue I've had is an AVI with the following details. The video plays, but takes a long time to buffer and does not respond to fast-forward or rewind commands and is not allowed to resume--only start from the beginning.

Format : AVI
Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave
File size : 701 MiB
Duration : 1h 52mn
Overall bit rate : 867 Kbps
Writing application : VirtualDubMod 1.5.10.1 (build 2366/release)
Writing library : VirtualDubMod build 2366/release

Video
ID : 0
Format : MPEG-4 Visual
Format profile : Advanced Simple@L5
Format settings, BVOP : 2
Format settings, QPel : No
Format settings, GMC : No warppoints
Format settings, Matrix : Default (H.263)
Codec ID : DX50
Codec ID/Hint : DivX 5
Duration : 1h 52mn
Bit rate : 746 Kbps
Width : 612 pixels
Height : 320 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 1.913
Frame rate : 25.000 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.152
Stream size : 603 MiB (86%)
Writing library : XviD 1.0.3 (UTC 2004-12-20)

Audio
ID : 1
Format : MPEG Audio
Format version : Version 1
Format profile : Layer 3
Codec ID : 55
Codec ID/Hint : MP3
Duration : 1h 52mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 112 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 90.5 MiB (13%)
Alignment : Aligned on interleaves
Interleave, duration : 40 ms (1.00 video frame)
Interleave, preload duration : 504 ms

[atc98092]

The long load times is common with the Roku Media Player. I've recommended to them that the amount of buffer they are building is unnecessary for a local file. I believe they are going to play with that in the near future.

With the Roku, any file that is being transcoded (for me that's almost everything I have) you cannot FF or rewind. Just doesn't work. By "not allowed to resume", do you mean stopping playback and then reselecting the video, or do you mean pausing then continuing without actually stopping the video? I have no problem with pause and resume, and once in a while a file will offer a resume playback option for a video. However, the vast majority of the time I can't resume a stopped movie and it just begins at the start. Most players operate the same way. Unfortunately...

The long load time doesn't seem to be related to the amount the Roku is buffering but the format the video is being transcoded into. In applehttp (hls), the video is transcoded into segments and the list of segments is sent as a playlist to the Roku. Each segment is typically 10 seconds. I've posted a request in the main serviio forum asking for information on whether we can control the creation of the hls format such as the segment length, or the number of segments per playlist.

The hls format allows the Roku to ff and rewind, even when transcoding. My tests show this is working. You will need to use the Roku Media Player currently in beta test and manually install the profile I've provided in this forum thread. I'm not sure how to get the serviio developers to include this in the standard serviio release.

A bug report has been filed at Roku.

[atc98092]

Dale,

I've just tested the default Roku profile on my test server, and compared it to the profile you have posted here. I loaded a Blu-Ray rip, so HD video. It took a long time to load (maybe 15 seconds), and I encountered buffering within 10 seconds of playback beginning. The buffering continues to occur after a couple of minutes at fairly regular intervals. This could be because my test server has much lower power than my main server, and can't transcode as fast. Hitting pause I can see how far the transcoding has gotten ahead of playback. FF and rewind work, but again take forever to reload. Before I switched profiles, it loaded in about a third of the time, but I still encountered buffering.

Loading a DVD rip (SD) loading time was about half the HD loading time. I was surprised to see captions, but then I realized it was a file I burned them into to video. Haven't seen any buffering, so it looks like my test server can keep up with SD video.

I switched FFMPEG from the default version installed with Serviio 1.5.1 with a 64 bit version dated Jan 15, 2015. The SD video still took a while to load (compared to the MP4 below) but I have seen no buffering. I switched to the same HD file. Took 35 seconds to load (I timed it this time), and buffered in the first 10 seconds. Every time I pause it the transcoding is about 30 seconds ahead. However, it looks like transcoding still isn't keeping up, as it's now down to 23 seconds. It does appear that the 64 bit version of FFMPEG can keep up better. I was three minutes in before it buffered again.

I have one HD MP4 with L4.0 encoding. Therefore it plays without transcoding. It loaded quite quickly, and is playing without buffering. According to MediaInfo, it has an average bitrate of 16.5 Mbps and a max of 25. At least for the first few minutes I've played it, there's been no issue with the bitrate. How fast do you think a 2 XS can handle?

So, transcoding to HLS slows the loading time significantly. I hope Zip (or someone else) can offer some suggestions about the control you've asked about.

There seems to be a lot better transcoding control in Serviio than Plex. I did get some instructions on how to alter the hls transcoding parameters and it did seem to help. The transcoding profile we are trying is fairly conservative, trying to make sure we end up with a playable file. Unfortunately it appears that Serviio uses a single monolithic file to contain all the profiles. Plex used to do that, but they switched to separate files for each profile which makes it easier to update individual profiles. What is the original audio codec in your file? What is the original video codec characteristic

[atc98092]

...Unfortunately it appears that Serviio uses a single monolithic file to contain all the profiles. Plex used to do that, but they switched to separate files for each profile which makes it easier to update individual profiles. What is the original audio codec in your file? What is the original video codec characteristic

Hi Dale,

Yes, it has been mentioned that it would be nice for Serviio to support another, user created profile file that isn't overwritten with an update. Also, Serviio actually support two profile files: profiles.xml and application-profiles.xml. It reads both files, but in the second file each profile contains a line that enables or disables it being available. Most are disabled.

Now, you asked about my files. I used a number of them, so I'm not sure which one(s) you were wondering about.

I still have the Serviio-default Roku profile on my main server, so I can switch between them for testing. I even have a few videos that are the same on both machines.

I was thinking of trying to create a custom profile that would avoid audio transcoding to try to lessen the workload. Also maybe have a customer Roku-3 profile that is set to allow higher bitrates through without transcoding.
dale

I've tried a few of the Roku profiles and they all seem to result in extraneous transcoding on my Roku 4 (i.e. files that will directplay and require no modification are getting transcoded).

I'd like a profile that will handle VC-1 -> H264, fix subtitle issues, and generally only transcode when it is absolutely necessary.

Any advice?

[atc98092]

I've tried a few of the Roku profiles and they all seem to result in extraneous transcoding on my Roku 4 (i.e. files that will directplay and require no modification are getting transcoded).

I'd like a profile that will handle VC-1 -> H264, fix subtitle issues, and generally only transcode when it is absolutely necessary.

Any advice?

The Roku profile is rather generic, and is designed to cover all Roku models. I agree that it could be significantly modified for the Roku 4, and even the 3. Be aware that unless Roku has made a significant change, no current player supports the MPEG-2 video codec (except for the Roku TV version), so unless all your videos contain AVC/H-264/MP4 video, they will still need transcoding. All DVD rips are MPEG-2 video, unless you use something to change them. Also, with each new version the processor seems to be able to handle higher video bitrates, so that may worth playing around with as well.

I would suggest that you take to Roku profile, copy it into a new version (make sure you change the name or Serviio won't load), and begin by commenting out all transcoding lines and see what (if any) will play. As you discover unplayable files, determine their audio and video codecs and enable (or modify) only the lines necessary to play that particular file. Remember that Serviio must be restarted after each edit to the profile file. This means the Serviio service itself, not just the console or the DLNA server portion.