Playon for Roku Feedback

[dreinhard]

I have been using skyber Playon Channel for about 1 month now and have tried the new one for the past week. I did have SOME Success by changing the video quality setting from Auto to medium on the Playon settings(obviously, stopping the restarting the Palyon service). I still do get some rebuffering but far less than before. If anyone tries this, post your results so we can see if it makes a difference.

[scyber]

I have been using skyber Playon Channel for about 1 month now and have tried the new one for the past week. I did have SOME Success by changing the video quality setting from Auto to medium on the Playon settings(obviously, stopping the restarting the Palyon service). I still do get some rebuffering but far less than before. If anyone tries this, post your results so we can see if it makes a difference.

Out of curiousity, did you notice more or less rebuffering with the official channel (vs my unofficial one)? Did you ever try the low quality setting of my unofficial channel (in the channel settings)?

[Bee]

I don't think I like or understand the basic concept of the PC with its PlayOn server and the Roku having to be on at the same time. Why such a contraption? Connecting my laptop PC directly to the TV by VGA cable is simpler.

[dreinhard]

I have been using skyber Playon Channel for about 1 month now and have tried the new one for the past week. I did have SOME Success by changing the video quality setting from Auto to medium on the Playon settings(obviously, stopping the restarting the Palyon service). I still do get some rebuffering but far less than before. If anyone tries this, post your results so we can see if it makes a difference.

Out of curiousity, did you notice more or less rebuffering with the official channel (vs my unofficial one)? Did you ever try the low quality setting of my unofficial channel (in the channel settings)?

Rebuffering is about the same w/ both. I did not try the low setting with your channel or this channel. I posted some thoughts when you released your developed channel and still believe this would probably have a better chance of getting worked out with PlayOn being involved. I developed my own local media access channel for the Roku and to me it looks like we are pretty limited in what we can tweak as far communications from a stream to the Roku player. PlayOn probably has far more control over how it can serve the stream to the client (Roku). Just my thoughts.

D

[jhernes]

I don't think I like or understand the basic concept of the PC with its PlayOn server and the Roku having to be on at the same time. Why such a contraption? Connecting my laptop PC directly to the TV by VGA cable is simpler.

Would that be the same case as......Airplay for you?

[scyber]

I have been using skyber Playon Channel for about 1 month now and have tried the new one for the past week. I did have SOME Success by changing the video quality setting from Auto to medium on the Playon settings(obviously, stopping the restarting the Palyon service). I still do get some rebuffering but far less than before. If anyone tries this, post your results so we can see if it makes a difference.

Out of curiousity, did you notice more or less rebuffering with the official channel (vs my unofficial one)? Did you ever try the low quality setting of my unofficial channel (in the channel settings)?

Rebuffering is about the same w/ both. I did not try the low setting with your channel or this channel. I posted some thoughts when you released your developed channel and still believe this would probably have a better chance of getting worked out with PlayOn being involved. I developed my own local media access channel for the Roku and to me it looks like we are pretty limited in what we can tweak as far communications from a stream to the Roku player. PlayOn probably has far more control over how it can serve the stream to the client (Roku). Just my thoughts.

D

eluttmann is in direct communication with PlayOn. We are experimenting with different HLS settings to better optimize the stream. Unfortunately since everyone has various different computer speeds and configurations, there is no one configuration that will be perfect for everyone. So we are trying to come up with a solution that provides the best performance we can automate, with options for the user to customize in case of issues.

[RoadRanger]

I just wanted to give everyone here an update. eluttmann and I have been in contact the last few days and will be working together to produce a single Roku PlayOn channel.

That's awesome! Thanks to both of you and to PlayOn for working hard to make this channel the best it can be .

[mgfarkas]

I have been using skyber Playon Channel for about 1 month now and have tried the new one for the past week. I did have SOME Success by changing the video quality setting from Auto to medium on the Playon settings(obviously, stopping the restarting the Palyon service). I still do get some rebuffering but far less than before. If anyone tries this, post your results so we can see if it makes a difference.

Under scyber's version when I changed video quality from auto to high within the playon app settings it helped reduce the rebuffering. For the new "official" version keeping that setting to High plus using the Increase buffering setting within the actual Roku channel settings improved it further to the point rebuffering is no longer an issue for me.

[FX4]

Just to let you know I am running the official version and it is rebuffering. I am not resource constrained in any way. PlayOn isn't even putting a dent in my processing power. It's something else causing this, not available PC resources or network connectivity. I had an incident where I was half way through a show, it rebuffered and started from the beginning. Oddly when I hard wire my Roku the problem got worse. I did notice that the problem seems worse when people got from work and are online. My gut feeling is this has something to do with jitter screwing up the stream. BTW, I also own an iPad that uses the same interface and it's flawless watching the same shows.

[pjoshua5000]

I got the playon up and running. I notice that sometimes the Playon app on my computer eat up all the ram (1 GB) and then the system freezes. However I did notice that I was able to fast forward and rewind once all the content was download. A few times so far near the end of the show it kicks out. The first time I had to restart and was unable to resume playback and get to the last 7 minutes without having to re watch everything. But I did restart me computer. left.


The second time it did not crash and I was able to playback and fast forward to were I was. Its some what buggy and I don't know if its worth paying for. But for me it works "ok". For my family, who just cut the cord today, however (no cable for us any more) it might be problematic to get it to work and solve some of the inconvenience.

But for the most part I use it to watch Hulu and TV.com. And I the quality of the video is alright. I did notice that there was some cropping where I only saw half of the "ticking time" left on the ads.

Over all it shows promise. I have to do more testing to see if its worth the $80. (I think that is the cost of a life time service)

[FX4]

I GB of RAM is seriously thin for a modern OS. You need at least 2GB.

[tdogver10]

i have read all the post, clicked the links and still have no idea. is playon available for roku or not? i enter all the codes and get invalid? can someone simplify tell me how to get it if it is available. i have downloaded the software to my puter, i have clicked on everthing under the sun still nothing. not in channel store or any where. what gives?

[RokuPatrick]

Hi everyone,

While we understand that many of you are excited about a PlayOn-compatible Channel and may be using it, it unfortunately presents the possibility of legal exposure for us. As a result, the current PlayOn channels have been removed and are no longer available to add to your Roku player.

Patrick

[katholc]

I know this may be a dumb question, but why would Playon send me an email with a code included if theres no agreement between the 2 companies?

[K9man]

I have 2gb of ram with a dual core processor. I do get 1 rebuffer per show that I watch. To be honest, the only channels I use Playon for is Hulu and TV.com ( at least 90%). Since Hulu will have it's own channel does anyone know can Tv.com get it's own channel? The buffering is annoying and a drawback for for owning the roku (I'll still keep mine). Especially seeing that people with faster computers are having the same problems.