is there a way to manually set the roku to get 4 dot quality

[kramek]

Hi All,
I'm wondering if there is a way to set the roku player to assume it is getting a 4 dot quality. I've seen posts that suggest using the remote in the following way
home 5 times
RW 3 times
FF 2 times
what is this supposed to do?
Is there any documentation that describes the manual settings?
any advice would be appreciated
thanks
HK

[DeftOne]

That takes you to a secret menu where you can force the Roku to a preset stream bitrate. It doesn't necessarily mean you will always get 4 dot quality -- that's dependent on the speed of your internet connection and your local network. If you're internet connection is not fast enough to maintain the stream bitrate you force it to, you'll get a lot of rebuffering, so use with caution.

[kc8pql]

Is there any documentation that describes the manual settings?

Nothing official. Roku considers the bitrate screen (that's what it's called) to be an engineering tool, not a public feature.

[kramek]

Does any documentation exist for this feature or is it obvious?
thanks
HK

[KennyJ]

Does any documentation exist for this feature or is it obvious?
thanks
HK

It's obvious. If gives you like 6 choices (don't remember the actual bitrates)

Auto
Bitrate 1
Bitrate 2
Bitrate 3
Bitrate 4
Debug

[sjbenjamin]

This seems to affect buffer size (i.e. increasing the bitrate decreases buffer time; decreasing the bit rate increases buffer time) but does not change the quality setting...at least that is my own testing experience on a slow connection, attempting to decrease my quality setting. I have run the gammut of options. Interestingly, turning on debugging tells me that playback will fail; I just can't do anything about it.

[KennyJ]

This seems to affect buffer size (i.e. increasing the bitrate decreases buffer time; decreasing the bit rate increases buffer time) but does not change the quality setting...at least that is my own testing experience on a slow connection, attempting to decrease my quality setting. I have run the gammut of options. Interestingly, turning on debugging tells me that playback will fail; I just can't do anything about it.

It shouldn't affect buffer at all. It is the quality setting. Try it on Netflix -- select the 1.0 bitrate.

It's possible Blip.tv is only offering 1 stream (4 dot) and if that's the case, there is nothing you can do.

[sjbenjamin]

I agree that it shouldn't, but it did on Blip.tv. For the benefit of others, Kenny and I believe we just determined that Blip only offers a quality 4 stream. Lowering my bitrate in that case caused the Roku to buffer longer and not rebuffer on my slow connection. However...

As Kenny suuests, this works differently on Netflix, presumably because they run 4 streams. I ran a quick test by upping the bitrate to 3.5Mbs, and I do get a quality of 4 whereas I normally get a 2. All hail Kenny.

Cheers,


Ben

[kramek]

I was under the impression that the stream bitrate resulted in a higher quality image. sbenjamin post seems to indicate that it doesn't. Are there any other ways to improve the quality of the picture
thanks
HK

[KennyJ]

I was under the impression that the stream bitrate resulted in a higher quality image. sbenjamin post seems to indicate that it doesn't. Are there any other ways to improve the quality of the picture
thanks
HK

Well if Blip only has one stream, then no -- it won't result in a better picture.