Channels & viewing

[atc98092]

I too have an HDHomeRun Flex 4K on my network. I mostly use it for recording OTA broadcasts on a HTPC, but I do have the SD app installed on my Roku and Shield players. I do have one station that has a marginal signal so I just tried it on both my Ultra 4800 and a Shield Pro. On the Roku I received the data error in less than a minute and the picture just froze. I had to exit the channel (the broadcast channel, not the Roku app) and reselect the channel to resume playback. I then tried the same OTA channel on the Shield. I encountered some pixelization but playback continued without a problem. 

I had never heard that RMP was the only video player available within the Roku. I'm not certain I accept that since there are so many providers that don't have any sort of playback issue, such as Netflix, Prime Video or even YouTube. 

[Bonfire]

@atc98092Maybe someone from Roku could reply with details about alternate media player options or APIs that would enable writing your own. I’d be happy to forward that on to silicon dust.

I’d be curious to know if there are apps that have business deals to use private APIs.

Streaming from internet sources like Netflix and crew might not be an apples to apples comparison since the data for those sources is highly reliable, versus the HDhomerun apparently just streams the received signal from your antenna with no adjustments. It’s kinda not surprising that malformed data makes its way to the Roku app.

How do you like the shield?

[atc98092]

@Bonfire I have no inside connection to Roku developers. I used to when they had a beta group for RMP, but it was shut down over a year ago. 

Streaming sources from the web usually use adaptive streaming, which means they will reduce the stream bitrate if it detects errors or slowdowns in the network. But the user interface for those other providers I mentioned is completely different from RMP, which makes me have doubts they are using the same player. Of course, it might be they simply write a UI that uses RMP as the core playback app, so that could explain the different appearances. While I have dabbled in computer programming, my one attempt at writing something for Roku was an abject failure. 🙂

For local media playback, the Shield (even though the latest version is now approaching 5 years old) is still the one that just works. There's a multitude of different video playback apps, and while they all play the content just fine there are huge differences in the user interface. I use Serviio as my media streaming server on a Windows 10 PC and Kodi as my player app on the Shield. Both are free of charge. VLC is a fantastic player, but I rate the user interface as terrible. It displays no metadata other than the cover image for the media. With Kodi I get most of the data that's available from Serviio. You can select the captions from any ripped media DVD or Blu Ray. It will passthrough the lossless audio bitstream to an AVR, including TrueHD/Atmos and DTS:X. Because it has a Gigabit Ethernet connection, I can play my ripped 4K movies easily. The only real shortcomings of the Shield is no support for YouTube HDR (Roku supports this), the AC-4 audio codec (found in ATSC 3.0 broadcasts, the Roku Ultra 480x supports it) and there's one other video codec that has slipped my mind. Obviously none of my media uses it, because I can play everything without any transcoding required. Can't say that for any Roku player, even if RMP worked perfectly. The main drawback of the Shield is cost. The basic Shield TV (usually referred to as the Tube version) is $150, and only supports 32 bit apps. The Shield Pro is $200 and supports 64 bit apps. I have both versions, and for typical home use the 32-64 bit difference really doesn't seem to matter. But the Pro does have more memory as well, so probably is a bit more responsive. 

[Bonfire]

@atc98092 Thanks for the info on the shield. Solid reply!

I hope someone from Roku can chime in on this thread to discuss the player situation.