I am slightly dissapointed with the new USB channel. I was hoping there would be an update from the beta.

I find it difficult to find a video that will actually play correctly on it. I understand this is a codec issue (or it doesn't play avi)....but my question is...

Will this channel be updated to support more codecs and extensions? It seems like the big missing extension (container) is AVI. However, even the currently supported containers rarely play because of the narrow scope and "pickyness" of the encoding.

I would really like to see this expanded. It's a great concept, but wondering if Roku has serious (and significant) plans to update this channel.

Also, it seems to re-scan too much. Every time I move up and down a folder or exit a movie (which is rare to find one that works) it has to re-scan. I could see this for a network share (samba, nts, etc), but not for an attached USB device. The re-scanning needs to be turned down a notch.

For instance, I have two MKV videos. Both have AVC (CABAC) video encoding, use AC-3 for audio and have the same FPS.

video #1: (does not play)
480p at 1199 kbps (High@L3.1)
6 channel audio at 192kbps
8 reference frames
file size approximately 1GB

video #2 (plays fine)
1080p at 5158kbps (High@L4.1)
1 channel audio at 448kbps
5 reference frames
file size approximately 100MB

As you can see, the video that plays requires significantly more in the way of decoding than the one that doesn't play.

The reference frames and file size are the only thing that could make a difference...but they shouldn't. The level of 3.1 vs 4.1 might also make a difference, but once again shouldn't, because L4.1 is higher. I've seen some boxes choke on L5.x, but play L4.1 and lower just fine.

Try using 2 channels of audio for your encodes ( mono or stereo ) - that's most likely the issue here.

destruk wrote:

Try using 2 channels of audio for your encodes ( mono or stereo ) - that's most likely the issue here.

Doesn't appear to make any difference...speaking of, I extracted the audio without reencoding as an .ac3 file and it can't play ac3?

wow

This thead might help.
viewtopic.php?f=28&t=36754

nm...you already saw that one.