I've noticed a popping noise that is audible while watching a movie. At first I thought it might be a problem with my optical cable, so I switched the standard RCA style red/white cables and the same noise is audible.

I have the video running through HDMI to my TV and then audio into my receiver. I have had no problems with my receiver, and the optical cable I initially used was the one that my PS3 was using (without any problems).

Is this a bug in the box or do I have a defective box?

What TV do you have? Please include brand and model.

The TV is a Sony SXRD KDS-A2000
the Receiver is a Pioneer VSX-1015

I have not experienced any problems with the receiver and any sort of popping.

I have the same problem. It seems to vary from movie to movie. One that's particularly bad, and starts popping frequently right from the start is

http://www.netflix.com/WatchNowMovie/A_Crude_Awakening_The_Oil_Crash/70061528

The same movie doesn't pop when watched on a PC.

I'm using analog audio into McIntosh (not Apple) audio equipment. It has numerous other analog inputs that work fine.

I think I'm having this problem too. At first, I assumed my surround sound speakers were messed up, but I've heard popping on two movies now with the Roku box. Xanadu and Escape from New York both had frequent popping, like every 30 secs. to a minute. Sometimes the pops would be overshadowed by the loudness of the movie, but they were jarring when you could hear them.

My setup:

HDMI from player to Samsung LCD HDTV - Model# LN-T4066F, then standard A/V Composite cables to 5.1 Surround sound system (An All-in-one Jensen-type system).

To be sure, I watched a DVD on my PS3 today (Also HDMI to TV, then A/V sound), and I never heard a single pop noise.

Sounds like a bug to me.

Same thing happens occasionally to me. It differs from movie to movie, but there is definately a "popping" sound every once and a while. Almost sounds like the imperfections you would hear on the old vinyl records. My guess is that this might be something coming from the netflix end since it doesn't happen in every movie.

Setup--
audio connected via optical cable to denon receiver 1708
I tried standard rca audio jacks too and it will do it
TV model doesn't matter since I disconnected the video and it still will do it

Other than this odd occasional problem, this box is great!!

Any comment from staff on this bug? I've experienced on at least 4 different TV shows/films so far, to my knowledge.

I've heard this audio "popping", too, on Klipsch 5.1 speakers via Sony STRDE545 connected to RNP through digital optical. My "popping" has been experienced as a single medium-volume "snap!" at about a 30-second interval.

I *think* I resolved it once by powering-off my AV receiver, but will endeavor to document future recurrences.

Ditto. Optical output to a Sony receiver with no popping from other devices such as a PS3.

I also noticed this problem as well..

Using TOSLINK for sound, to a Yamaha receiver. Some Shows/Movies seem to have this more often.

Someone commented that they didn't hear the popping with the audio straight into a TV versus into the receiver.

I imagine that the receivers high-power amplifier is more sensitive to the issue and then the slight disruption in the audio signal causes the popping noise. This could also be made worse the by the DSP processing that most receivers do.

The issue needs to be addressed. I was hoping to hear something from someone at Roku on this issue

I just spoke to another Roku player user who's not on the forum and asked him to play The Fifth Element and listen for popping during the first 30 seconds. He said it sounded like a scratched record.

As another experiment, I tried forcing my stream to 1.0 Mbps (I'm normally 2.2) and this had no effect on the popping.

Okay folks, obviously there seems to be an issue here that needs investigation. If I'm not mistaken, this seems to be an issue when routing audio through an AV receiver, regardless of cable type (HDMI, optical, analog). If anyone is hearing audio popping with the box audio going directly into a TV (no receiver in your setup), please post the details of that scenario. We want to know about that as well.

For those of you running audio through a receiver or some other audio decoding device between the box and the TV, we need to know some specific information in order to effectively investigate this:

1. Does this happen with any movie you watch or specific titles?
2. At what point do you hear popping? In the middle of movies? During menu transitions?
3. What make and model receiver are you connecting the box to?
4. Do you hear audio popping if audio from the box is connected directly to your TV?
5. What kind of audio cable are you using to connect the Netflix Player to the receiver? What kind of cable from the receiver to the TV?

Please be as detailed as possible when describing how your hardware is set up. That will help us determine if a particular configuration is more problematic than others. For the folks who have already posted your details, thank you. For folks who posted but did not include all the information I listed above, please update your post to include all the info requested.

Unfortunately, I can't say when we will be able to fix this issue. We'll need to find a reproducible case in-house first. We'll post updates to keep folks informed when we have news on anything significant.

RokuJamesL wrote:

Unfortunately, I can't say when we will be able to fix this issue. We'll need to find a reproducible case in-house first. We'll post updates to keep folks informed when we have news on anything significant.

Thanks for the response James. I was worried that our thread was going unnoticed. I just updated my post (A couple posts above this one), in big bold type, answering all of your questions in detail. The issue has significantly affected my Roku box use, because it is a real chore going into my TV's menus to un-mute the TV, muting my surround sound, then adjusting the volume just to get the Roku box to work right. Then, you have to reswitch all of the settings when you want to do something else.

So, help with this issue would be very much appreciate.