Supported Media players On Roku beside RMP

The Roku Media player isn’t forgiving. I’ve given in to the fact that everything if you want it to work needs to been in mp4 format. XMReincode will do this in seconds.

If you don’t have it, it rocks. Conert a 2gb file in about 30 seconds. Not bad.

But…

RMP still has issues with Audio. I would like to burn it.

But, I haven’t found an viable out of the box solution for WD > Roku Streaming other than RMP.

I know there are tons of sfuff if you want to run other servers etc… but I believe WD runs twonky.

Great. I want streaming, But Could care less about beaming from devices.

Any Suggestions. :slight_smile:
Rich

Rich,

I have had Roku since the beginning. It is great for Netflix, Amazon Prime videos, Livestream programs; basically it is for streaming media and awful as a media player. And, is why I later bought a real media player, the WDTV, which is a great media player but an awful media streamer. So, between the two devices, I use one or the other depending upon what we will be watching. But, unless one already has a WDTV, they are hard to come by now since WD stopped making them a year or more ago.

So, here is an alternative solution that does not cost too much: the Amazon Fire TV running an Android app called Kodi. I also have one of these set up (the Fire TV stick, but If I were to buy one today, I would spend a little more and get the Fire TV Box.). I have played movies from my My Cloud NAS, onto the Fire Stick and they rune well, if not great in most cases. This includes ISO, MKV files from both DVDs and Blu-rays. The mp4 files I make are for playing on iPads, not TVs, although they look pretty good on anything less than a 50"+ screen. The Fire TV/Kodi combo is a bit geeky, but there are lots of tutorials on YouTube that can get you started. It helps to run the Fire TV/Kodi combo from a strong and fast 5G wireless signal, so that the most challenging video files can play well. Music and photos can also be played this way, too. It is not my favored way to play videos (I prefer the WDTV) but I plan to take the Fire Stick with us on vacation trips where it can come in real handy to play mp4 movies from my WD Wireless drive.

So, look into this option of Fire TV and Kodi. PS: Kodi is a free app.

Thanks Mike. I’m familiar with Kodi. I use it myself. But unfortunately this is for my dad, not too tech savvy.

He can afford it, getting him to buy it is another thing, lol.

Your solution would work. Just not for him.

Thanks,
Rich

Just for anyone wondering, the issue turns out is the fact that certain surround modes can not be decoded by the Roku Media Player, i.e. anything over 5.1 after testing is not working.

I’ve set up a custom template that changes anything into two stereo channels. Which will be fine for now.

Sony Surround systems with blu ray work great no bubbles no troubles. :wink:

Hope this helped someone. MIke’s idea is ideal btw.

OK, so find a used WDTV for both you and your dad! Check Amazon and eBay.

Twonky is the standard media server, correct. For the black My Cloud models (except EX4), I recommend using PLEX media server. Plex is available for Roku too, so you would get a very nice Medai client with great graphics UI on the Roku side.

[quote=“Rich_Hall, post:1, topic:168320, full:true”]
The Roku Media player isn’t forgiving. I’ve given in to the fact that everything if you want it to work needs to been in mp4 format. XMReincode will do this in seconds. [/quote]
First is to understand what media formats RMP supports…

https://support.roku.com/hc/en-us/articles/208754908-Roku-Media-Player-101-USB-video-music-photos

What media file types does the Roku Media Player channel support?
The following media file formats are supported:
•Video — H.264/AVC (.MKV, .MP4, .MOV), on Roku 4 only: H.265/HEVC (.MKV, .MP4, .MOV); VP9 (.MKV)
•Audio – AAC (.MKV, .MP4, .MOV); MP3(.MP3, .MKV); WMA (.ASF, .WMA, .MKV), FLAC (.FLAC, .MKV), PCM (.WAV, .MKV, .MP4, .MOV), AC3/EAC3 (.MKV,.MP4. .MOV, .AC3), DTS (.MKV, .MP4, .MOV), ALAC (.MKV, .MP4, .MOV, .M4A)
•Image — JPG, PNG, GIF (non-animated)

Only supported file types are shown in the Roku Media Player channel. The channel hides unsupported file types.

Multichannel AAC is not supported on all Roku models. Roku TV’s and Roku 4 set-top-boxes do support multichannel decode to PCM stereo.

On Roku set-top-boxes Dolby Digital audio (AC3, EAC3) is only supported via pass through.

DTS is only supported via pass through on both Roku set-top-boxes and Roku TV’s. You must connect your Roku player via HDMI or S/PDIF to a TV or receiver capable of decoding Dolby Digital or DTS in order to hear videos with audio tracks in those formats.

Some media server software may convert files into Roku compatible formats.

DRM-protected content is not supported.

Second, like similar devices the Roku can only play a select limited number of media file formats. To get around this problem one can use a media server that transcodes other non supported media formats into Roku supported media formats. Plex is one popular media server that does transcoding. The problem with Plex on the My Cloud units that support the Plex module plug in is that transcoding is not officially supported. Worse the single bay My Cloud units do not officially support plug in modules like Plex.

I too have a Roku and have very few problems streaming content, which I do daily, from a My Cloud. I also have a Plex media server but pretty much no longer use it these days since most if not all my media is in Roku supported formats.

Like others have said Kodi running on a cheap Android HTPC box may be a better option for some. One can also run Kodi on an old PC too.