Hi all. Just wanted to let everyone know that I just released a new Android app and Roku channel called Juice for Roku. Basically, it lets you send photos and music directly from your Andorid phone to the Roku without needing any media server or uploading files to a web server. The goal was to give Roku some AirPlay like capabilities.
I don’t think there is anything else out there like it, and would appreciate your feedback before I start to really promote it. Just search the Android market for “Juice for Roku”. There is a free demo version you can try. It should also prompt you to install the Juice for Roku channel here: https://owner.roku.com/add/juice.
There is also an experimental feature where if you long press a video from the Gallery app, then select Share, pick “Juice for Roku”, it will stream the video to the Roku from your phone. However, native Android videos don’t work. But if you downloaded MPEG 4 videos to your phone, they should work.
I just bought the app and I think it is awesome. I can not get the streaming video thing to work yet, I have followed the insturctions but it could be something on my side of the app. Have you ever thought about combinding the music and photo slide show together.
I did test having music and photos at the same time. I like the idea of having background music for slideshows. But in my testing on my older Roku, the music would stutter when loading the photos. So I turned it off for now, but I’m not sure how to get around that.
What type of video are you trying to stream? It seems videos taken on an Android device are not compatible with the Roku. But if you download some other MPEG4 videos in the right format, they seem to work fine.
-Gregg
“greno” wrote:
I did test having music and photos at the same time. I like the idea of having background music for slideshows. But in my testing on my older Roku, the music would stutter when loading the photos. So I turned it off for now, but I’m not sure how to get around that.
-GreggHow large are the images you’re sending? If they’re multi-megapixel, maybe you can resize them on-the-fly on the device before the roku gets them? If the roku has to do the resizing, it’s a computationally expensive process, and since they’re only going to be used for tv display the max pixels you’d need would be 1920x1080 (~2 megapixels according to google). That may not fix it, it might be that any network activity of enough data will make the audio choppy, but it could be something to try (if you haven’t already that is ).
That’s a good idea. I have thought about doing that when sending single images to reduce the transfer time. But with the way I’m architected the app, if someone sends a slideshow with multiple pictures, i would have to scale them all before sending the list of photos to the Roku. Kind of expensive CPU wise and could fill up temporary storage on the phone. But maybe I could do the scaling once the phone gets a request for the next image. I’ll have to play with that.
I’ve been testing with 8 megapixel shots, which are pretty big - maybe 5 mb.
Great concept. Still can’t get the pics or music to work though. Too bad, really was hoping this would work out. Channel took long enough to populate that I couldn’t test before the refund window expired. Now I just have a $2.99 remote. Hopefully future releases fix this and I will get the full functionality at some point.
benneplex - did you install the juice channel and tune to it before trying to send photos and music? If you haven’t added it yet, you can do it by going to https://owner.roku.com/add/juice
I always give refunds to people who have problems making it work. Just drop me an email at gregg@greggreno.com if thats what you want to do.
Also, did you know there is a free version available to test with, and it only has a couple of limitations. I always suggest people try the free one first to make sure it works before buying the full version.
Hi,
I installed the demo version of Juice for Roku on my droidX and added the private channel to one of my three rokus. I am streaming Army of Darkness to the roku right now! It did stall once but now seems to be working well. Looked at a photo and that worked fine also. Will try the music feature next. I really think this will be awesome!
The paid app was working well for me last week, but today I ran into some problems. I rebooted my Roku XD Player, my Belkin router and my LG Optimus Slider (running Gingerbread). But even that didn’t solve the problem, which included Juice for Roku reporting “communications error: searching for app permissions denied”
So I uninstalled the Roku Juice app and reinstalled it from Android Market. This solved the problem.
I don’t know if I could reproduce this problem but would be glad to collect a LogCat or some other useful information if you tell me how to obtain it.
That’s an odd one - I haven’t heard from anyone else with that issue. If it happens again and you can email me the alogcat info, I’d appreciate it! Just send it to gregg.reno@jigawattlabs.com
Could you implement a method of manuallyrotating the photos before they are sent, its easy to flip my phone to show someone a picture. A large dlp tv: not so much…
This actually depends on the phone you have. I know some of the earlier Motorola phones did not correctly set the orientation flag for photos taken on the phone. Without that flag being set correctly, I don’t think I could reliably know how to orient the photos for every android phone.
I downloaded the android app and add the channel to my Roku. Great work, just awesome!
Now, I have one question for you: How did you manage to get the Roku to play .3gp files from my Droid X? Does this app/channel combination some how trans-code on the fly? I’m guessing no, as my phone doesn’t have the horsepower to deliver this kind of video quality. So I’m guessing you figured out how to get the Roku to play my 720p .3gp files flawlessly on the Roku. Care to share your secret?
Glad you like the app JR. No, I don’t do any transcoding - I simply send the file to Roku to figure it out and play it.
I’m really no expert on video encoding, but my understanding is that mp4 and 3gp are just containers. What is more important is what video and audio codecs were used. There is a published list of formats here: http://support.roku.com/entries/423946- … el-support
In my experience, the older versions of Android used an incompatible audio encoder. So if you played a 3gp file, you could see the video but not hear the audio. For you, the manufacturer must have used compatible video and audio codecs.
-Gregg
This is off topic for this post, but here’s what I need to do with Roku and juice - and I don’t think it would take too much to make it happen. Please build the functionality top allow the Roku running over wireless to connect directly to an android phone wifi IP or MAC address, WITHOUT having to use a router. This would be like connecting two PC’s using a crossover cable, peer to peer. No gateway other than the android and roku seeing each other. I didn’t know if it would be better to set the android up as a hotspot and have Juice not require the wifi to be turned on, or somehow let you see the roku stand alone over wifi without being connected to a router.
Then, maybe the folks at Roku will design an accessory - an external rechargeable nimh battery pack. I can probably build one using RC batteries, but 5VDC is a little non standard for that sort of thing. Maybe they’d even consider changing their power supply to help add that functionality.
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