I’m not a “real” Roku developer, but I do have some coding skills (VBA, etc) and I’ve had a copy of the kit sitting around for a few years. I’ve never had a channel idea or a goal, but now that most of my music is ripped to FLAC files, I’d like to be able to use my USB-equipped Rokus to play it and I don’t see anything out there to do the job. If there are no other choices, I may well see if it might be a possible DIY project.
So as a first step, I’d like to know if anyone has looked into this (maybe Nowhere Man?) and can offer some guidance.
“RokuPatrick” wrote:
FLAC isn’t a supported codec, sorry.
At this moment, it’s not. My interest is in creating a channel that will do so.
When I got my first Roku with USB support, the only way to play media through the USB port was to go to thenowhereman site and install the private USB channel he made (and still makes) available. Soon after, Roku included a USB channel in the channel store. Some sources have stated that Roku contracted with or hired thenowhereman to adapt his USB port channel for use as the official Roku one.
I note that in the case of video files, thenowhereman’s USB channel supports only MK4 but the Roku channel also supports MOV and WMV. So clearly various codecs can be supported by Roku if a channel is set up to do so.
I’ve got the developer’s kit. I figure that I should be able to produce a channel for playing FLAC files via the USB port.
The point of my original posting was to see if anyone else has successfully created such a channel. If so, I don’t need to reinvent the wheel. If not, perhaps someone has done some preliminary analysis and investigation which might be useful to me in doing the job myself.
(I really thought that was fairly clear in the posting.)
Even if you could port a FLAC library over to Brightscript, you’d still run into issues with performance (see how slow the relatively simple PNG encoder is) and delivery issues. The audio and video player components don’t provide a way to feed them an open stream aside from HTTP, and even that is limited to Range requests. So, you’ll either need to fully transcode each file in advance to a Roku compatible audio format (e.g. MP3 or AAC) or you’ll need to also implement an inline HTTP server to handle the delivery (remembering that you only have one thread to work with).
It’d be awesome if you could pull it off, but I think you’re in for an uphill (darn near a cliff) battle…
“RokuPatrick” wrote:
FLAC isn’t a supported codec, sorry.
At this moment, it’s not. My interest is in creating a channel that will do so.
When I got my first Roku with USB support, the only way to play media through the USB port was to go to thenowhereman site and install the private USB channel he made (and still makes) available. Soon after, Roku included a USB channel in the channel store. Some sources have stated that Roku contracted with or hired thenowhereman to adapt his USB port channel for use as the official Roku one.
I note that in the case of video files, thenowhereman’s USB channel supports only MK4 but the Roku channel also supports MOV and WMV. So clearly various codecs can be supported by Roku if a channel is set up to do so.
I’ve got the developer’s kit. I figure that I should be able to produce a channel for playing FLAC files via the USB port.
The point of my original posting was to see if anyone else has successfully created such a channel. If so, I don’t need to reinvent the wheel. If not, perhaps someone has done some preliminary analysis and investigation which might be useful to me in doing the job myself.
(I really thought that was fairly clear in the posting.)
Unfortunately, we need to provide support for the codec in the system software underlying the SDK. FLAC support doesn’t exist and isn’t planned. WMV was supported previously (it’s not any more, though it may still work on some models) and MOV is just a different container for MP4) The SDK doesn’t have any way to incorporate new codecs. As alluded to, the only way to play FLAC on Roku today is to have something transcode it before delivery to the Roku player.
Unfortunately, we need to provide support for the codec in the system software underlying the SDK. FLAC support doesn’t exist and isn’t planned. WMV was supported previously (it’s not any more, though it may still work on some models) and MOV is just a different container for MP4) The SDK doesn’t have any way to incorporate new codecs. As alluded to, the only way to play FLAC on Roku today is to have something transcode it before delivery to the Roku player.
Thanks for the clarification. My goal was to improve what I get out of the Roku that serves as a CD player/tuner replacement in my music-only listening room system. Since that (currently and foreseeably) isn’t going to work, I’ll have to try something else.
I realize this solution may be a bit more involved than you had hoped, but…
You might consider trying to use the Plex channel and a linux-based Plex server in concert with mp3fs ( http://khenriks.github.com/mp3fs/ ).
Caveat: I use plex+plex roku channel, but haven’t yet tried using an mp3fs mount as a plex music directory.
“malloys” wrote:
I realize this solution may be a bit more involved than you had hoped, but…
You might consider trying to use the Plex channel and a linux-based Plex server in concert with mp3fs ( http://khenriks.github.com/mp3fs/ ).
Caveat: I use plex+plex roku channel, but haven’t yet tried using an mp3fs mount as a plex music directory.
cheers
Thanks! That looks interesting. The idea of ripping to FLAC and then transcoding to MP3 is a sad solution, but then at least I have the FLAC files in place on the network server. When I find the right hardware (which I would hope would be Roku with a firmware upgrade), I can dump the transcoding. MP3 is so unfortunate for a music lover.
It is a shame that MP3 become the standard for music. Now many devices support
better methods like FLAC or AAC.
Using 128Kbps MP3s is noticably lacking but I have found that all 4 of my music
playing devices support 320Kbps MP3s. That’s a car stereo, (via a USB flash drive),
my Roku 1 XR & 2 XS, a tablet using webOS, and a Linux netbook.
Even if Roku could not easily support FLAC, why can’t it support music only AAC?
Roku does support music only AAC, just not via Shoutcast. For progressive download and (theoretically, haven’t tested this yet) HLS audio only, AAC is supported.
“RokuJoel” wrote:
Roku does support music only AAC, just not via Shoutcast. For progressive download and (theoretically, haven’t tested this yet) HLS audio only, AAC is supported.
Joel
Joel,
Could AAC work for local media streaming channels like Roksbox?
I tried just naming the song “NAME.aac” but that did not work.
Roksbox just skipped over that song and went to the next one.
(Yes, my song seemed to be a properly made AAC.)
The USB media list does include AAC. I would like to see if AAC
can be supported by local streaming methods.
And if not, could this be added to the wish list for the next release?
Note for people that don’t know, AAC seems to be twice as good as
MP3 at compression. Thus, a 128Kbps AAC stream is equivelent in
quality to a 256Kbps MP3 stream.
“Arwen” wrote:
Note for people that don’t know, AAC seems to be twice as good as
MP3 at compression. Thus, a 128Kbps AAC stream is equivelent in
quality to a 256Kbps MP3 stream.And more importantly, it’s what many broadcasters are choosing to use for their streams. The TuneIn app on Roku, for instance, has lost the ability to play several streams from my local area radio stations, due to their change of streaming formats. They(the locals) appear to be prioritizing streaming content for Apple and Android devices. Since the codec already is available in the Roku, and there appears to be a growing demand, I’d also like to request Shoutcast-based AAC+ audio streaming.
