Roku 4 Media Player - Dolby Digital woes

[Mark97213]

Roku 4 will not play hardwired streamed movies from the PC, in Dolby Digital. Will only play them in stereo. Will play on line movies in Dolby Digital. Handbraked to MKV with Ac3 codec but it doesn't seem to make a diff. Is the Roku 4 incapable of 5.1 for this?

[october262]

Here are the specs - https://www.roku.com/products/roku-ultra
Click products - roku ultra

[Mark97213]

Thanks for the reply but that tells me nothing relating to my post.

[usually_quiet]

The Roku app you are using to play the video could lack support for 5.1 Dolby Digital, but you haven't said what that is.

As a side note, Rokus are great for movie streaming services and internet video. That is what they are primarily designed for. Rokus are less great as media players for locally stored files and media files that are stored on a NAS or PC. You might be better off using something other than a Roku for those. If you want to use a Roku for playing your own media files, they will need to be re-encoded or transcoded on the fly while streaming to suit the capabilities of the Roku's limited selection of hardware decoders.

[Mark97213]

Thanks for the reply. The response you gave is looking most likely to be the case, contrary to what so many other's had told me prior to purchasing this unit. I only purchased this unit for the Media Player capabilities as many said this was the best that people use for playing back their large stored collections of video content.

The Media player within the Roku isn't really an "app" like Amazon, Sling or as a plethora of other channels are. It is supposed to be a main function of the "Media Player" to play your media via a Media Server Such as Plex, Windows or PS3MS (Not to be confused with the console) media servers.

The Roku 4 plays Dolby Digital movies from the apps just fine but playing Dolby Digital Movies from the Ethernet route seems to be running into a wall for me. I'm not understanding why the unit can play movies from Apps in Dolby Digital but cannot play a direct sourced movie MKV container with AC3 Codec from a hardwired connection. Especially since old Blu-ray players with a network connection or a PS3 Console can do so just fine. Transcoding isn't a problem either. The Roku will transcode them as well as a direct play but the issue remains.

[usually_quiet]

Thanks for the reply. The response you gave is looking most likely to be the case, contrary to what so many other's had told me prior to purchasing this unit. I only purchased this unit for the Media Player capabilities as many said this was the best that people use for playing back their large stored collections of video content.

The Media player within the Roku isn't really an "app" like Amazon, Sling or as a plethora of other channels are. It is supposed to be a main function of the "Media Player" to play your media via a Media Server Such as Plex, Windows or PS3MS (Not to be confused with the console) media servers.

The Roku 4 plays Dolby Digital movies from the apps just fine but playing Dolby Digital Movies from the Ethernet route seems to be running into a wall for me. I'm not understanding why the unit can play movies from Apps in Dolby Digital but cannot play a direct sourced movie MKV container with AC3 Codec from a hardwired connection. Especially since old Blu-ray players with a network connection or a PS3 Console can do so just fine. Transcoding isn't a problem either. The Roku will transcode them as well as a direct play but the issue remains.

Roku Media Player is available from the Channel store, so I would think of it as software, basically another app, myself. There is a support page for it which says that 5.1 AAC is downmixed to stereo by the Roku. Maybe the same is true for 5.1 channel AC3 now too.

https://support.roku.com/article/208754908-roku-media-player-playing-your-personal-vid...s-music-photos

5.1 AAC audio is supported only on the Roku TVs and the Roku 4. It is downmixed into stereo for headphone, internal speaker playback, and hdmi/optical output. If you have a receiver that can decode Dolby Digital hooked up to a RokuTV, it will be transcoded into DD5.1.

On Roku set-top-boxes, Dolby Digital audio (AC3, EAC3) is supported via pass-through only. DTS is supported via pass through only on both Roku set-top-boxes and Roku TV’s. You must connect your Roku player via HDMI or S/PDIF (optical) to a TV or receiver capable of decoding Dolby Digital or DTS in order to hear videos with audio tracks in those formats.

[Mark97213]

Thanks for that. Yes, you're right on that. If I'm reading the support pages correctly, I should be getting 5.1 through the media channel via Ethernet but am not for whatever reason. However, I am getting 5.1 through a wireless set up through the Media Channel but not through the Ethernet, has me scratching my head. Wireless would be ok but there are limits with buffering. I've tried both the HDMI and the Optical Link but with the same Stereo only result.