Certain videos have about 1/4 screen width vertical strip shifting up and down while playing. But I can’t narrow down the issue.
It only happens with my Midsomer Murders videos, all of them, all seasons, and collected from various sources (DVDs, video capture, and ).
It only happens playing through my two Rokus, a new Ultra and a 5+ year old streaming stick.
The videos play fine using Plex.app on my Mac or iPhone or using VLC. All other videos seem to play fine on the Rokus.
The problem only started recently. Recent hardware changes are only replace a bad hard drive on my server and upgrading the Roku Ultra. Software changes probably include Plex server version and possibly updates on the Rokus (which occur silently).
I’ve done the standard turn it all off and on again on the Rokus and the Plex Server app and also tried a different copy of one of the Midsomer episodes on a different drive (but still through Plex).
I’m on the verge of buying an Apple TV to see if that fixes the problem, but meanwhile I’m totally baffled as to why or how a Roku seems to have started hating only one particular series running through Plex.
I think you are going to find the issue here is the format of the source files, given they are likely all video based and the Roku Plex app might not be able to decode the the interlaced stream properly with default settings.
If you either force the Roku Plex app to direct play or transcode, does the issue persist?
If you change the quality of playback, does it make a difference?
Are you able to go into settings and try to enable MPG2.
Might also pay to let us know what codec and resolution the file is.
Another step you could take to test is to disable hardware acceleration and encoding on Plex Server.
Or could you re-encode the file with HandBrake if you can’t enable MPG2 on Roku.
I thought about that, however the videos (179 of them) range from SD (early seasons) to 1080P with different codecs. The encoding was done over about 20 years! Other shows recorded or ripped over time that I’ve looked at all play fine. It’s like these Rokus’ Plex players have a bit of code “if (Title = “Midsomer Murders”) then screwup_playback”
They won’t play at all if transcoding is turned off in the server app. If I lower the quality they basically are unwatchable because the quality is so low.
I just tried re-encoding to MPEG2 with Handbrake. Major quality loss (and file size reduction) but other than that it plays fine. I think I will probably just buy an Apple TV and see if that fixes it. Would be a better player anyway.
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