New Roku Ultra vs HTPC..

General Discussions
1

I currently have a HTPC pulling untranscoded content from my plex server and its needing some new parts due to a lighting strike… I am looking a the possibility of replacing it with a new Roku Ultra. Would the new Roku Ultra also play untranscoded content also?

2

This is a case of “it depends”!

If depends on the content you’re serving to the Roku. If you’re serving a bunch of MP4 or MKV files that are all AVC (h.264), then yes it’ll direct-play everything. Same for HEVC (h265).

If you’re using Plex to watch HD content you’re recording off an antenna or cable system (typically MPEG2) , then Plex will need to transcode that to watch on the Roku.

With the new Roku, I believe it will handle any modern audio format that you throw at it, but I haven’t researched it well enough to be 100% sure. Though transcoding audio typically doesn’t tax the CPU very much.

3

Depends on your files’ format like @blue-dawgie said. If you want maximal file format support at a decent price, the ShieldTV is the device to go with. Supports HEVC, vc1, Atmos, dts-hd, etc etc.

4

@bmdoss said:
I currently have a HTPC pulling untranscoded content from my plex server and its needing some new parts due to a lighting strike… I am looking a the possibility of replacing it with a new Roku Ultra. Would the new Roku Ultra also play untranscoded content also?

My Roku 3 can play any h.264 I’ve ever run across, and stereo AAC. Roku TVs also appear to support Dolby Digital. If you also have an audio/video receiver, you can probably add Dolby Digital Plus and DTS to the list of things it’ll play without transcoding. The cases where my Plex server transcodes are when:

  • The audio is Dolby/DTS and I plug in headphones to the Roku remote; or
  • The video is not h.264.

So I’m sure a Roku ultra can do at least that much. The Roku is also not too picky about containers–it’ll play (at least) MKV, MP4, and M2TS without re-muxing.

The actual Roku box is way more forgiving than what its documentation says.

5

Looks like I may need to go the Shield TV route… I do need Atmos and it does work flawless on the HTPC

But looks like I would need to upgrade my harmony to a hub based model…