Do you have the 10.5 update on your Roku? I have the same issue since the update to 10.5 for channels to begin playing. About two weeks ago, we had the update. The evening before the update, channels would load in about 2-3 seconds. The following morning after the update, channels take closer to 10 seconds to load. I don’t know the specifics, but Roku knows there is a problem with the update. It’s effecting other apps in a similar way or won’t let them play at all. I was chatting with someone who was able to have Roku change his device back to 10.0 and because there are so many issues, there was a possibility of changing back to 10.0 until they can figure out the issues.
My Roku Ultra just updated back to version 10 yesterday. I was running version 10.5 with no problems, no idea why it went back to version 10.
There are a lot of issues with the 10.5 update. It didn’t effect everyone, but Roku had no idea how to resolve all of the problems. I think they did what they had to do. I know there were so many complaints, people were threatening to get rid of the device. For many, they couldn’t watch streaming services they were paying for.
I have a 4660 ultra that I rarely use. yesteday I thought I would check to see if it had installed 10.5. It hadn’t so I ask for a check for updates.
It said 10.5 was available and if I wanted to update. So I selected update. It updated the OS and rebooted. But when I accessed the system info settings it said it still had 10.0 installed.
My Roku Ultra (4670X) updated back to 10.5 yesterday (10.5.0.4208). No problems so far.
Did it automatically update back to 10.5 or did you click the update now button?
Manual check. Actually I was a little surprised that the 10.5 software update was offered so soon after V10. Evidently they [Roku] found and resolved the issues…
Yeah, Mine has 10.5 available but I’m not sure this is the fix for 10.5 or just letting me know I can go to 10.5 (the original one). I don’t want to force it so I’ll wait until it does it Automatically.
My experience is exactly the same. Very slow on the 2021 Roku, and about 4 seconds on an old iPad. The Tablo apologists always mention transcoding, but don’t deal with the fact that Tablo is so slow with Roku compared to the iPad. I split my signal and surf using the tv tuner. I wonder how it is with Google or Amazon devices.
We also use Chromecast with Google TV and it’s like lightning compared to Roku. It’s just a couple of seconds for transcoding. The laptop is the fastest. It’s literally about a one second to tune in a channel or load the guides.
Regardless of app/devices you use, all transcoding is done on the tablo device itself.
I understand that the transcoding is done at the Tablo. I believe I mentioned this in a post about the 10.5 update, my Roku was operating as efficient as it has been, but with the 10.5 update it’s now horribly slow. This is a software issue on Roku’s part. We still don’t have the downgrade option to go back to 10.0 and we can’t do a factory reset or we’ll lose my wife’s app. Roku is on the slower side anyway because many (not all) of their devices don’t have powerful processors/hardware.
The more I use other devices for my Tablo App the less and less I like Roku Ultra. As mentioned before, Roku takes what seems forever in our need it now society to start displaying the programming. All my devices are hardwired with ethernet and Roku takes 2x and sometimes 3x as long to tune in a channel not recently tuned in. I’ve also tried switching to WiFi and different live TV quality settings. No change. I have a LG C1 with the Tablo App on it and it’s starting to be my preferred viewing method. It’s much faster. The Tablo interface on the LG as well as my Apple TV devices are also more vibrant and user friendly.
Just a heads up, the Tablo app that runs directly on LG TVs is no longer supported and won’t be updated…
We use Chromecast with Google TV and Nvidia for our primary streaming devices. The Roku was put in the bedroom because it’s not used as much. It’s painfully slow in comparison. We have done everything recommended by Roku as well as Roku users. The only thing that helped slightly was clearing the cache.
1 Like
As long as it operates as it, I’m fine with that. Not sure what future updates that Roku/Apple could do that would improve the speed of tuning anyway. After using various platform Tablo apps, I’m surprised how antiquated the Roku app interface is. The Apple and LG apps are slicker and provide more on screen options for recording options and capability. Tablo must have some input in to this unless Roku has strict design guidelines that have to be followed.
What do you have the recording and live TV quality settings at?
Maybe dropping the live TV settings down a tad could help some.
I have mine set to HD 1080 - 8 Mbps. Any higher and I get buffering and really slow startup times.
Thank you for the suggestions but it doesn’t help. That setting is on the Tablo and I don’t have slow strap on LG app and less so with the Apple TV app. I mentioned in the post that I’ve tried all quality settings and went all the way down to the SD 480… which I would never want to watch anyway…and the picture start up time did not improve. I don’t have buffering issues at all. Not sure what the setting “Fast TV Startup” does but that doesn’t make a difference either. It is what it is but it sure makes it hard to “channel surf”. :-).
I have the exact same experience as you. As of 2023, it remains very slow on a new Roku Streaming stick and about twice as fast with an older iPad. If it wasn’t for this, I would be satisfied with the Roku experience. The Roku defenders chalk it up to transcoding, but they don’t acknowledge the disparity between Roku and iPads. Thanks.
I’ve written direct play clients for many devices and the Roku h/w and API needs a huge pre-buffer, nothing to do with transcoding or the format (mpeg-ts vs hls)
Recording shouldn’t have this issue, although remuxed mp4 and m3u8 files skip much better.