Since before Christmas when Roku finally fixed its firmware, I had not seen a single instance of LPW on my Roku 4 with my 4 tuner tablo.
Yesterday, suddenly it was back, on EVERY RECORDING, FROM EVERY CHANNEL. I literally couldn’t watch much of anything last night. Every program had constant LPW with looping behaviour.
What the?
Roku os developers don’t believe in beta testing.Release and everyone is a beta tester. For best Tablo experience use a NP.
Had this happen for the first time EVER for me…
Back last Fall / Winter I was one of the few that had no issues with it on any of my multiple Rokus… Been perfect over a year… Until Roku software 7.1…
Got the repeated LPW for the first time ever this morning, rebooted the Roku and all has been well since. I was thinking it might have just been an isolated incident but since you posted this, maybe not?
Maybe isolated, maybe a coincidence, still worrisome!
Not isolated. Have had this happen multiple times the past two days. Watching Poirot on Acorn. Watching the shopping channels such as HSN. On PBS. Not only the Tablo but other packages on the Roku. The Roku developers really screwed up this time. Where do they hire these guys from?
I have two Roku 3s and one NP. The R3s are on 7.1.0 4062 and everything is working just fine on the 2 R3s. There must be something else in the equation that is not known at this point. The NP continues to be a much better player than the R3s. I know this is probably no help to you guys, but it seems to me that there must be something else that we are missing.
Perhaps @TabloTv will listen to us and list NP and Shield as preferred boxes for watching Tablo on TV. Roku Oscar upgrades frequently breaks channels including Tablo.
My issues with 7.1 are on Roku 4s… We dont watch our 3s with Tablo often so not sure if they have the issue or not. Kids reported they got booted out of PBS & Disney Jr on their Roku 3s but not sure how often…
I believe most of the issues posted on the Roku forums have been with the Roku 4s…
I’m having those issues with my Roku 3s. Despite a superfast Internet and all devices wired (with static IPs) the Roku does the LPW bit. HSN was particularly bad last night - almost unwatchable. If it was their servers, I’d understand, but Acorn was also experiencing LPWs. And Acorn is mostly SD video (not high bandwidth)!
There is something to what you say! I’ve noticed that on my Roku, Amazon Prime Video has never had LPW issues - EVER! However some of my packages like Acorn, HSN, QVC, PBS and the Smithsonian do have the LPW problem.
So what is the difference between Amazon and the others?!?!
There is the standard Roku API that all adhere to. Yet Amazon seems to avoid problems. It appears to be a combination of Roku OS (SDK) plus device interface programming. Not just one or the other but a combination of both that Amazon has figured out. Throw in Amazon’s expertise with their own cloud and it may be the combination of server + SDK + device that Amazon has mastered.
Had no problems last night, but if the LPW re-emerges the Roku 4 is getting sold and I’m buying a Shield.
Not sure if the difference is the SDK use as much as transcoding.
I never have LPW on Netflix either but on both Netflix and Amazon, occasionally the video quality is degraded.
if I had to take a stab at the issue, I would say it’s likely in the networking drivers / programming of the Roku. Those channels that have invested a lot of money into on the fly transcoding can make up for the issue with slight bit rate reductions, those that do little on the fly modifications (or NONE such as Tablo) can’t drop the bit rate quick enough so the Roku must pause and pre-load more data before resuming play.
I am happy to say I still haven’t had any other LPW since the Roku reboot but the dropping out of playback and back to guide / chooser screens continues to plague us and seems to be getting worse.
Ok…thought it was just me…got this all the time last night when watching LiveTV only via Tablo…not during recordings…interesting…was going to open a support ticket but didnt need to thanks to this community!
Good catch on the transcoding issue! You’re right - Amazon doesn’t LPW or kick out but the video resolution does get lowered in problem situations. So they may be controlling the flow and avoiding a total stoppage (of different kinds such as kickout or LPW) via resolution change on the go. A dynamic adjustment on the fly.
I’ve noticed that HSN, streaming HD on their primary channel, is an all or nothing affair. Either HD or total stop with LPW. But never a lowering of resolution. No dynamic adjustment in their case ever. Of course when you’re showcasing jewelry, you’re going to live or die with HD!
On a sidenote, interesting that both Amazon Prime and Netflix both use AWS in their backend.
Tablo dudes: I’m sure you have a contact at Roku for issues. I hope you’ve flagged the latest firmware revision as completely FUBAR and have taken a dump on that person’s head! 