How to use Roku Media Player to play your videos, music and photos

Playing content stored on a USB drive

Some Roku devices include a USB port to which you can connect an external USB drive for the purpose of playing locally stored photo, audio, and video files. You can connect more than one USB drive to your Roku device by connecting them to a USB hub.

USB drives may be formatted with different file systems. Roku Media Player supports drives that are formatted with the FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, EXT2, EXT3, and HFS+ file systems. You can also access different partitions on the USB drive.

Insert the USB device into the USB port on your Roku device. If Roku Media Player is not installed, you will be prompted to add it from the Roku Channel Store. If the channel is installed, an on-screen prompt will ask you to launch Roku Media Player.

• Note: You can change how your Roku device behaves when a USB device is inserted by visiting Settings > System > USB media.

If you are in Roku Media Player when the USB device is inserted, a USB Drive icon should show up in the media device selection screen.

You can access this screen by selecting All from the main screen. If you do not see the icon, learn what to do if Roku Media Player does not detect the USB device.

Searching for content on your USB drive

Before you can search your USB drive, Roku Media Player must first build a database of your content. It does this automatically as you navigate each folder, or you can manually trigger a scan of all files using the steps described below.

A scan may take several minutes depending on the number of files on your USB drive, and canceling the operation early will cause results to be lost. When the scan finishes, results are stored in the memory of your Roku device. If your Roku device has a micro SD slot, and a micro SD card is installed when a scan completes, results will also be saved there making them available each time you start Roku Media Player with the same USB drive.

• Note: Currently, only genre, artist, album, and song are extracted from audio files during a scan. You can, however, search by filename for any file.

After Roku Media Player finishes building the database, you can perform a media search using the steps below.

After the database of content has been created, you can select Audio as the media type to see new folders appear at the top level on the navigation screen. When you select <by Genre>, <by Artist>, or <by Album>, you can view your audio content organized by the respective tags embedded in each file.

Playing content on your local area network

DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) is a standard technology that enables sharing of content between devices connected over a network. To play content stored on another device or computer on your Roku device using DLNA, the other device must be running DLNA server software and must be on the same network as your Roku device. Some routers and NAS (Network Attached Storage) devices have a built in DLNA server.

Roku Media Player has been tested to work with the following DLNA servers:

• Windows Media Player/Center
• Serviio
• Plex
• Twonky
• MiniDLNA/ReadyDLNA/ReadyMedia
• PlayOn
• Synology (DSM 6.2.1)

For information on setting up a DLNA server, consult the associated online support site.

Searching for content on your network

Some DLNA servers support media searches, typically for genre, artist, album, and song. You can use the USB drive steps described above to search such a DLNA server.

• Note: If you do not see an option to Search, the DLNA server does not support media search.

Supported media file types

Different Roku devices support different formats. Newer firmware may support additional formats. The type of audio formats supported is dependent on the type of TV or A/V receiver (AVR) your Roku device is connected to. Formats supported by your Roku device can be viewed by accessing the ?/Help pages from the Media Device and the Media Type selection screens.

The following file formats are supported:

• Video – H.264/AVC (.MKV, .MP4, .MOV)
• Audio – AAC (.MKV, .MP4, .MOV); MP3(.MP3, .MKV); FLAC (.FLAC, .MKV), PCM (.WAV, .MKV, .MP4, .MOV), DTS (.MKV, .MP4, .MOV,.DTS), ALAC (.MKV, .MP4, .MOV, .M4A), Vorbis (.OGG,.MKV,.WEBM)
• Playlists –.M3U, .M3U8, .PLS
• Image – JPG, PNG, GIF (non-animated)

The following media formats are supported on Roku devices that support 4K

• 4K Video – H.265/HEVC (.MKV, .MP4, .MOV); VP9 (.MKV, .WEBM) and AV1 (.MKV, MP4) on some Roku devices
• 4K Video – H.264 (Roku Premiere, Premiere+, and Ultra only)

The following media formats are supported on Roku devices that support 8K

• 8K Video – AV1 (.MKV, MP4) and H.265/HEVC (.MKV, .MP4)

The following media formats are supported on Roku TV models and some Roku players

• Video – H.262 (.MKV)

• Note:
  • The Roku Media Player channel will not display unsupported file types or files it has determined cannot be played by your Roku device.
  • DRM-protected content is not supported.

Support for 5.1 AC3/E-AC3 (Dolby Digital)

Most Roku players cannot decode Dolby Digital™ (AC3) or Dolby Digital Plus™ (E-AC3). If you are trying to play Dolby Audio™ (AC3, E-AC3) but do not hear multi-channel surround sound, try connecting your Roku player via HDMI® or S/PDIF (optical) to a TV or AVR capable of decoding Dolby Audio™. Your Roku player will pass through the encoded Dolby Audio to the TV or AVR for decoding.

Some Roku players can decode Dolby Digital Plus to HDMI and S/PDIF TOSLINK (optical). This means that content encoded with Dolby Digital Plus will be transcoded (converted) into Dolby Digital if your AVR does not support Dolby Digital Plus, but does support Dolby Digital 5.1.

Roku TV models support transcoding Dolby Digital Plus to Dolby Digital for the S/PDIF (optical) and ARC (Audio Return Channel) connectors, allowing you to connect your TV audio to an AVR that supports Dolby Digital 5.1 (but not Dolby Digital Plus).

• Note: Dolby TrueHD and lossless Dolby are not supported.

Support for 5.1 DTS

Roku devices will only pass-through DTS audio. To decode multi-channel surround sound, you must connect your Roku device via HDMI or S/PDIF (optical) to a TV or AVR capable of decoding DTS.

• Note: DTS-HD and lossless DTS are not supported.

Support for AAC (Advanced Audio Coding)

Roku devices do not support AAC pass-through. Instead, Stereo AAC is transcoded to PCM stereo.

Roku TV models and some Roku players decode 5.1 AAC to PCM stereo for headphone, internal speaker, and HDMI/ S/PDIF (optical) output. However, Roku devices that support Dolby Audio decode connected via HDMI or S/PDIF (optical) to an AVR that also supports Dolby Audio, will convert the audio to Dolby Digital 5.1.

How to play music, photos, or video using Roku Media Player

• Tip:
  • To play all the videos/music/photos in a folder (and subfolders) or playlist, press Play when the folder or playlist is highlighted.
  • Options for playback like repeat and shuffle can be accessed by pressing Star on your Roku remote.
  • Options for audio playback can only be accessed while playing audio content.
  • Options for video playback can only be changed when viewing the video details screen.
  • Options for photo playback can only be accessed while a slideshow is running.

Convert videos to play with Roku Media Player

Some DLNA servers, such as Plex, Serviio, WMP, and some Synology devices will automatically convert (transcode) the video to a format supported by the Roku device. If you are using a DLNA server that does not support transcoding, or you are playing directly from a USB drive, you may need to convert the files first. There are several applications available for converting videos.

Provide your own poster artwork for videos on a USB drive

You can add your own artwork for a video by creating a JPG, THM, or PNG file with the same name as the video, and copying it to the same folder as the video on the USB drive.

Support for movie subtitles

Roku Media Player supports embedded subtitles in .mkv files. To choose a subtitle track use Star while the video is playing. If you have a Roku TV, you also need to select Accessibility. Roku Media Player will automatically include subtitle tracks found in .SRT and .VTT files. The files must be saved in the same folder as the video. They must have the same name as the video and the .srt or .vtt extension. To include multiple files you must insert a language extension, for example movie.eng.srt or movie.ger.srt.

Support for playlists

Roku Media Player supports .pls, .m3u and .m3u8 playlists on a USB drive. The media in the playlist should have an extension that indicates the media type, for example .mp3, .mkv, .jpg, etc. Playlist entries can also point to a URL. Make sure the URL begins with http:// and the extension should indicate the media type. If the playlist entry does not have a recognizable extension, it will be treated as a video and will try to detect the actual media type when it starts playing. Some DLNA servers will convert playlist files to folders that the Roku Media Player can access using DLNA.

Creating USB drive that will auto start a slideshow, music playback, or a movie

Create a playlist file called Autostart.m3u in the root of the USB device. Put entries in that file that point to the media you want automatically played on your Roku. Set the Roku to auto-launch Roku Media Player when a USB device is inserted by going to the Settings > System > USB media menu. If you want to disable automatic playback, you can disable it the main Settings menu of Roku Media Player.

Setting a favorite DLNA server

You can set up Roku Media Player to go directly into your favorite DLNA server each time the channel is launched (if there is no USB drive).

Change the navigation style

Disable album artwork lookup when accessing mp3 files on a USB drive

You can change whether the USB player attempts to find album artwork on the web when reading .mp3 audio files. This can significantly speed up going into a folder with lots of audio files.

Disable the Media Type selection screen at startup

Dolby is a registered trademark of Dolby Laboratories.