Talk to me like I’m an idiot because I haven’t been able to concentrate on on e thing for long lately.
I have a Roku the XDS model and I want to be able to watch some videos that are on my PC. They are in .mkv format.
What do I need on my PC and how do I set it up to accomplish this?
The Roku isn’t really designed to stream media from a networked hard drive. The official way to do it (since you have the XDS) is to transfer the files to some kind of drive that plugs into the USB port, and then use the Roku USB Media Player (available to install via the Channel Store) to play the video. From what I’ve been able to gather online, there are some kinds of requirements on the TV you can use to do this — your TV has to be capable of decoding the audio stream if it’s in a fancy format, or something like that.
I think there are also some third-party channels out there that allow you to stream directly from a networked drive, but they’re not officially supported and I’m not really familiar with them. Try googling “roku videos from pc” for more info.
I’ve never heard of Roku until now, so I’m not an authority or anything. From what I’m reading, though (Another firmware update grants Roku owners USB channel, MKV containers come along | Engadget) it looks like a firmware upgrade will allow you to put those files onto a USB drive and play them off of there. I think you can get that upgrade through the Channel Store.
This thing actually looks really cool. Do you happen to know if you get the full NCAA Football lineup on it?
Edit - so close to being relevant, yet moment away!
You can stream files from the PC by installing an app on the Roku such as MyMedia, which I use to stream videos from a NAS network drive to the Roku.
There are a lot of others but you’ll have to find them. They all work the same, you download a server for the PC and the app connects to it and streams the files.
The downside is that if your files are in mkv format you’ll have to re-encode them.
ETA: you can also do the USB thing but I have the XD without the USB port so I’m not familiar with that.
Another option if your PC is a laptop, you may find it simplest to just hook the laptop up to your TV. Most newer TVs have a wide array of input ports.