Play Local Media on your Roku TV

Here's how to play content from a USB Flash disk, portable hard drive or media streaming server such as Plex, Kodi, JellyFin on your Roku Smart TV or Streaming stick.

[@kimbaljoseph8748]

Thank you for this video! Finally one that wasn't about screen mirroring 😅

[@tr984]

Nice video my brother. This is exactly what I was looking for! You answered all my questions in this video. I Liked the video 👍

[@DignitedTV]

Glad it helped

[@Bearded_Toy_Guy]

Hello, great video. I have a question about the Roku Media Player that you show @1:00 Does it have the option to watch your videos that you streamvfrom your computer at different speeds? Like 1.5 or 2.0 ? I have a lot of documentaries that i wanna watch but like to get them done faster. Thanks for your help.

[@DignitedTV]

No it doesn’t have that option

[@Bearded_Toy_Guy]

@@DignitedTV you sure? I got the opposite answer from someone else on another video.

[@SamanthaMunitz]

i have a new USB SSD thumb drive with movies installed. I am able to connect and play the movies fine on my Roku tv but when one of my movies plays, there is an audio commentary from the director. How do i switch out of the audio commentary to just the english speaking audio movie?

[@top6ear]

Great vid. Thanks

[@luburk9707]

I have movies on a hard drive and my Roku TV will not open the folders that the movies are in is there anything that I can do to make it open those

[@DignitedTV]

Check that the hard drive is formatted in a compatible file system such as FAT32 or exFAT.

[@martinclay7557]

I can't play any of my networked media, the roku media player won't play the content it can see, this included WMA files and .ts (transport stream) files. I can't install plex on my server devices as they don't have the processing power, They have an old twonky server installed which I used to be able to watch on a Raspberry pi running Kodi. For some reason I can't find the Kodi app on my Roku, presumably geo-restricted.

[@CSstephan]

One solution, and likely the most future proof, would be to stop using exotic file formats. For Video, you can use .mkv, for audio .mp3, .flac, .wav are but some of the options.

[@simplycircus]

You can only stream mp4 files without converting. My file servers are Synology and Buffalo and neither have the power to do conversions on the fly. I have an old desktop with a decent video card running Ubuntu and Plex. The content resides on the Synology (backed up to the Buffalo), which exports a NAS folder that the Ubuntu box has, and the Ubuntu box does the conversions and streams it to the clients.

[@senecakw]

I hate Plex's automated file structure. I just want to see my own files and folders directly, and select files to play. Apparently, you can no longer do that with Plex.

[@DignitedTV]

They have been making changes rapidly as they pivot to a full streaming service. Try out jellyfin or Kodi instead.

[@senecakw]

@@DignitedTV I haven't found any server software that lets you see your own file structure. I'll try jellyfin but i'm pretty sure they don't allow it either. Tried Kodi before and didn't like it.

[@serfinusa9532]

i use VLC on my computers and phone for that, it can see samba shares. Plex is frustrating it encodes the video before it sends it, and good luck if you dont have a fast, dedicated computer.

[@senecakw]

@@serfinusa9532 Of course, I can see the files on my computer. I'm talking about seeing the files on my tv using a streaming device. Plex doesn't let you do that.

[@waiting4theend962]

I used to stream movies from my PC to my Rokutv no problem, No Plex or anything needed, just built in capability of DLNA server and the Roku Media Player would see newly added videos by simply exiting and entering the Media Player again. I just built a new Ryzen 7000 pc and now Roku Media player won't see anything. Nothing. No compatible media found. I've reset the TV, and reset my router to no avail.

[@DignitedTV]

Try installing jellyfin or Kodi or Plex Media server on your PC. You need a dlna compliant media software running on your PC for Roku media player to discover your videos. Also check the file format of your media files. MP4 are safe.

[@jfca283]

Can you load srt subtitiles while playing the videos?

[@lgmnowkondo938]

this is like the ms-dos of media players....I am trying to get something for my mothers roku tv that will do box art at the very least. It seems nothing can do that with a drive connected directly to the tv...which makes no sense at all. Seems like Roku is complete garbage compared to Android.

[@ericjohnson1470]

YIFY lol