HomePlay MKV files on Roku with No Audio via USB or Plex
The Roku media player allows you to find, browse, and play content from media servers on your local network as well as USB (on those Roku players with a USB port such as Roku 4, 3 and new Roku 2). From Roku's official page, we can find that MKV files is listed in Roku media player channel supported file formats, however, still a lot of fail to have audio issues when playing MKV on Roku with USB or Plex Media Server:
"I have a Roku 3 and when I play a video file off a USB drive, using the Roku Media Player channel, there is no sound. The sound works fine on other Roku channels. Could someone please talk me through how to rectify this?"
" I am using a Roku 2 (newer) and I am running the Plex Media Server on my Win7 machine. I have made backups of a few movies I own in MKV format. Some of the movies will play fine, some give me the error "There was a problem playing this item." Those movies don't play on the Roku or even when I try within the Plex Media Server player. I looked at which movies play and which do not, and it seems like all the ones that do not play have either a DTS or DTS-MA audio track. Could this be causing the movies not to play and throw that error at me? Please help and thank you in advance."
Why MKV files on Roku has no audio?
The main reason is that MKV is a container file format, which can hold various different video and audio codec, and the audio file supported by Roku are limited to the following formats and codec:
AAC (.MKV, .MP4, .MOV); MP3(.MP3, .MKV); WMA (.ASF, .WMA, .MKV), FLAC (.FLAC, .MKV), PCM (.WAV, .MKV, .MP4, .MOV), AC3/EAC3 (.MKV,.MP4. .MOV, .AC3), DTS (.MKV, .MP4, .MOV), ALAC (.MKV, .MP4, .MOV, .M4A)
If you have audio issues when playing MKV files on Roku, the MKV may encoded with Roku media player unsupported audio codec such as Vorbis, Opus, LPCM, MLP/Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD.
Transcode MKV with unsupported audio codec for Roku
To fix the audio incompatible issue, you can use a third-party audio conversion tool such as Pavtube Video Converter for Windows/Mac (best Video Converter for Mac Review), which can comprehensive covnert incompatible DTS-HD/MLP/Dolby TrueHD/Vorbis/Opus MKV to Roku supported file formats with just one click. Tips, if you also encounte MKV video playback problems, you can also use the program to convert unsupported MKV such as MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 (A)SP, VC-1/WMV, Real Video, Theora, Microsoft MPEG4 V2, VP8, VP9, MVC, etc for Roku playback via USB drive or Plex Media Server.
Apart from MKV, the program can also facilitates you to convert other incompatible file format such as AVI, WMV, MP4, FLV, MXF, AVCHD, XAVC S, Prores, etc to Roku best supported formats.
How to Convert MKV Video with Unsupported Audio Codec to Roku for Playing via USB or Plex?
Step 1: Input MKV video into the program.
Step 2: Choose Roku supported file format. For Roku 3/2, H.264 MP4 is favorable, for Roku 4, H.265 MP4 is preferred.
Best format for Roku 3/2
Best format for Roku 4
Step 3: Output Roku compatible audio codec.
Click "Settings" to open the "Profile Settings" window, here you can adjust the output audio as "AAC" for Roku playback.
Step 4: Start MKV video to Roku media player channel supported format conversion process.
When the conversion is completed, you can stream video to Roku via either USB drive or Plex Media Server.
Play MP4 video on Roku via USB drive
1. Install the Roku Media Player channel, either through the Channel Store on your Roku or via Roku's website.
2. Add the video file to your external USB drive from your computer.
3. Connect the USB drive to the Roku's USB port, located on the right side of the box.
4. Launch the Roku Media Player channel and select Videos.
5. Choose the drive that's attached to the Roku.
6. Navigate to the folder that has the video file you want to watch. Click OK to open the folder.
7. Select the video to watch and click Play on the remote.
Stream MP4 video to Roku via Plex Media Server
1. Download and install Plex Media Server. After installation, create a Plex log in ID.
2. Add media content on to Plex library according to the type of your content (i.e. Movies, TV Shows, Music, Photos, or Home Videos).
3. Plex channel for Roku is now available and you can buy it from Roku store. After making the Plex channel run on your Roku media player, you can watch the compatible mp4 video you have added to Plex server with Roku player on TV.
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