GridScreen and VideoPlayer building first channel and have a lot of questions

A few questions that seem left unanswered that are troubling me: I've looked at many of the posted examples and watched all of the videos I can find so far. 

1) Am I supposed to have a single manifest document at the top of the .zip I sideload into my device? I see different manifest files in each of the folders within the git example, but should I move all of that code into a single manifest file in the root?

2) I have categories assigned within my json feed, but they are not appearing in the test channel. I only see a single row of "series" or "movies", but no separate categories. With the DP program I simply added the categories for the content as I see fit, and the videos were sorted according to those settings.

3) I see some duplicated content in the folders for the different examples. If I want to use the GridScreen, and the Episode Screen, do I need to include all examples of the folders in the components? the GridScreen folder is in both the GridScreen and the Episode; do I include it twice? The GridScreen, DetailScreen, and VideoPlayer all have gridscreen files, rowlistitemcomponents, tasks, UILogic, manifest, and source files does this need to be duplicated like that? I have an out folder that automatically creates a staging and deploying zip file I use to sideload the project, It only includes the images, source and manifest. What should the zip file include that you sideload?

There seems to be a lot of confusion on these boards and some mixed messages form Roku, and holes in the documentation... is there a complete example that might be available from the community that we could review as a cleaner example?  Hello world is too simple and  scenegraph master sample is cumbersome with what looks like duplicate code and files? what do I need to include and what do I not need? renojim, @makeaiguy, AvsGunnar Some support would be great! Thank you!