Forum Discussion

mitchstein's avatar
mitchstein
Roku Guru
8 years ago

hosted json files

It seems to me, but I could be wrong, that many firsttime broadcasters have the added difficulty of setting up thier servers to properly feed json files and many have resorted to paid hosting for it.

So my question is, would it be beneficial to many people if I setup a site to host the json files for free?

If so let me know, if enough people say yes I'll setup an ftp/http site for it. with example json files that I have as well. I was working on an HTML interface/form to create the json files but it became so complex it wasn't worth doing especially when I found out that roku's json format is not compatible with firebox, and firebox's and rokus is not compatible with apple tv and only firebox's work with android tv.. Each company has developed thier format and labled it as "standard".
Roku Direct Publisher

12 Replies

  • mkammes's avatar
    mkammes
    Roku Guru
    8 years ago
    Don't want to rain on your parade, but what about:

    A Wordpress site with WP Smart TV be an alternative?  Wordpress is free, as is the plugin.  The plugin creates the JSON on the WP instance, and also gives you options and such to put in the JSON values without knowing how to code.

    https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-smart-tv/
  • mitchstein's avatar
    mitchstein
    Roku Guru
    8 years ago
    it lost me on setting up a wordpress page and installing permalinks and the plugin.. Why spend the time learning another site setup. wouldn't it just be easier to ftp up a json file and point the DP to the url of the file?

    anyway, seems little to no interest.. so no reason to set it all up..
  • ielko's avatar
    ielko
    Visitor
    8 years ago
    "mitchstein" wrote:
    it lost me on setting up a wordpress page and installing permalinks and the plugin.. Why spend the time learning another site setup. wouldn't it just be easier to ftp up a json file and point the DP to the url of the file?

    anyway, seems little to no interest.. so no reason to set it all up..

    I ve made a plugin, made a forum post about it earlier 🙂 https://github.com/upggr/ielko-video-client
  • mkammes's avatar
    mkammes
    Roku Guru
    8 years ago
    I used it when I built my FIRST channel....I used it to reverse engineer code when developing against the SDK.  The ugly splash screen saying INSTANT TV without paying for it was a bit annoying 😉
  • mitchstein's avatar
    mitchstein
    Roku Guru
    8 years ago
    how do you unpackage the channel, I tried winzip but it just says corrupted compressed file.
  • mkammes's avatar
    mkammes
    Roku Guru
    8 years ago
    I haven't used in in several years, when it was still based on the SDK only (no DP)....so, I don't have an answer for ya.
  • OddScott's avatar
    OddScott
    Roku Guru
    8 years ago
    I'd like to know how to get the source from an Instant TV Channel PKG file too! 
  • Tiffansy's avatar
    Tiffansy
    Visitor
    8 years ago
    same question

    how do you unpackage the channel, I tried winzip but it just says corrupted compressed file.
    • legalevo's avatar
      legalevo
      Binge Watcher
      5 years ago

      In the comments, no one talks about where should host JSON files. mitchstein  Sir, please guide!

      • mitchstein's avatar
        mitchstein
        Roku Guru
        5 years ago

        any web server will work.

        If you have Apache make sure this line is in .htaccess.

        AddType application/json .json

        If IIS make sure that the MIME type for *.json is application/json.