Forum Discussion

nithyaak's avatar
nithyaak
Visitor
11 years ago

How to cache several video clips locally

Hi,
I am trying to develop an app for Video clip seemless playing (e.g Ad or VOD purpose ) and i would like to achieve the following functionality.
1. Is it possible to launch this app by default when Roku boots up? if so how without any user interaction?
2. When the app is launched, it connects to a server and get list of video clips url and it downloads to a cache directory (assuming Roku 3 is used), can i download to Micro SD card and read it? if so how?
3. Lets say in #2 above, it download 10 (or few or more) clips during bootup, but while playing any clips, is ROKU capable of go to the server and download new list of video clips to cache directory? I guess, what i am try to ask is it doable and is Roku is multi threaded ? I don't want the Roku to wait (display blank screen etc) while downloading new or next clip to be played
4. If internet connection is not available, roku keep playing from cache directory (in the event of rebooting i don't want to loose any previously downloaded content) until internet connection is up (how can i detect internet connection is up or down before trying to reach the server? Also i need to consider the case Internet is up but the server is down case too)
5. Assuming Roku can periodically connects to my server, Is it possible for me to force reboot the app or Roku device remotely? if so how?

If someone could shed some code would be very helpful.

Thanks a million in advance for your time.
Nithyaak
Roku Developer Program

11 Replies

  • RokuMarkn's avatar
    RokuMarkn
    Visitor
    11 years ago
    1. No
    2. No, a channel can't read or write the SD card. It's only for system use.
    3. Yes, you can perform asynchronous HTTP operations. See ifUrlTransfer in the docs.
    4. Moot since the answer to #2 was no.
    5. If your channel is communicating with the server, it can choose to exit the channel, but it can't reboot the whole unit.

    --Mark
  • nithyaak's avatar
    nithyaak
    Visitor
    11 years ago
    Thanks Martin.
    I am conused with ROKU 3 spec:

    "
    Storage Expansion

    microSD card slot for additional game and channel storage
    "

    What is the internal memory limit where i can store files inside roku3?
    Thanks
  • RokuMarkn's avatar
    RokuMarkn
    Visitor
    11 years ago
    The SD card is only used by the system to store channel packages and related information.
    The File System page in the docs describes the various storage options available.

    --Mark
  • TheEndless's avatar
    TheEndless
    Channel Surfer
    11 years ago
    How large are the clips you're talking about caching locally? The available memory on the Roku, even the Roku 3, isn't big enough to download and cache much, unless your videos are really small.
  • TheEndless's avatar
    TheEndless
    Channel Surfer
    11 years ago
    "nithyaak" wrote:
    my clips will be around 1 GB (several clips )

    Then you won't be caching them locally. I believe even the highest end Roku only has 512 MB total, so you'll need continuous network access the duration of playback.
  • nithyaak's avatar
    nithyaak
    Visitor
    11 years ago
    Thanks Endless. I still don't understand why roku won't allow either USB or MicroSD to store content for Channel development. I wish they allow it
  • EnTerr's avatar
    EnTerr
    Roku Guru
    11 years ago
    "nithyaak" wrote:
    Thanks Endless. I still don't understand why roku won't allow either USB or MicroSD to store content for Channel development. I wish they allow it

    They could but there are twists and turns. For example uSD card is encrypted filesystem. And on USB probably would be limited to FAT32 for r/w.

    Main reasoning was probably that they'd like the player to be more of a stateless machine that gets what's needed from the network turns clear slate-ish on restart. (Yes, i know about registry but that's intentionally limited)

    Anybody know what's Amazon FireTV stance on that?
  • destruk's avatar
    destruk
    Streaming Star
    11 years ago
    They want to sell their BrightSign product, so a stand-alone use like this wouldn't be in their best interest in that regard.
    You would be able to copy your files to USB, and send it to your customers to set up onsite playing from usb with a custom playlist - with buffering between each video clip.
    The largest file I've been able to store on a roku is about 200MB in the tmp directory - with most all other channels removed. Even from tmp you'd still have buffering delays between clips.
    The roku isn't really suited for this purpose - lots of other set boxes do this kind of thing much much easier/better.
  • EnTerr's avatar
    EnTerr
    Roku Guru
    11 years ago
    "destruk" wrote:
    They want to sell their BrightSign product, so a stand-alone use like this wouldn't be in their best interest in that regard.
    You would be able to copy your files to USB, and send it to your customers to set up onsite playing from usb with a custom playlist - with buffering between each video clip.
    The largest file I've been able to store on a roku is about 200MB in the tmp directory - with most all other channels removed.

    BrightSign is a high-priced niche product. If FireTV and AndroidTV allow writing to local FS, don't be surprised how quickly Roku will jump on that too.

    Re storage, note that channel bundles use different FS than temp dir. tmp:/ is a RAM file system (i think it uses the ramfs and not tmpfs because it has no upper limit and storing too much unpredictably crashes the box).