Forum Discussion

fjdkalfdkfdk's avatar
fjdkalfdkfdk
Reel Rookie
6 years ago

Live Feed refresh rate

Roku Direct Publisher started supporting live content (through the "liveFeed" type) a few months ago, which is great.

However, it seems very counter-intuitive to me that the refresh rate of the (live) content on the homepage of a Direct Publisher app is ~6 hours. By then, a live video will have come and gone, and the user may never have had the chance to see it! At best, if the content is known well in advance, we can work with the "validity period" to hide content until it becomes relevant, but if an app works with user-generated content, there is no way of knowing this.

Even though questions around the topic of update periods have been asked previously, I have not found a definitive answer on the solution to this problem (if indeed there is one). Thank you!

Roku Direct Publisher

6 Replies

  • 37mediagroup's avatar
    37mediagroup
    Roku Guru
    6 years ago

    If it;s what I think you're referring to my suggestion & workaround is load the new file early (6+ hours) and just stream a 'Standby' graphic until closer to going live. Live bandwidth rates should be fairly minimal if that's a concern, since no viewers will watch long, and you can keep an eye on the live feed & rest assured your stream is ready to go.

    • Baradanikto's avatar
      Baradanikto
      Roku Guru
      6 years ago

      The 6+ hours is typically the time it takes for Roku to ingest the feed url if the url path has not changed.  I believe it does this due to caching.  You should be able to rename the feed file and force Roku to ingest it right away because it will not have a feed url in its cache with the new name.

      • fjdkalfdkfdk's avatar
        fjdkalfdkfdk
        Reel Rookie
        6 years ago
         
        Baradaniktocould you elaborate on this? It's an interesting suggestion. However, I think what you're suggesting is a manual process, right? Because if we rely on user-generated content (like Youtube), a live stream could be started at any moment (and without advance notice). So then the feed url will need to be changed automatically (e.g. on a cronjob) every 2 minutes or so, but I doubt this would be appreciated by the Roku platform.
         
    • fjdkalfdkfdk's avatar
      fjdkalfdkfdk
      Reel Rookie
      6 years ago

      37mediagroup  Unfortunately, I do not see this as a viable option for user-generated content. Take, for example, a service like Youtube, where users can start a live stream at any time. There is no way to predict which placeholders to put in the feed file because it's up to the user. Thanks for the suggestion though, would love to hear other ideas if you have any.