btpoole - perhaps the parse allow/disallow depends on the thread? What I've been doing here is when the channel starts - the first file it executes, basically the first thing it does is download the content xml, parse it, and put it into an RoSGNode ContentNode. After that it creates the roSGScreen and sets the scene content to the contentnode. It's real quick. If you do that, be sure to remove the 'splash_min_time' from the manifest or set it to 0, as the splash screen will still be shown for the few (approximately 6 seconds for 550 items) seconds before the main content screen appears.
Once the channel is up and going, I think I want to minimize any internet content that will need to be parsed as much as possible - as it can take 2-4 seconds simply to load and parse further content from the internet. And I don't know what I'll need to do to deal with the 6+ second delay making a single sale through the roku billing system - it really needs to be faster than that is. 😞