Forum Discussion

ionatan's avatar
ionatan
Roku Guru
14 years ago

Paid Video List

Hello

Is it possible to add in a channel, in a category, a list with some paid videos, videos that can be purchased/rented by viewers?! How canI do this?

Thanks

5 Replies

  • YungBlood's avatar
    YungBlood
    Streaming Star
    For that style, it would probably be best to use a third party billing system. Then you can keep track in your own database which movies the user has bought/rented, and keep track of expiration times so that the user can't watch it after it has expired. Probably easiest if you just check when they go to start the video, so it won't timeout during the movie. So you will need to need to research registration & billing. If you have questions about registration, I can help you.
  • You can have that user go to Roku to do all billing for them, but they take 30% off your price per subscriber. Why not just use your site and add Paypal Buttons for a one time payment or recurring payments?
  • YungBlood's avatar
    YungBlood
    Streaming Star
    "ionatan" wrote:
    By "registration" you mean this: http://blog.roku.com/developer/2011/07/ ... e-account/ ??

    And after I connect a user from my database with a Roku box, will have that viewer the possibility to purchase the video direct from Roku box? Or he need to go to my website and to add from there the video on Roku?


    Thanks


    Yes, something like that is what I mean by registration. You can have the user rent/purchase movies directly from your roku box (like the amazon channel). There are several ways you can do this:
    * Ask the user up front to keep a certain amount of money deposited to you. And when the amount drops below a choosen amount, you can remind them to refill it.
    * You can save billing details, and run the charge every time they want to buy/rent a movie. (Customers may not like this, because of trust issues.)
    * There may be a billing company that will save billing details for you, and you would just provide a customer id# + billing amount. (Better) I haven't looked for companies like this.
    * You could trust your users, and invoice them each month. And if thier bill gets too high, send them a msg to pay.