Roku Developer Program

[dellsweig]

Greetings

Just wondering if any of the devs out there are working on an Apple AirPlay interface - either using a server somewhere on the home network or decoding the protocol on the Roku?

Would be pretty slick to play content from my iDevice to my TV through the Roku instead of having to buy an AppleTV box......

[retrotom]

"dellsweig" wrote:
Greetings

Just wondering if any of the devs out there are working on an Apple AirPlay interface - either using a server somewhere on the home network or decoding the protocol on the Roku?

Would be pretty slick to play content from my iDevice to my TV through the Roku instead of having to buy an AppleTV box......

Since AirPlay uses UDP and RTSP, it's highly unlikely that you'd be able to play the media back on the Roku natively. You would have to use a server on your home network (as you mentioned). It could be done though. I'm sure you'll see something like this available in the future.

[RokuKevin]

Content developers can implement something similar on the Roku using the ECP. The External Control Protocol allows you to launch a channel on the Roku passing it any parameters you wish. These parameters can include the stream urls to instantly play on the Roku.

We'd like to make the Roku compatible with as many streaming servers as possible.... AirPlay would certainly be interesting as soon as Apple opened the spec...

--Kevin

[gonzotek]

"RokuKevin" wrote:
Content developers can implement something similar on the Roku using the ECP. The External Control Protocol allows you to launch a channel on the Roku passing it any parameters you wish. These parameters can include the stream urls to instantly play on the Roku.

I've been try to find the example in the sdk of this, and haven't been able to locate it. In the ECP Guide pdf of the 2.8 SDK, I see the following:

launch takes an app id as an argument and a list of url parameters that are sent to the app id as an roAssociativeArray passed the the RunUserInterface() or Main() entry point. This command is sent with an http url only POST.

and

After keeping the “Netflix” program highlighted for five seconds, the program launches the simplevideoplayer application with url and streamformat as keys in the roAssociativeArray passed to the Main() entry point.
The simplevideoplayer application immediately launches the roVideoScreen when it is launched with an roAssociativeArray containing valid url and streamformat keys.

And the main sub of the simplevideoplayer example source:

Sub Main()
    'initialize theme attributes like titles, logos and overhang color
    initTheme()

    'display a fake screen while the real one initializes. this screen
    'has to live for the duration of the whole app to prevent flashing
    'back to the roku home screen.
    screenFacade = CreateObject("roPosterScreen")
    screenFacade.show()

    itemMpeg4 = {   ContentType:"episode"
               SDPosterUrl:"file://pkg:/images/DanGilbert.jpg"
               HDPosterUrl:"file://pkg:/images/DanGilbert.jpg"
               IsHD:False
               HDBranded:False
               ShortDescriptionLine1:"Dan Gilbert asks, Why are we happy?"
               ShortDescriptionLine2:""
               Description:"Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert says our beliefs about what will make us happy are often wrong -- a premise he supports with intriguing research, and explains in his accessible and unexpectedly funny book, Stumbling on Happiness."
               Rating:"NR"
               StarRating:"80"
               Length:1280
               Categories:["Technology","Talk"]
               Title:"Dan Gilbert asks, Why are we happy?"
               }

    itemVenter = { ContentType:"episode"
               SDPosterUrl:"file://pkg:/images/CraigVenter-2008.jpg"
               HDPosterUrl:"file://pkg:/images/CraigVenter-2008.jpg"
               IsHD:False
               HDBranded:False
               ShortDescriptionLine1:"Can we create new life out of our digital universe?"
               ShortDescriptionLine2:""
               Description:"He walks the TED2008 audience through his latest research into fourth-generation fuels -- biologically created fuels with CO2 as their feedstock. His talk covers the details of creating brand-new chromosomes using digital technology, the reasons why we would want to do this, and the bioethics of synthetic life. A fascinating Q&A with TED's Chris Anderson follows."
               Rating:"NR"
               StarRating:"80"
               Length:1972
               Categories:["Technology","Talk"]
               Title:"Craig Venter asks, Can we create new life out of our digital universe?"
               }

    item = {   ContentType:"episode"
               SDPosterUrl:"file://pkg:/images/BigBuckBunny.jpg"
               HDPosterUrl:"file://pkg:/images/BigBuckBunny.jpg"
               IsHD:true
               HDBranded:true
               ShortDescriptionLine1:"Big Buck Bunny"
               ShortDescriptionLine2:""
               Description:"Big Buck Bunny is being served using a Wowza server running on Amazon EC2 cloud services. The video is transported via HLS HTTP Live Streaming. A team of small artists from the Blender community produced this open source content..."
               Rating:"NR"
               StarRating:"80"
               Length:600
               Categories:["Technology","Cartoon"]
               Title:"Big Buck Bunny"
            }

    showSpringboardScreen(itemVenter)  
   'showSpringboardScreen(itemMpeg4)  'uncomment this line and comment out the next to see the old mpeg4 example
   'showSpringboardScreen(item)       'uncomment this line to see the BigBuckBunny example
    
    'exit the app gently so that the screen doesn't flash to black
    screenFacade.showMessage("")
    sleep(25)
End Sub

I'm not very fluent in BrightScript yet, but what I would expect to see is a roAssociativeArray passed in as a parameter something like:

sub Main(launchParams as roAssociativeArray)

and then code to check the items of the array for streamformat and url and act on that data, if found, before showing the SpringboardScreen and/or screenFacade. I've looked at videoplayer and customvideoplayer as well. Can you point out an example in the sdk or provide a quick one?

[TheEndless]

I can't find any examples in the SDK, either, but I've successfully implemented it both my Onion and HGTV channels. It looks roughly like this:

Sub RunUserInterface( ecp As Object )
    filter = "Most Recent"
    page = "0"
    If ecp <> invalid Then
        filter = ecp.Filter
        page = ecp.Page
    End If
    LaunchScreen( filter, page )
End Sub

And the URL to launch it looks like:

http://my.roku.ip:8060/launch/1234?Filter=Most%20Vital&Page=2

[gonzotek]

"TheEndless" wrote:
I can't find any examples in the SDK, either, but I've successfully implemented it both my Onion and HGTV channels. It looks roughly like this:

Sub RunUserInterface( ecp As Object )
    filter = "Most Recent"
    page = "0"
    If ecp <> invalid Then
        filter = ecp.Filter
        page = ecp.Page
    End If
    LaunchScreen( filter, page )
End Sub

And the URL to launch it looks like:

http://my.roku.ip:8060/launch/1234?Filter=Most%20Vital&Page=2

That'll do 🙂 Thanks!

[brandon15811]

Somebody already reversed the protocol and made server/player apps. Its only for mac though.

[speedfoot]

"brandon15811" wrote:
Somebody already reversed the protocol and made server/player apps. Its only for mac though.

Do you mind elaborating on this?

[brandon15811]

"speedfoot" wrote:


Do you mind elaborating on this?

Heres the apps I was talking about:
http://ericasadun.com/ftp/AirPlay/
Still only for Mac
Player for Windows:
http://tehproblaze.blogspot.com/2010/12 ... -v107.html
Server Written in Java(fork of code):
https://github.com/brandon15811/AP4J-Player

From what I understand, the Airplay protocol uses Bonjour to advertise itself, but it doesn't actually stream any video, it just sends a URL to the target device

[jbrave]

I would like to see the opposite of airplay for roku: an iPad/iPhone port of the roku ui. This would allow roku apps to be instantly available to iPhone/iPad users. Someone at roku, tell me this isn't a great idea, and roku users would have one ui across several devices, and could make purchases from the channel store on their I-devices. Also, on android would be great. Since the environment is supposedly built on qt, this should not be too difficult, as cross platform app building is built into qt.

-Joel