Roku Developer Program

[patvprogram]

Hi,

I'm trying to start a Roku channel to be operated by Public Access Television in Iowa City. I just noticed that you have to have a player in order to develop a channel. Which player would be best for this? Very new to Roku so any tips would be very helpful 🙂

[RokuJoel]

Not sure what you mean by "have to have a player". There are two video player objects built into Roku, roVideoScreen and roVideoPlayer. roVideoPlayer is for more advanced developers to use in custom User Interfaces and for situations where they want to control playback via software, whereas the roVideoScreen is completely controllable by the User with minimal controll allowed to the channel developer.

These are the only players that work and are built in to the system.

- Joel

[patvprogram]

It says in the Developer Guide that the first thing you need is "Roku Streaming Player with Software Release 2.7 or later." I'm assuming that means we have to purchase the USB or one of the Roku boxes.

[RokuJoel]

I'm sorry, I completely misunderstood your question. So, yes, you have to have a physical Roku device in order to develop and test your channel. Unless your channel uses USB, you won't need specifically to have a player with USB. Even our least expensive device should be fine for developing a channel. I will note that you will probably want to avoid the new Streaming Stick (I think the MHL version of the Streaming Stick does support SDTV mode) and the Roku3 as development devices as they do not support SDTV mode so you will not be fully able to test your channel if you use one of those.

- Joel

[patvprogram]

Thank you!