Roku Developer Program

Join our online forum to talk to Roku developers and fellow channel creators. Ask questions, share tips with the community, and find helpful resources.
cancel
Showing results for 
Show  only  | Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Re: Channel submitted in December is still pending review.

Hi, Belltown, and thank you so much for the reply.

We did consider that option. We are concerned about one thing, and maybe you can help us with this: If a channel is submitted and is pending publication (as ours is) and, in the meantime, say, 500 Roku users add it to their accounts via the private channel method. Then, said channel becomes published and say 500 different people add it via the public channel/app store directly via their Roku player.

Then, say a few months down the line, we issue a channel update.

Are the first 500 Roku users going to be synchronized to these updates just as the latter 500 users who added our channel via the public app store are?

I guess another way of phrasing this is: when a once private app becomes public, do people who added it privately receive updates just as people who added it publicly? Would they be in sync?

We don't want to chance having some of our listeners being cut off into their own corner and not receiving updates while the rest are.

If you or someone can help us with this question, then yes, we would be very excited to be able to deliver on our expectation of our listeners who have Rokus being able to add our channel/app to their boxes.
We were shocked at how fast we turned around the Fire TV app mainly because we didn't realize Amazon is now accepting HTML5 apps for Fire TV until we started making the app.

Thank you for your help.

Heartland Public Radio
0 Kudos
belltown
Roku Guru

Re: Channel submitted in December is still pending review.

There may be a different and/or better way to do it, but I was thinking in terms of two separate channels: one Public, one Private. They would have the exact same code-base (perhaps with a different version number and/or title so you'd know which was which. The Public version has already been submitted for review; you'd submit updates as you normally would. You'd make an additional submission for your Private Channel, except that you'd click on the "Add Private Channel" button, and give it a vanity code, e.g. HEARTLANDPRIVATE that you'd give to your users. You'd update the private channel independently of the Public channel, if you wanted to keep the Private Channel around after the Public one was published. The Private updates would be available immediately to all your users who are running that version of the channel, whereas the Public updates would not be available until Roku approves them. If you really wanted them to be "in sync" you'd just wait till the updated Public channel was approved then submit the Private channel updates. However, you may only want the Private channel as a stop-gap until the Public channel became available. At that time you'd issue an update to the Private channel containing something like a splash screen, for example, which would instruct your users to go to the Roku Channel Store to get the Public version. They can then add the Public channel from the Channel Store and delete the Private version. After a suitable time, you could delete, or render inactive, your Private channel.

The nice thing about Private Channels is that they do not go though any Roku approval process. A channel published as Private is available immediately, as are any updates. The downside is that you don't get the visibility that you would from a channel in the Roku Channel Store. There may also be other issues, however, such as billing, that would affect a developer's decision about whether to publish a private channel.
0 Kudos
greubel
Visitor

Re: Channel submitted in December is still pending review.

I have three channels, one public, one private as a beta and one for testing. The private is always current and can be updated and refreshed immediately. The public channel is two versions back from the private. Still waiting for Roku approval. The advantage of two privates is that if there is a problem I can post a fix and debug the test channel. After the problem is resolved, post the fix to the beta channel and the user doesn't have to wait.
0 Kudos

Re: Channel submitted in December is still pending review.

@belltown and @greubel Thank you both for your explanations and input. We really appreciate the time you took to explain everything. For the time being, we're probably going to keep things as-is. Hopefully whatever is causing such a long backlog will be taken care of so that Roku can begin vetting the channel/apps in queue.
However, if this ends up taking too long, then we may just go the private route. We hope that's not the case, though.
0 Kudos
cpjamloki
Visitor

Re: Channel submitted in December is still pending review.

Same problem is here. NO response from past 4 week from ROKU about my publishing public channel.
0 Kudos

Re: Channel submitted in December is still pending review.

We are really hoping that our app is published soon.
0 Kudos
Romans_I_XVI
Roku Guru

Re: Channel submitted in December is still pending review.

If you've had a channel published since the new year please let us know when you submitted and when it was published. I submitted on January 5th. Still no word and were approaching 2 months. Anyone else here that's been waiting longer than that and still isn't published ?
0 Kudos

Re: Channel submitted in December is still pending review.

We submitted our channel on January 26, 2015. Still no word. We're really hoping it gets published soon.
0 Kudos
kc8pql
Visitor

Re: Channel submitted in December is still pending review.

New channels are being added to the channel store every day. There have been 32 added just since last Thurs. (four business days)
You can track this in the channel store on the box. Channels in the New section show the date they were added on their info page.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
No, I don't work for Roku.
Netflix Player N1000X, XDS 2100X (premature death by lightning)
Roku2 XD 3050X, Roku2 XS 3100R, Roku2 4210R
0 Kudos
Romans_I_XVI
Roku Guru

Re: Channel submitted in December is still pending review.

I noticed this too, at first I thought they were just being slow or lazy (no offence Roku), but then I noticed there are a ridiculous number of channels being added every day, most of them are small scale, and have content that you could easily find with a quick YouTube search anyway (now no offence to the developers :p) . Now I am all about having an open platform, but it seems like it could go into the same direction as Google Play. Which had millions (no exaggeration) of low quality apps sitting at the bottom of a digital barrel. Making it possible for even a very high quality app to get lost in the shuffle if not marketed properly.

I don't want to see Roku go in this direction. I see great potential in Roku as a developer because of the small number of channels. But it could get to a point where your channel is only in the "New Channels" section for maybe a day, before it's buried beneath 80 more channels. 😞

Just my thoughts on the subject. Maybe not have every church in american have their own public channel (I'm not saying this in a derogatory way, I'm a Christian and I actually watch the big church channels like TBN) . But my point is, a small local church absolutely should have a Roku channel! But since it is only targeting a small local demographic, it should probably just stay in the private channel section, and distribute the access code to your church members (or even all around town if you want)

Just some of my thoughts on the subject, and the church channels are just an example. There are also plenty of local news stations with channels, or channels that are just full of clips :s no full length content at all.

Again, I just hope the Roku doesn't become a platform that is flooded with apps/channels/whatever.
0 Kudos