Roku Developer Program

[FoodChainTV]

I have set up my private channel, and everything works just fine in HD. But, when I set my Roku to SD 4:3 for testing, my videos will not play. What do I have to do, to get my channel to work in HD and SD? Do I have to add some instructions to my XML feed file? Or do I have to edit another file?

My video URL's are coming from my Vimeo Pro account.

I am using the videoplayer from the Roku SDK.

I am not sure if I have to add some sort of line to my manifest, or one of the source files in the SDK? I am thinking that I may be missing something in my XML feeds?

Here is an example of one of my XML files that works fine in HD, but not in SD (i have added generic text to some categories):


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<feed>
<!-- resultLength indicates the total number of results for this feed -->
<resultLength>2</resultLength>
<!-- endIndix indicates the number of results for this *paged* section of the feed -->
<endIndex>2</endIndex>
<item sdImg="http://www.foodchaintv.com/testing/images/Episode-1-pic.png" hdImg="http://www.foodchaintv.com/testing/images/Episode-1-pic.png">
<title>EP 1: Dallas BBQ</title>
<contentId>10011</contentId>
<contentType>2015</contentType>
<contentQuality>HD</contentQuality>
<streamFormat>mp4</streamFormat>
<media>
<streamQuality>HD</streamQuality>
<streamBitrate>2400</streamBitrate>
<streamUrl>http://example_videoHD.mp4"</streamUrl>
</media>
<synopsis>On this episode Blah blah</synopsis>
<genres>Show Title</genres>
<runtime>296</runtime>
</item>
</feed>

[destruk]

If you set your streamquality tag to SD, that would allow them to be played, provided the client has matching or higher bitrate available.

[FoodChainTV]

Hi Destruk,

Thank you very much for your reply.

I changed the <streamQuality> tag to "SD" and it still did not work. The video will not play in SD mode.

I then changed the <contentQuality> tag to "SD" as well, to see if that would work. But, it didn't. The video will not play in SD mode.

Any other ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[Romans_I_XVI]

Try playing around with the encoding of the video. I know it's weird but some things with the Roku don't always make sense. Just something to try and see, not making any promises.

[FoodChainTV]

"Romans_I_XVI" wrote:
Try playing around with the encoding of the video. I know it's weird but some things with the Roku don't always make sense. Just something to try and see, not making any promises.

HI Romans, Thanks for the reply.

I have Vimeo Pro. My options for getting the video URL's is 1080, 720, and standard (640x480). Should I not be using an HD video stream at all? I understand that regardless of the video size, I still should play with the specs and encoding of the video, but in looking at some public channels I'm noticing that a lot of videos are not HD. What size videos do you guys use? Or do you use multiple (different size) streams for each video?

[RokuMarkn]

Before you go too much further, you should clarify what you mean when you say the video doesn't play. Does it start buffering? Do you see any error messages on the console?

--Mark

[FoodChainTV]

"RokuMarkn" wrote:
Before you go too much further, you should clarify what you mean when you say the video doesn't play. Does it start buffering? Do you see any error messages on the console?

--Mark

Hi Mark,

In SD 4:3, or SD 16:9, when I press PLAY, it starts buffering for like half a second (it says RETRIEVING), and then it bounces back to the play screen.

Debugger Screen Shows:

ButtonPressed
showHomeScreen | msg = | index = -5
Video request failure: -5 7
showHomeScreen | msg = | index = 0

[FoodChainTV]

Ok, so I did an experiment. I used a video that I have on another host and it worked.

So:

The vimeo pro video with the URL that ends in a bunch of numbers and letters only works in HD. Not in SD.

The video that I uploaded to DropShots that ends in .mp4 works in both HD and SD.

Both videos were encoded exactly the same when I rendered them.

So, I think the solution to this issue will be to figure out how to keep my videos on Vimeo and have them end in .mp4 Has anyone been able to do this successfully with Vimeo?

I don't want to use DropShots because they limit you to a 10 minute long video. And I can't find any other CDN that is $200 per year like Vimeo.

[Romans_I_XVI]

I think that Vimeo Pro will give you a redirect link, which you need to manually interperete on the Roku.

I don't have Vimeo Pro, this is just what I heard.

[Romans_I_XVI]

Read through this topic on the Vimeo forums. It discusses the use of redirect links and that the Roku channel developer needs to handle them manually.

https://vimeo.com/forums/topic:101811