Roku Developer Program

[vins]

I'm playing with the beta of SDK 3. I really like the design of the Remote and very interested in developing a game or experiment with the gaming control.
But I can't find any reference or example of how to read the two buttons (A and B) or the acceleremeter. I'm more interested in the A and B buttons.
Are there/will there be option for us to write games for that remtote control.

And a bit off topic:
I don't know the specifications of Roku 2 but it may be able to run a console emulator or something. Is there a way we can develope native applications?

[stratcat96]

"vins" wrote:
I'm playing with the beta of SDK 3. I really like the design of the Remote and very interested in developing a game or experiment with the gaming control.
But I can't find any reference or example of how to read the two buttons (A and B) or the acceleremeter. I'm more interested in the A and B buttons.
Are there/will there be option for us to write games for that remtote control.

And a but off topic:
I don't know the specifications of Roku 2 but it may be able to run a console emulator or something. Is there a way we can develope native applications?

that's because the 3.0SDK is for Roku 1 units, the gaming remote and functionality is 4.x firmware found on Roku 2 units. As for your other question, due to the fact that Roku wants the R2 t be a legitimate platform for game developers, its quite possible they will will be very limiting on what a developer can do with if an when the 4.x SDK is released for public consumption. Emulators and their use infringe on copyrights of developers so it's doubtful they will allow them

[vins]

Thank you for the reply. I thought SDK 3 was made for the gaming support. I saw the beta so I rushed and bought the new Roku.
I also noticed a microSD slot. Maybe that would also be accessible in SDK 4.

[renojim]

They've pretty much stated that the micro SD card will only be for channel storage and will not be accessible from apps.

-JT

[morepowerr]

That for the most part answers my ?. If there is no way to play my NES,SNES and MAME roms from usb or sd card there little point in buying a Roku 2. When i already have a nice working XDS

[TheEndless]

"morepowerr" wrote:
That for the most part answers my ?. If there is no way to play my NES,SNES and MAME roms from usb or sd card there little point in buying a Roku 2. When i already have a nice working XDS

If you're talking about writing/porting an emulator, you can use the USB on the XS for ROMs, or have an online/network repository.

[john0499]

Importing ROMs could indeed be ported in using a USB reading channel however without a Emulator channel (or application) I'm not sure what good it would do being able to browse to the ROM. I personally would like to see a MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) channel that could access ROM's from USB or Micro SD card. As for the "legitimate platform" and the "Emulators and their use infringe on copyrights" comment posted earler, I would argue this. The same could be said for a media player that can access music or videos from USB that is currently available for Roku. Many game developers have released ROM's for MAME emulators for free.

If anyone thinks development of a MAME emulator is doable, enlighten me. I would love to use Roku like my 80's game console.

[stratcat96]

"john0499" wrote:
Importing ROMs could indeed be ported in using a USB reading channel however without a Emulator channel (or application) I'm not sure what good it would do being able to browse to the ROM. I personally would like to see a MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) channel that could access ROM's from USB or Micro SD card. As for the "legitimate platform" and the "Emulators and their use infringe on copyrights" comment posted earler, I would argue this. The same could be said for a media player that can access music or videos from USB that is currently available for Roku. Many game developers have released ROM's for MAME emulators for free.

If anyone thinks development of a MAME emulator is doable, enlighten me. I would love to use Roku like my 80's game console.

I'm sorry, I should have been more clear. Emulators themselves are not "illegal" per se', but the use and distribution of roms are unless you possess the physical cartridge said game as well. I don't know what developers you speak of that released roms for use with emulators but I doubt it's a number that can be classified as "many". Since you make reference to your 80's console, I know Nintendo has been involved in some lawsuits over their roms, and I doubt that other publishers such as Activision, Atari, and iMagic are releasing roms with their blessings either. It's a moot point though since there's no public sdk out for 4.x

[YungBlood]

I used to be involved in with emulators in years past. I was learning how to develop games for GameBoy.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but I see 2 HUGE problems in attempting to run an emulator on roku.

First, as far as I know, all game roms are compiled code with lots of data (graphics & audio) embedded in the code. When I was attempting to build my own custom encryption scheme for roku, I found roku doesn't seem to be good for manually parsing binary data. It only seems to be good at parsing ascii data. I never was able to successfully decrypt a .png image file and display it on roku. So parsing a rom would most likely be impossible with the current SDK.

Second, even if it is possible to parse the rom file, the time it would take to parse the file would be longer than most people would accept. In my attempts at simple manual encryption/decryption, I found manually parsing small text files to be extremely slow.

If I were to attempt anything along the lines of what you are suggesting, I would look into building a "rom converter" that could be run on a computer. That would take an enormous effort to do. We don't even have a brightscript emulator yet. So I think one person building a program to convert a rom to a brightscript project is very far fetched.