Roku Developer Program

[umbighouse]

I'm happy to help tackle this. I can offer the following:
- Help with presentation of items to make it easier/more intuitive for the new user.
- Help with the install and other documentation.

I'm afraid I won't be much help in coding something like the web interface GUI, but I do have some suggestions as far as layout & structure of that, if it continues to be used.

Overall, I guess what I'm offering is help "prettying up the pig" to make it easier from the perspective of a new user.

If you want to go overboard, since it appears that's where we're headed, we could use your web space and I could setup a simple web site for this channel.

Has anyone now realized that there's no such thing as a simple media player?! 😄

[lmorsi]

I got this working in about 45 minutes, even with 2 toddlers tackling me periodically.

In case anyone is interested, here are the hitches I encountered:

1. Figuring out what to download from github. Eventually I saw the "Download Source" up at the top, but it took me a lot of puzzling around first.

2. Installing the channel to ROKU didn't seem to work as described (because I had the roku's ip in the server ip box I later realized). I ended up using the SDK web interface to upload the zip, which installed the channel.

3. After installing, I had a problem of endless "Retrieving . . ." I waited *patiently* then started tinkering. This was when I discovered that I had the ROKU IP in the Server spot, and in the Roku spot, I still had "ROKU IP ADDRESS". Yeah, I felt stupid. Maybe I am. But a little more detail in the "Set all configuration variables in the tool" section would have helped slow-learners like myself. When I see a configuration screen that is pre-filled, I tend to wonder what should be left as is try to only change what the instructions say to change.

Overall, super cool. Thanks - this has made the little black box I love at least 60% more loved. That's huge.

[renojim]

If you're one of the people that's noticed that after a video plays for an hour or so you start to get rebuffering that happens more and more frequently as time goes on, I think I'm on to something. For me at least, it doesn't happen with all videos. What I noticed with the videos it does happen on is that my network traffic slows as time goes on until the transfer rate is too slow to support playback.

By the way, are there people that are observing this with a server running on different operating systems? My server is running on Windows 7, although I believe I tried it on XP as well and have the same issue. I don't believe it's an OS problem, but I'd like to hear from people running on Linux or OSX.

If your server is running on Windows and you want to observe the problem for yourself, start taskmgr and click on the Networking tab to get the pretty graph of network traffic. Start up a known problem video and notice the transfer rate at the beginning of the video. Then fast forward to an hour or so into the video and take a look at the transfer rate. For me, it seems to slow to a trickle. On a video without the problem, if you look at the network traffic it will burst at a maximum rate for a short period of time and then drop to zero for a short period and then repeat. That's what I'd expect to see. The problem videos show constant network traffic that starts at about the maximum rate and slowly decays over time.

So what's the solution? I wouldn't call it a solution as much as a workaround. I noticed that the videos with the problem are encoded at a frame rate other than 29.97 fps. I re-encoded a problem video to have a frame rate of 29.97 fps and it plays fine. I use HandBrake and the command is:
HandBreakCLI -i problemvid -o FixedVid.m4v -O -r 29.97

Hopefully someone from Roku can let us know what the real problem is, but give this workaround a try and see how it goes.

-JT

[srankin]

I had posted earlier that the AC3 passthru settings (handbrake) work to get 5.1 audio streaming to roku. Unfortunately, when encoding directly from .vob files (or dvd or iso image) the rebufferring problems are present.

Weirdly enough, converting an xvid with AC3 passthru works fine.

One more odd detail: I have the roku set up with analog (stereo) outputs to my tv and digital optical to my stereo. When playing a converted DVD, the audio routes to both . . . and eventually the file starts rebufferring. When playing a converted xvid, the audio only routes to the digital optical.

I don't know what to make of this, but thought I'd report it.

I was wrong above, encoding from an xvid made the rebuferring start much later in the movies (~100minutes for ~60minutes). But it is still there. I'm going to try the trick above forcing a constant frame rate.

[hammerpocket]

"lmorsi" wrote:
After installing, I had a problem of endless "Retrieving . . ." I waited *patiently* then started tinkering. This was when I discovered that I had the ROKU IP in the Server spot, and in the Roku spot, I still had "ROKU IP ADDRESS". Yeah, I felt stupid. Maybe I am. But a little more detail in the "Set all configuration variables in the tool" section would have helped slow-learners like myself. When I see a configuration screen that is pre-filled, I tend to wonder what should be left as is try to only change what the instructions say to change.

This brings up something I've been wondering about. The iPhone app "DVPRemote" automatically "discovers" any Roku players on your network. Can this functionality be built in to the springboard configuration? That would be a big step toward user-friendliness.

[calicommando]

"hammerpocket" wrote:

"lmorsi" wrote:
After installing, I had a problem of endless "Retrieving . . ." I waited *patiently* then started tinkering. This was when I discovered that I had the ROKU IP in the Server spot, and in the Roku spot, I still had "ROKU IP ADDRESS". Yeah, I felt stupid. Maybe I am. But a little more detail in the "Set all configuration variables in the tool" section would have helped slow-learners like myself. When I see a configuration screen that is pre-filled, I tend to wonder what should be left as is try to only change what the instructions say to change.

This brings up something I've been wondering about. The iPhone app "DVPRemote" automatically "discovers" any Roku players on your network. Can this functionality be built in to the springboard configuration? That would be a big step toward user-friendliness.

I was wondering about that too.

[el_wubo]

"hammerpocket" wrote:
I've been wondering about. The iPhone app "DVPRemote" automatically "discovers" any Roku players on your network. Can this functionality be built in to the springboard configuration? That would be a big step toward user-friendliness.

Yes, springboard could be modified to scan for the Roku. One user contributed a windows script to do this -- I just need to port the concept to python so it can work on all 3 platforms.

[el_wubo]

New Release!

There are lots of new features so I'll just copy/paste the change log:

Changes

Music and Video directories can be configured independently and no longer need to be combined.

Fixed the partitioning algorithm so that it works with folders starting with numbers and passes through folders starting with special characters.

Merged the partition functionality to mainline so we don’t have to maintain the partition version any longer. The partition branch will no longer be updated.

The players position in a video is saved when the player exits. When the same video is played again the user is given the option of resuming play where they were before.

Completed the name change from MyMusic to MyMedia. Updated artwork, README, and server to reflect this change.

Convert poster view to arced-square. The square layout works much better with album art. Our channel specific artwork that is used when album art is unavailable has been updated to the new format as well.

If an image file is found with the same basename as a video file, the image file is used as the cover art for that video. This strategy takes advantage of the directory structure used by XBMC.
If you have multiple video files and artwork for some of them, one video art file will be chosen at random to be the “album art” for the folder.

Channel error conditions are reported to the user. This should make installation and troubleshooting much simpler.
- If the server cannot be contacted using the IP address given at installation a dialog box is displayed explaining this and the user is given the opportunity to enter their own IP address.
** Technically this feature also gives us the option of distributing as a private channel but we’re going to hold off on that for now because keeping the channel version and the server version synchronized could be difficult if the two are distributed separately.
- If the server returns an empty feed for any directory the channel displays a message to that effect and suggestions for what to check.

The server recognizes both mp4 files and m4v files as video. No need to change your file extensions.
Updated documentation with a better explanation of the configuration options

Contributors for this release

dellsweig: Testing for new folder partitioning support

hoffmcs: Support for recognizing mp4 files as video

renojim: Channel error reporting improvements. Video suspend / resume.

umbighouse: New square artwork and MyMedia logo

Thanks all!

Download your copy

Make sure you stop the server and update your client using springboard.

Most requested features that are on the TODO still

Pause / Resume for music playback

Photo slideshow viewer

[dellsweig]

"el.wubo" wrote:
New Release!

There are lots of new features so I'll just copy/paste the change log:

Changes

Music and Video directories can be configured independently and no longer need to be combined.

Fixed the partitioning algorithm so that it works with folders starting with numbers and passes through folders starting with special characters.

Merged the partition functionality to mainline so we don’t have to maintain the partition version any longer. The partition branch will no longer be updated.

The players position in a video is saved when the player exits. When the same video is played again the user is given the option of resuming play where they were before.

Completed the name change from MyMusic to MyMedia. Updated artwork, README, and server to reflect this change.

Convert poster view to arced-square. The square layout works much better with album art. Our channel specific artwork that is used when album art is unavailable has been updated to the new format as well.

If an image file is found with the same basename as a video file, the image file is used as the cover art for that video. This strategy takes advantage of the directory structure used by XBMC.
If you have multiple video files and artwork for some of them, one video art file will be chosen at random to be the “album art” for the folder.

Channel error conditions are reported to the user. This should make installation and troubleshooting much simpler.
- If the server cannot be contacted using the IP address given at installation a dialog box is displayed explaining this and the user is given the opportunity to enter their own IP address.
** Technically this feature also gives us the option of distributing as a private channel but we’re going to hold off on that for now because keeping the channel version and the server version synchronized could be difficult if the two are distributed separately.
- If the server returns an empty feed for any directory the channel displays a message to that effect and suggestions for what to check.

The server recognizes both mp4 files and m4v files as video. No need to change your file extensions.
Updated documentation with a better explanation of the configuration options

Contributors for this release

dellsweig: Testing for new folder partitioning support

hoffmcs: Support for recognizing mp4 files as video

renojim: Channel error reporting improvements. Video suspend / resume.

umbighouse: New square artwork and MyMedia logo

Thanks all!

Download your copy

Make sure you stop the server and update your client using springboard.

Most requested features that are on the TODO still

Pause / Resume for music playback

Photo slideshow viewer

Fantastic!!!!!!!!

[dellsweig]

"el.wubo" wrote:
New Release!

There are lots of new features so I'll just copy/paste the change log:

Changes

Music and Video directories can be configured independently and no longer need to be combined.

Fixed the partitioning algorithm so that it works with folders starting with numbers and passes through folders starting with special characters.

Merged the partition functionality to mainline so we don’t have to maintain the partition version any longer. The partition branch will no longer be updated.

The players position in a video is saved when the player exits. When the same video is played again the user is given the option of resuming play where they were before.

Completed the name change from MyMusic to MyMedia. Updated artwork, README, and server to reflect this change.

Convert poster view to arced-square. The square layout works much better with album art. Our channel specific artwork that is used when album art is unavailable has been updated to the new format as well.

If an image file is found with the same basename as a video file, the image file is used as the cover art for that video. This strategy takes advantage of the directory structure used by XBMC.
If you have multiple video files and artwork for some of them, one video art file will be chosen at random to be the “album art” for the folder.

Channel error conditions are reported to the user. This should make installation and troubleshooting much simpler.
- If the server cannot be contacted using the IP address given at installation a dialog box is displayed explaining this and the user is given the opportunity to enter their own IP address.
** Technically this feature also gives us the option of distributing as a private channel but we’re going to hold off on that for now because keeping the channel version and the server version synchronized could be difficult if the two are distributed separately.
- If the server returns an empty feed for any directory the channel displays a message to that effect and suggestions for what to check.

The server recognizes both mp4 files and m4v files as video. No need to change your file extensions.
Updated documentation with a better explanation of the configuration options

Contributors for this release

dellsweig: Testing for new folder partitioning support

hoffmcs: Support for recognizing mp4 files as video

renojim: Channel error reporting improvements. Video suspend / resume.

umbighouse: New square artwork and MyMedia logo

Thanks all!

Download your copy

Make sure you stop the server and update your client using springboard.

Most requested features that are on the TODO still

Pause / Resume for music playback

Photo slideshow viewer

Was not able to get the springboard_debug to run. It opens a window and closes it before I can see whats going on. The normal launcher works just fine