Roku Developer Program

[AngryMan]

"WilDD" wrote:
The ideal solution would be to create a UPnP/DLNA channel. That way, anyone could use their UPnP/DLNA server of choice such as Playon, Tversity, Twonky, etc., and use the Roku DVP as a client. This would be very easy for the average (non technical) person to use.

However, after looking at the SDK, I'm not sure if this is even possible with the tools available.

Any thoughts on this by anyone with more in-depth experience with the SDK?

Agreed. This is correct solution. I've read through all of the SDK documentation. Save UI, it looks like this would just be an exercise in parsing XML. A number of UPnP/DLNA servers support transcoding, so streaming media in a compatible format shouldn't be an issue. With Tversity, it's just a matter of modifying the profile.xml file...

UPnP/DLNA is already used by XBOX 360, PSP, WII and a number of Network Blu-Ray players (see LG BD390). I don't think the audience would be limited, especially among ROKU owners.

[mage_tiko]

"AngryMan" wrote:

"WilDD" wrote:
The ideal solution would be to create a UPnP/DLNA channel. That way, anyone could use their UPnP/DLNA server of choice such as Playon, Tversity, Twonky, etc., and use the Roku DVP as a client. This would be very easy for the average (non technical) person to use.

However, after looking at the SDK, I'm not sure if this is even possible with the tools available.

Any thoughts on this by anyone with more in-depth experience with the SDK?

I've started down this very road: A UPnP channel, using the Roku navigation system to present the containers and items provided.

This will require a SOAP handler to talk to the UPnP server, and some fairly simple XML parsing to come up with a collection of containers and items to display.

Of course, the server will need to transcode to MP4, as has been mentioned in this thread. I prefer MediaTomb, but I hear TVersity is pretty slick for the Windows folks.

Might be do-able.. as time permits, I'll start digging into the guts.

[KennyJ]

Anyone know what the correct setting on TVersity should be? I tried a couple and was having issues. I'll keep messing with it though.

[AngryMan]

"mage_tiko" wrote:

"AngryMan" wrote:

"WilDD" wrote:
The ideal solution would be to create a UPnP/DLNA channel. That way, anyone could use their UPnP/DLNA server of choice such as Playon, Tversity, Twonky, etc., and use the Roku DVP as a client. This would be very easy for the average (non technical) person to use.

However, after looking at the SDK, I'm not sure if this is even possible with the tools available.

Any thoughts on this by anyone with more in-depth experience with the SDK?

I've started down this very road: A UPnP channel, using the Roku navigation system to present the containers and items provided.

This will require a SOAP handler to talk to the UPnP server, and some fairly simple XML parsing to come up with a collection of containers and items to display.

Of course, the server will need to transcode to MP4, as has been mentioned in this thread. I prefer MediaTomb, but I hear TVersity is pretty slick for the Windows folks.

Might be do-able.. as time permits, I'll start digging into the guts.

I don't know much about UPnP - or Roku for that matter - I've just started digging into both. The first problem I see is that UPnP servers and clients use UDP for discovery. I don't think we can implement a UDP broadcast in BrightScript. Roku would have to make a UDP client component available to us.

So without UPnP you would have to provide the URL to a DLNA server manually.

Just a little background on the two specifications in question.
UPnP - Universal Plug and Play - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Plug_and_Play

DLNA - Digital Living Network Alliance - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Living_Network_Alliance

[dusty]

maybe a sheevaplug or something similar could act as the web server.. it has a built in usb port so you could easily manage your media, then have it sort and create the files necessary for the dvp to pick it up. sounds easy enough, although i'm not sure who would want to buy another device when the masses probably expected to be able to plug in a usb drive and stream it's content when buying the XR. i, myself, would buy a $99 mini pc to run a dedicated web server if i didn't already have one rather than run one from my home/gaming/work rigs. looks cool enough that i might just get one anyway..

[Shlepzig]

As BLC noted earlier, it's not hard to get a small apache server running on a PC. I just don'e expect that most will feel comfortable doing that on their own.

Right now it looks like first steps will be that you will have to set up a server on your own.

As the project develops it might be possible to use an embedded java server in an application to handle the http requests from the DVP.

Right now I am just working on some simple code packages that will load on the Roku with basic functionality and a small local web package that can handle the XML structure to organize a medial library.

-Shlep'

[jcroft]

Note I have a mac so apache was already installed. I followed the example of some other posters to get things to work as follows...

Put your mp4 media in your apache docs folder (created mine with Handbrake using the standard settings.) Make sure audio is AAC NOT mp3.

Create an rss feed (xml file) that you will put in your dropbox public folder. Point the enclosure links in the file to your local server, this looks like http://192.168.1.2/myfile.mp4 for me.

Create a mediafly account and add your own rss feed url from dropbox (mine is like http://dl.dropbox.com/u/123456789/test_rss.xml).

You should see your content listed in your mediafly channel in your browser. Assuming you are on the same network (or same computer) as your server you should be able to test in a web browser to be sure things play.

Now go to your roku box and view the channel you just added. Play the video and everything should be good. If it fails to play you may have an issue with the encoding.

I've done this from a completely wireless setup (both server and roku connected wirelessly) and videos play fine.

Only issue I have is that mediafly keeps track of content in strange ways. Sometimes when I change the rss file it still shows up in mediafly even if I have removed it from the document.

What I really wish is that Roku would support embedded subtitles similar to the way iphone and touch will play.

[KennyJ]

@ jcroft

I've done something very similar to what you did, but using TVeristy and my own domain. I've used both the TVeristy generated XML and an XML I created using FeedForAll. Both worked great.

[zwei]

"KennyJ" wrote:
@ jcroft

I've done something very similar to what you did, but using TVeristy and my own domain. I've used both the TVeristy generated XML and an XML I created using FeedForAll. Both worked great.

I'm having trouble getting my feed validated on mediafly. Does it have to be an iTunes podcast feed?

[dnelms]

Just curious, is anyone working toward a channel that could be installed like the other private channels OR is evryone just seeing how they can best get it to work in thier environment?

IMHO, unless the casual user can be given a channel that allows the behind the scene stuff to find their videos, it will not hit the mainstream. I think some sort of editor that will generate the needed parameters for the Roku to look for, then process that similar to Netflix or AVOD.

It would have to install any web server needed to make this function. Otherwise, there are too many similar priced boxes that can do it already. I was really hoping for the Roku type interface to be able to play videos natively (assuming they are in the correct type). For instance, my entire library is done as a MKV container. Each (i own them all) video is titled with the MKV extension.

So is what I was looking forward to, the type of thing that will not be achieved as a whole package on the Roku?