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: 
atldsl
Channel Surfer

Playlists

Is it possible to create a playlist in Roku where you can order a list of clips and have them play sequentially without further user intervention?
0 Kudos
7 REPLIES 7
RokuKevin
Visitor

Re: Playlists

It's currently possible to script a list of videos to play one after another.... However, the roVideoScreen will be restarted between videos with a rebuffer on each transition.

Our support for true playlists and automatic pre-buffering of each transition will be in the form of HLS going forward.

--Kevin
0 Kudos
atldsl
Channel Surfer

Re: Playlists

"RokuKevin" wrote:

Our support for true playlists and automatic pre-buffering of each transition will be in the form of HLS going forward.

--Kevin


Hi Kevin. What exactly is HLS? Does that deal directly with the prebuffer issue?

Thanks
0 Kudos
RokuKevin
Visitor

Re: Playlists

Sorry for the acronym...

HLS stands for Http Live Streaming. It is a streaming protocol submitted by Apple to the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) and is gaining a lot of traction.

Roku will be sharing more information about our implementation very soon.

HLS deals with the prebuffer issue in the sense that an m3u8 file can list other m3u8 files that list ~10sec intervals of transport streams.

A playlist could be implemented in HLS as a master m3u8 file that lists other m3u8 files for each video in the playlist. Because the video m3u8 files list transport streams that are segmented on I-frame boundries, our HLS player can prebuffer them and seamlessly transition to the next transport stream when the player is ready.

So yes, HLS will enable playlist support and address the prebuffer issue.

If you want to start learning more about HLS and m3u8 files, the following resources may be of interest:

http://developer.apple.com/iphone/libra ... ction.html

http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-pantos ... reaming-02



--Kevin.
0 Kudos
atldsl
Channel Surfer

Re: Playlists

Kevin - This seems to me as a breakthrough for streaming to the home and adds leverage to the Roku box. I see that the proposed standard expires this April, is there any indication that there will be a standard by then? And if the standard is delayed, does that mean Roku will delay implementing HLS?

Thanks
0 Kudos
supersecretuser
Channel Surfer

Re:

"RokuKevin" wrote:
Sorry for the acronym...

HLS stands for Http Live Streaming. It is a streaming protocol submitted by Apple to the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) and is gaining a lot of traction.
.



We're very interested in this Kevin. Any timeline?
0 Kudos
RokuKevin
Visitor

Re: Playlists

Roku has been implementing HLS... we are not waiting for standards to be ratified.

We will be sharing more information on HLS very soon.

--Kevin
0 Kudos
atldsl
Channel Surfer

Re: Playlists

Thanks Kevin for sharing this.
0 Kudos
Need Assistance?
Welcome to the Roku Community! Feel free to search our Community for answers or post your question to get help.

Become a Roku Streaming Expert!

Share your expertise, help fellow streamers, and unlock exclusive rewards as part of the Roku Community. Learn more.