Roku Developer Program

[yogamerge]

Hi guys,

I have email today from Roku that speaks of Roku legacy devices being phased out of developer support. I have included the link below to the email. I was hoping for some clarification.
It sounds as if you're a developer that you must now have a current roku player to submit channels, update a channel and get support?
It almost reads as if there are some channels that only work on legacy devices when they say, "they will no longer provide developer support on channels which run on these older devices".
Any help would be appreciated! Thanks.

https://info.roku.com/t/cfibb0FcQACWyJ3 ... B&p=&z=%23

[TheEndless]

It read to me as they will no longer support or allow channel updates to legacy devices, meaning you won't be able to submit updates to or develop channels for the old 3.1 devices. So, any existing channels should continue to function, but you won't be able to update them.

[destruk]

So does this mean the channel QA list will be updated since we won't need to ensure our channels work with legacy roku devices anymore? like no more side image icons, no more SD support, no need to use roimagecanvas or roscreen to display a loading image while the channel loads, etc etc? I'm interested in their 'promotions' to get people on current platforms - are they mailing out free roku boxes again?

[yogamerge]

"TheEndless" wrote:
It read to me as they will no longer support or allow channel updates to legacy devices, meaning you won't be able to submit updates to or develop channels for the old 3.1 devices. So, any existing channels should continue to function, but you won't be able to update them.

So how can I tell if my channel was developed for the 3.1 devices, like most in the forum, I downloaded the developers kit and built the channel using the roku provided skeleton code, I had a legacy device when I built the channel, does that mean that I can no longer update my channel or are they referring to customers not being able to update the channel if they have a legacy device? I know that my current channel works on the current devices.

[yogamerge]

I think I have a better understanding of this email now.

I believe that the email is mainly pointed to consumers and not developers. If I understand correctly, Roku will no longer allow a consumer with a legacy device to launch any new channels to the device, update current channels on the device, or update firmware on the legacy device. As for developers, Roku will no longer provide support for trying to solve a channel issue on a legacy device?

So this would only concern developers if you're still trying to have your channel work on legacy devices, if you run into a problem with your channel on a legacy device, then Roku will not provide support. If your channel currently works on legacy devices, it will continue to work, but consumers with legacy devices can't update the channel or their device.

Maybe one of the Roku guys can confirm this? Thanks.

[Komag]

This is the key line:

...we will no longer launch new channels, update existing channels, issue firmware updates or provide developer support for channels that run on these older devices.

It sounds to me like any channels submitted will have to exclude legacy devices. So the game I'm working on, and have been careful to make sure it can run well on legacy devices as well as newer models, I'll have to just forget about legacy devices and only release it for newer models, not both.

Or if I got the game out the door within the next 60 days before the deadline and released it for both legacy and newer Rokus, I could never update it! Or if I did update it, the updates would change the game so it no longer runs on legacy Rokus - they'd be stuck with the original version of the game forever.

Honestly, I'm not sure how I feel about this. On one hand it's certainly somewhat of a relief to stop trying to make sure those old Rokus can run the game well, with all their limitations. 🙂 I could have decided this myself, but now Roku has made the decision for me. On the other hand, part of my game's motif is being "retro" and "old-school", which is somewhat ironic and disappointing when it's not allowed to run on older hardware now! 😞

[yogamerge]

So I guess this means that if your current channel works on legacy devices that you will have to submit a new channel package/version with a minimum firmware setting that excludes legacy devices before the deadline or you will no longer be able to update your channel?

I assume that updating channel refers to making changes to the bright script code, not adding new content via your own server and xml feeds?

Hopefully someone from Roku will chime in and clear up the confusion.

[TheEndless]

"yogamerge" wrote:
So I guess this means that if your current channel works on legacy devices that you will have to submit a new channel package/version with a minimum firmware setting that excludes legacy devices before the deadline or you will no longer be able to update your channel?

I assume that updating channel refers to making changes to the bright script code, not adding new content via your own server and xml feeds?

Hopefully someone from Roku will chime in and clear up the confusion.

I think you're reading way too much into it and making it a lot more complicated that it is. They are discontinuing support for legacy devices. It's that simple. If you have an existing channel that works on legacy devices, it will continue to work. If you publish an update, it will only go out to new devices. It will not stop working on newer device, nor will you be prevented from updating it on newer devices, just because it currently works on legacy devices.

[yogamerge]

"TheEndless" wrote:

"yogamerge" wrote:
So I guess this means that if your current channel works on legacy devices that you will have to submit a new channel package/version with a minimum firmware setting that excludes legacy devices before the deadline or you will no longer be able to update your channel?

I assume that updating channel refers to making changes to the bright script code, not adding new content via your own server and xml feeds?

Hopefully someone from Roku will chime in and clear up the confusion.

I think you're reading way too much into it and making it a lot more complicated that it is. They are discontinuing support for legacy devices. It's that simple. If you have an existing channel that works on legacy devices, it will continue to work. If you publish an update, it will only go out to new devices. It will not stop working on newer device, nor will you be prevented from updating it on newer devices, just because it currently works on legacy devices.

Thanks TheEndless, your post makes perfect sense, I hope you're right. So let's say my current channel is version 1.0 and runs on legacy devices, when I update it I will just have to submit a package with minimum firmware that excludes legacy devices as version 2.0? therefore the original version isn't updated.

The below statement makes it sound like if your current channel runs on legacy devices that after May 30th, you will no longer be able to issue updates or a firmware update, but using your logic, you could as long as it was as a new version excluding legacy devices?

"...we will no longer launch new channels, update existing channels, issue firmware updates or provide developer support for channels that run on these older devices."

[TheEndless]

"yogamerge" wrote:
So let's say my current channel is version 1.0 and runs on legacy devices, when I update it I will just have to submit a package with minimum firmware that excludes legacy devices as version 2.0?

I suspect, once this goes into effect, it won't matter what you set the minimum firmware to. Roku will be blocking the updates at that point, so you shouldn't need to enforce it yourself.

"yogamerge" wrote:
The below statement makes it sound like if your current channel runs on legacy devices that after May 30th, you will no longer be able to issue updates or a firmware update, but using your logic, you could as long as it was as a new version excluding legacy devices?

"...we will no longer launch new channels, update existing channels, issue firmware updates or provide developer support for channels that run on these older devices."

They just mean you won't be able to explicitly target legacy devices anymore, and any end user who has a legacy device will no longer receive any updates for it. Any channel that runs on a legacy device will also run on a current generation device, so there's no way they'd block channels just because they're compatible with legacy devices. They just won't make them available to the legacy devices anymore.

Ultimately, they just don't want you wasting your time trying to make your channel compatible, which has become increasingly more tedious over the past couple of years. Dropping legacy device support, while it probably alienates a small subset of their current users, is a good thing for developers.