Request: Remove Connect to Internet Requirement
Dear All,
My name is Mark Coniglio, and I am a media artist who recently used 3M Streaming Projector powered by the Roku Streaming Stick to create an interactive dance performance. In this piece, I was generating a live http stream interactively in real time based on activity in the performance space. This all worked great, and the ROKU SDK made it easy to accomplish using the SimpleVideoPlayer as a model.
(A review and photos of the performance are here http://www.herald-dispatch.com/news/briefs/x262021230/Troika-Ranch-presents-light-dance-performance.)
But what had me tearing my hair out was the requirement that the ROKU connect to the internet at startup. (As I understand it, the streaming stick must ping api.roku.com before it will acknowledge a valid connection.) We were performing at at university, and. as is typical at universities, their internet was locked down tighter than a drum with 802.1X security. To to get around their security and get the projectors online required a super awkward configuration of multiple computers.
So I'm giving my pitch here to add a way to remove the connection requirement, at least when the development mode is turned on. If I could have just turned on the stick and starting streaming my source, I would have a few less grey hairs than I do now. 😉
Failing that, it would be good to know if the stick is just pinging api.roku.com, or actually requesting proprietary information. I suppose it would be possible to set up a DNS on my local server and fake out api.roku.com so that a ping would work. But some insight from the engineers on what the projector expects to "see" would be welcome if it's not top-secret info.
I know supporting crazy artist types like me is not the main focus of a company like Roku. But I would offer that when the XBox Kinect camera got opened up to the artistic world, a lot of amazing and innovative stuff happened. Maybe that will inspire you to consider my request.
Thanks for a great product and a easy-to-use SDK.
-- Mark
My name is Mark Coniglio, and I am a media artist who recently used 3M Streaming Projector powered by the Roku Streaming Stick to create an interactive dance performance. In this piece, I was generating a live http stream interactively in real time based on activity in the performance space. This all worked great, and the ROKU SDK made it easy to accomplish using the SimpleVideoPlayer as a model.
(A review and photos of the performance are here http://www.herald-dispatch.com/news/briefs/x262021230/Troika-Ranch-presents-light-dance-performance.)
But what had me tearing my hair out was the requirement that the ROKU connect to the internet at startup. (As I understand it, the streaming stick must ping api.roku.com before it will acknowledge a valid connection.) We were performing at at university, and. as is typical at universities, their internet was locked down tighter than a drum with 802.1X security. To to get around their security and get the projectors online required a super awkward configuration of multiple computers.
So I'm giving my pitch here to add a way to remove the connection requirement, at least when the development mode is turned on. If I could have just turned on the stick and starting streaming my source, I would have a few less grey hairs than I do now. 😉
Failing that, it would be good to know if the stick is just pinging api.roku.com, or actually requesting proprietary information. I suppose it would be possible to set up a DNS on my local server and fake out api.roku.com so that a ping would work. But some insight from the engineers on what the projector expects to "see" would be welcome if it's not top-secret info.
I know supporting crazy artist types like me is not the main focus of a company like Roku. But I would offer that when the XBox Kinect camera got opened up to the artistic world, a lot of amazing and innovative stuff happened. Maybe that will inspire you to consider my request.
Thanks for a great product and a easy-to-use SDK.
-- Mark
