"RokuKC" wrote:
"EnTerr" wrote:
Certainly a better TV channel UI is better - but who will re-do all existing apps?
I'm not following your concern. I.e. I'm not aware of anything that would make these existing apps not work or have any different functionality than what the Roku remote provides. If an app wants to provide an enhanced user experience using the ECP APIs, that's up to them to do, or not, as the case might be.
It's an
opportunity to retroactively improve 4 dozen apps, why pass on it?
Backwards-compatible enhancements are not a novel idea to Roku / ECP - here is example, one sunny day this happened:
"http wrote:
<apps>
<app id="tvinput.hdmi1" type="tvin" version="1.0.0">Satellite TV</app>
<app id="tvinput.hdmi2" type="tvin" version="1.0.0">Roku</app>
<app id="tvinput.hdmi3" type="tvin" version="1.0.0">Streaming box</app>
<app id="tvinput.dtv" type="tvin" version="1.0.0">Antenna TV</app>
<app id="12" type="appl" version="4.1.218">Netflix</app>
...
The type="tvin" (and type="menu") did not have to be listed under ECP /query/apps - instead telling the app makers to re-write their apps to /keypress/InputHDMI1|InputHDMI2|InputHDMI3|InputTuner . But they do show now and that is a Good Thing - all apps that show list of channels suddenly got "upgraded" to being able to switch TV inputs. Same logic applies to dial-channel-by-number.
But also, there is the case of
the advanced IR/radio universal remotes. I look more holistically on dialing OTA channels, beyond ECP alone - as i mentioned in my (A) above. I have experience programming some fancy remotes like
URC MX-980 (if i remember, the remote was $500+ from Magnolia + $500+ for professional installer config) and
Logitech Harmony^. People that want such remotes for their home theatre also want shortcut buttons programmed for their favorite TV channels - and how will you do that for RokuTV OTA ? Seems like the Co has given consideration to different methods of remote control (cue
debug srv), so if IR/RF were to get TV channel codes, why wouldn't ECP?
While these are real use cases, I understand they might be weighed as neglectable (as in "We don't care much about OTA with 3rd party remote apps" and "Remoting of OTA TV with fancy IR/RF home-theater remotes is unlikely because RokuTV targets low-end segment in smart TV"). E.g. yours truly
🙂 - does not watch OTA TV.
(^) having done both, i would like to state that the kludgy software of mx-980 was a royal pain and indeed worth paying pro installer - where Harmony wizards are much more appropriate (if annoying) for lay people.
