Roku Developer Program

[breger]

I'm looking for people to poke holes and offer comments/improvements on a concept.

I'm looking to use Roku to develope a Video Delivery Service. There are 2 ideas on the table:

1) User adds a public Roku channel to their device. They look at a selection of videos. The user chooses a video, pays for it (monthly/yearly/etc), and gets access. Next time, they can open the video without paying.

2) User adds a public Roku channel to their device. The channel offers access to a single video. The user pays and gets access. Next time, they can open the video without paying.

I would not like to use Roku Billing Services, because I would honestly like to keep my 30%. Subscriptions can be handled external to Roku. The user can provide a Roku serial number. Then when accessing the channel, the Roku can send an HTTP request with the serial numnber and the video ID, gets an "OK" or "DENY" message back, and the user proceeds based upon the response.

I can also use the activation screens to have the Roku send me the video ID requested and serial number, store the info and provide an ID. The user takes to the ID, goes to www.whatever.com/roku to pay for the video and activate. The box gets the activiation response and continues.

Any comments? Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

[ACraigo]

You can already do that at Amazon Prime, VUDU, ect.

[breger]

"ACraigo" wrote:
You can already do that at Amazon Prime, VUDU, ect.

Yes, I can watch their videos. I have a small audience that wants their own delivery system for their own videos. I'm looking for comments on the artitecture or methods.

[RokuMarkn]

My main comment is you should not use the serial number to identify the account. The user should be able to disassociate his unit from his account by merely doing a factory reset (for example, if he wants to sell the box). Section 9 of the Developer's Guide discusses this:

When using rendezvous style registration and account linking, be sure to store the linking information in the device registry and not on your servers. We require that users are able to do a "Factory Reset" and be confident that no personally identifiable information is associated with the device. This is not possible if you have saved permanent serial number information on your servers.

--Mark

[TheEndless]

It probably goes without saying, but you'd need to make sure you have rights to the videos you're distributing through the channel as well.

[breger]

"TheEndless" wrote:
It probably goes without saying, but you'd need to make sure you have rights to the videos you're distributing through the channel as well.

TheEndless, unquestionably so. The video is custom developed content. No rights issues here, but absolutely correct to mention.

"RokuMarkn" wrote:
My main comment is you should not use the serial number to identify the account. The user should be able to disassociate his unit from his account by merely doing a factory reset (for example, if he wants to sell the box). Section 9 of the Developer's Guide discusses this:

When using rendezvous style registration and account linking, be sure to store the linking information in the device registry and not on your servers. We require that users are able to do a "Factory Reset" and be confident that no personally identifiable information is associated with the device. This is not possible if you have saved permanent serial number information on your servers.

--Mark

Mark, thanks for the tip. I would never had thought of it. So the random generated registration code is their identifier? I assume that the registration code would get stored in registry for that channel? So the next time the channel is run, I can query my web server and see what videos they have purchased?

[RokuMarkn]

Generally the rendezvous registration code that the user enters on the web site is a short temporary ID used by the server to associate the device with a database entry. The actual registration token that is stored in the device registry is a longer string that is returned in a server API but is not displayed to the user. The Device Registration and Linking document describes this process.

--Mark