Roku Direct Publisher

[Baradanikto]

I think I may already know the answer to this, but, I want to ask to see if I'm correct.  I've got a series of videos that would fit nicely into a "Series" object as a bunch of "Episodes".  However, the Content object for each episode requires a subtitle URL.  The videos do not have subtitles.  Is there any way to package these videos as Episodes like I want to do? Or, am I stuck defining them as  short form videos?  Is there any workaround?

[mediadisconnect]

Subtitles are not a required option. They are optional.

[Baradanikto]

Thanks for the reply.  However, if I look at the Content object definition in the Schema document, it states:

One or more caption files. This is required except for short-form videos. Supported formats are described in Closed Caption / Subtitle Support.

Are you suggesting that the document is incorrect?

[mediadisconnect]

There are many errors listed in the feed specifications.

If have 534 movies in my Direct Publisher JSON file and none of them have captions defined.

Try not defining the caption element and see what happens.

[Baradanikto]

Hey mediadisconnect:  Thanks for the Heads-Up!  I created a test feed and was able to load it without Caption support.  You were correct that it is optional.

Now, I hope that someone from Roku reads this post and decides to take a good look at the Json specs.  It's pretty poor that the specs do not reflect what is and isn't required.  How can a developer rely on them?

[RokuPam]

Hi all,

I'm circling back with the Product Manager for Direct Publisher to clarify our stance on Caption Support. Once I confirm, I'll let you all know and have our docs edited accordingly.

[newperceptions]

Did anyone ever find out if captions are required? For example, I'm adding a live video and I'm wondering if I must include that tag in my JSON script.