Roku Direct Publisher

[Baradanikto]

I've been working with Direct Publisher for a few weeks now, and, I've got the handle on how things go.  I've got about 8 videos loaded and running correctly as I continually add more.  I've found what I think are bugs, or, need more clarification as to how they work.

1.  On some of the titles for the videos I've loaded, there's some extra text that I did not add.  DP seems to add a vertical bar ("|") and the date the video was added to the feed.  So, at the end of my titles, I see "| 2/17/17" for example.  I've checked the feed and there's nothing I can see that would cause that.

2.  The Search option in the upper right ("Roku | Options *") appears to be disabled.  I've loaded a search image as requested, but, there does not appear to be a way to search.

I'd be grateful if anyone can shed some light on how to resolve these bugs.

[Baradanikto]

Ping...Does anyone from Roku read these posts?

[mitchstein]

The date your are seeing being added is the date the video was added to the channel, taken from the json file or mrrs file..
The search feature seems to work on some rokus and not work on others, I THINK but may be wrong that there needs to be a system update for it to work.. It works on my roku 3 but not on my roku 1...
And it didn't work on friends roku 4 last week but works this week...

[hotwebideas]

I also find a lot of bugs with Direct Publisher. For example, I have a channel with 30 videos. Sometimes, I see all 30 and then for no reason, I see 3. My other viewers see 12? What the heck? This is all after I tell people to do a system update. I don't get it. I converted a few channels over from SDK and now I feel like converting them back to SDK, because I never had problems with SDK. It seems like a more solid platform than DP. I am up for suggestions.

[mitchstein]

I wish I had a better suggestion, I have searched high and low for example json files for tv series, I've asked over at LG developers, apple tv and android developers if they are going to or currently supportthe "industry standard json format" and the response was, "there is no industry standard json format each company makes up thier own standard of keywords using the standard json, xml, csv, comma delimited, or other formats, but there is no current industry standard for just videos)..

I love the sample player from the sdk, but I heard (may not be true) that in 2020 it will no longer work and there is a new brightscript version for going beyond. The direct publisher is an easier way to get a public channel up and should remain current as they (Roku) updates it as needed. in otherwords with direct publisher it is "set it and forget it" which I love. in 2014 I setup my private channels and this is the first time I'm looking at developing with roku again, they run flawlessly, but as a private channel do not get listed in the store and let's face it, Roku has the largest amount of worldwide viewers over all the others and if you only need to change it every six years (or with DP NEVER) it's well worth the effort to put in to figure it all out and put up with some bugs.

I experience the samething kinda thing with my bonanza channel, seems everyday different videos show up and others disappear(after a system update or channel update). I have been getting emails from my viewers one day saying what happen to episode 3 season 9 then the next day or two days later I get one saying thanx for fixing it.. and I didn't do anything to it.. lol..

Anyway, I have had a few private conversations with some Roku tech guys, and they assured me they are working out the bugs and working to make things easier and add more features as fast as they humanly possibly can. I believe them and am going to stick with DP for at least one year. Right now I am working on a "Series with episodes" json file, no example one exists so far so breaking new grounds and having a hell of a time with the syntax.. but eventually I'll get it and then we will all have a working example. (listed as series it overcomes the alot of limitations).

Oh and on the missing and changing videos, someone just whispered to me (my partner in programming) that he was told that if you do the categories in the json file then the problem goes away, but if you do the categories on the web it may exist as a problem..