Roku Direct Publisher

[bj_barretta]

Hi, 

When I previewed my channel from my Vimeo Showcase feed using the preview link all my videos were in my channel. When my channel went live today, I added it on another Roku device and there are no videos. The URL feed status on my dashboard has a green checkmark and it says all 28 of my videos were ingested. Is this a situation where since my channel is new, I have to wait for it to populate? In between testing my channel and it going live, I did add new videos to my Vimeo showcase and refreshed the feed. Could that have gummed anything up? Thank you!

This is my channel:  https://my.roku.com/account/add/goodvibrations

[AaronMSpelling]

unfortunately using Vimeo as feed provider for your channel is not the best option. if you look at other posts you'll see that almost everyone using Vimeo feed has issues. if you really want to be in control of your content use a proper feed builder. you can find some free software's , some premium software's .... so,me easier to use some not really but still better option then Vimeo Showcase.

[bj_barretta]

Thanks again for your prompt replay @AaronMSpelling!

Since I did the work in Vimeo already, do you know if there are there any intermediary feed builders that will reference/import/ingest my vimeo library so I don't have to start from scratch? 

Thanks!

[AaronMSpelling]

from what i know you cannot "import" or "ingest" the whole content from your vimeo account , and you dont really want that.

every feed builder will need a video hosting for the video content , and a lot of developers are using vimeo pro  for that. 

the big difference will be that using a feed builder you will be able to use your videos where you want in the order you want  , you will be able to create categories  , sort your videos , so on .......

[bj_barretta]

Quick update for those who come across this thread trying to diagnose a similar problem:

I saw on a Reddit thread that sometimes it takes a while for videos to show up in a new Vimeo showcase direct publish channel. Overnight the channel populated with videos. But what was finally published was an older version of the channel with multiple categories (I learned during my development of my channel that Vimeo Showcase only allows 1 category so, if you have multiple categories, they won't populate correctly). I had updated my channel (or so I thought) with just one category and that's what I saw when I tested the channel and channel preview link. 

I republished the channel, which is set to be released 10am PST tomorrow. I'm hopeful the update will fix the category issue. 

If you are a Vimeo showcase direct publisher and run into issues, please reach out - hopefully by then I would have solved the issues plaguing my channel. Hopefully now that I got my feet wet, when I have more time I can dig in a little more with a better feed builder and create a more robust channel.

[MitchCollins]

I am having same issues with my videos not publishing on my Roku Channel.  I have 3 categories set, but have played with 1, 2 or 3... and still nothing..

I see Goodvibrations has all their videos up now (i did add channel to see the issues that started this thread)

Were you able to resolve to get Roku to ingest and show your vimeo videos?  Unfortunaely,  I'm stuck on the Vimeo annual plan (one business and one pro).  But if there is another work around option, that would be great and very much appreciated.

By the way... ..  I have one channel published and one channel unpublished.  Both have same issue of not showing my videos.   I don't know  if this is a ROKU issue or a VIMEO issue

[37mediagroup]

I may be wrong, but I think there's an issue with Vimeo using Categories, and possibly you can only use 1 category on the Vimeo side. Or maybe the Roku side.  Are you sure you're entering tags or defining the category? 

Search the forum here for Vimeo, there's been numerous threads the last 6 months or so on similar subjects. Alternative is coding it in json. Depending how many videos you have might be a good solution.

[bj_barretta]

With Vimeo, you can only have one category. You have to adjust the json or use a third party, service like ottfeed.com, which I used.

[bj_barretta]

Hi, I thought I replied to this yesterday, but it doesn't look like it posted after I submitted it.

Roku and Vimeo don't play well together. At least they hadn't last January and it looks like things haven't improved. It's very limited if it works at all. 

I tried everything and came to the conclusion that you can only create a channel that works reliably if you use a third-party service to help create a json from your Vimeo that plays nicely with your Roku (or learn how to code yourself). ottfeed.com is what I used and I couldn't be happier. Personally, I was hesitant to sign up for another service, thinking I could do it myself, but after weeks of messing with my channel with no results, using ottfeed fixed it in a couple of hours and it's so much more robust. I'm really happy with how my channel turned out with no knowledge of json and coding. 

[CM-B]

@bj_barretta Do you mind me asking how much you pay for ottfeed.com? I am currently trying a provider called: videofeedbuilder.com which is $40/month but we have noticed that there is a cap of 40 videos per category. Do you know if OTTFeed has the same issue?

We've also looked into tappla.com and they've told us they won't have that 40 video limit but their Roku platform is not out yet.