Roku Direct Publisher

[lizaonair]

Hello! I have a valid feed here where I have 301 redirect via short links to proper video file hosted on Google CDN. Link works fine and I can play video on every computer and in any browser I have. In "Preview and Publish" section I have all options checked as fine. Standard MP4 files (H264 MPEG4 AVC PART10 avc1 - via VLC media info), regular bitrate, 720p. AAC sound. For some reason ROKU player won't play these files or can't open my URLs. Only I can see - Progress bar with "Retrieving" on the left and "Play Again" button on grey screen a few seconds later. How  I can debug it? Where I can get error messages, response codes or any other information? Thank you!

[rovidx_media]

When you say Google CDN, do you mean Google Drive or are you using one of their other products?   

If it's Google Drive, I was never able to make it work.  I assume this is the same issue that prevents Dropbox videos from working as well.   

[Baradanikto]

I took a look at your feed. Your video urls resolve to a php program. The Json spec clearly states it should be the URL of your video file. The Roku box would need a php parser for this to work.

[lizaonair]

"Baradanikto" wrote:
I took a look at your feed. Your video urls resolve to a php program. The Json spec clearly states it should be the URL of your video file. The Roku box would need a php parser for this to work.

Sorry, what? Url follows to my web server where I have 301 redirect to exact file. Webserver can handle php, not the Roku. Click on the link and you get the file, not the script.

[lizaonair]

"rovidx_media" wrote:
When you say Google CDN, do you mean Google Drive or are you using one of their other products?   

If it's Google Drive, I was never able to make it work.  I assume this is the same issue that prevents Dropbox videos from working as well.   

Follow the one of my links to see final URL - https://lizaonair.com/apps/roku/video.php?hd=true&vid=Cb7fj-wA1eQ

[Baradanikto]

From the Roku spec for JSON:

The URL of the video itself. The video should be served from a CDN (Content Distribution Network). Supported formats are described in Audio and Video Support.

[rovidx_media]

"Baradanikto" wrote:
From the Roku spec for JSON:

The URL of the video itself. The video should be served from a CDN (Content Distribution Network). Supported formats are described in Audio and Video Support.

That's not quite correct, you can use 301 redirects to the actually file.   I had setup a redirect to mask the URL's from Vimeo and it worked fine for me.  
This error is being caused by the Google Video platform.   They, like DropBox won't allow you to stream to OTT/IPTV devices.   You could probably write something to use their API to get the proper streaming URL's, but I'm not 100% sure about that.

[soyniqolas]

I got the same problem, and I just discovered why.

Youtube re-encodes every video you upload to the platform. So, the codec es H264 + AAC, in the container mp4 (ISO), but, for some reason, the container name is "mp42", so Roku doesn't recognize it like MP4.

I just downloaded a video from Youtube and uploaded to a static site, and I tried to play it with Roku, without success, because the container is the problem.

I'm working hard to discover a solution...

[bhrami]

Please let me know if you have a solution for this problem. I am running into this issue with YouTube videos.

Roku: Please advise us if you have a workaround on this problem.

Thanks,
Bhrami

[37mediagroup]

"bhrami" wrote:
Please let me know if you have a solution for this problem. I am running into this issue with YouTube videos.

Roku: Please advise us if you have a workaround on this problem.

Thanks,
Bhrami

There isn't really a solution to this, aside from not using Youtube as the video host. Vimeo Pro & Amazon AWS should work. Possibly others as well as self hosting etc.