Roku Direct Publisher

[shakespearegeek]

We've had a site running for a couple of years now without any issue. Our content is hosted on Vimeo, and via their "showcase" option can produce a Roku.json feed that we've been using.

We run it through a script of our own to add categories and do some filtering for other reasons, but the format remains the same.

About a week ago our feed status went back -- all it says now is "xxx items have error: Required video url is unreachable."

We have refreshed the feed, and told Roku about it, several times. I even took our scripts out and went back to just having Roku point directly at the unchanged Vimeo feed. Still nothing.  

Given that it's got the number of items correct and tells me their titles it appears to get the feed file itself and read it, and is just having issues with the video URLs. Surely a systemic error and not a content error as 100% of my videos are reporting failure.

Anybody experienced similar? Is it a Roku-side issue? A temporary thing? We'd changed nothing, so items in the feed that have been working right along all of a sudden fail.  We even refresh the feed multiple times daily so there is no time-to-live issue with video links expiring, which we'd seen in the past.

[Clydeat22]

Yes, I am having the same issue and I have a new channel. The same error shows up for me as well. I believe it is Vimeo. I have troubleshooted it all like you said and nothing has changed.

[Christa1022]

Same issue here! 4 items have error: Required video url is unreachable.

[Videoopp · Accepted solution]

Vimeo has discontinued their support for Roku. No one is saying if it is Vimeo that Dropped Roku or Roku ended things with Vimeo. But the wonderful, easy solution has come to a sad end. Now when you go to the OTT Division of Vimeo, they want $14,000-$18,000/ year to set something up for you!  Good Grief!

I have managed to set up a WordPress channel as a temporary fix (adratv.com) while I struggle to figure out Direct Publisher solutions. By going to our site with their smart devices, our viewers can still screencast to their smart TV's. Not elegant, I know, but hopefully it is a temporary workaround.  

The WP Smart TV plugin for Word Press looks hopeful.  I am getting everything to connect, but I am getting Roku errors with their JSON feed, possibly the same "Video Release date" format errors that Vimeo started getting with their feeds.

The developer of WP Smart TV, says that Roku may be getting ready to dump Direct Publisher and that this is the beginning of that...

If anyone has come up with a good solution, please let me know.   

[shakespearegeek]

That's certainly annoying, given that Showcases -> TV Apps -> Roku still features prominently in their video management.  I wouldn't confirm that they've ended Roku support until that goes away.

Behind the scenes it appears that they're doing some additional redirects, probably for CDN support, that are breaking the video players. I think the same issue happens with the Amazon feed.

What I'm doing in my case is to use the feed that Vimeo does produce for the showcase, grabbing it myself, running it through a script that swaps out the Vimeo URLs for a separate hosting provider where we keep duplicate copies of the videos, and then putting that modified feed file back up on my own site.  It's a bit redundant but it works to keep us online.

[Videoopp]

Here is the news release: https://help.vimeo.com/hc/en-us/articles/12425990752529--Learn-more-about-Vimeo-ending-support-for-T...

[shakespearegeek]

Aw, **bleep**, I guess that counts as official!  🙂 Thanks. I guess my current solution of relying on the showcase output is also going to break soon.  At least this time I get a heads up.

[Videoopp]

I tried to follow Vimeo's suggestion to have my viewers download the Vimeo App and have them screen cast from that, but in order to really use the app you have to sign up to get an account with Vimeo which triggered a barrage of attempt to get people to sign up for a monthly account to upload videos. Vimeo, as great as they are, sure have a VERY "Subcentric" approach to their apps and website! You can tell your supporters that they can find you on Vimeo, but can they ... really? Go to Vimeo.com and the first thing they want you to do is sign up for a monthly plan.  Searching for an organization, channel or specific video is extremely difficult! They really need to work on this, IMHO.

[shakespearegeek]

Agree with everything. They work well for us as a content provider at the moment, but I expect we'll need to get completely off of them sooner than expected.

[Videoopp]

Well, If you know your way around Word Press, I found this to be a good temporary solution for at least having our viewers still find our videos and easily screencast them, with no confusing subscription asks.

Word Press, Vlog Theme, and the plugin Vimeotheque Pro.  You can set it up so that simply adding a Vimeo video to a showcase, auto feeds it to your WordPress Site.  Just took a day or so to set up.