Roku Direct Publisher

[sattun]

Here is the official post:

https://blog.roku.com/developer/rdp-sunset

Lease a custom Roku SDK channel >> https://ottfeed.com/lease

[37mediagroup]

Yeah, bummer. There was a 6 page thread on this already, not arguing or complaining, just ppl posting & trying to assist and stay abreast of the process.

This conversion method does seem fairly intuitive (few caveats, remove the # that begin each line of the Manifest, and the second 'Feed URL' instance). 

With that said, looks like I finally managed to get me feed and channel sideloaded. Currently doesn't look like any 'Categories' get imported, just 'Series' 'Short Form' and 'Movies', which isn't ideal. Gonna hold off on fully submitting it for a while, hoping either there's a way or at least creating or updating a simple Node might do the trick. Also might give a shot at using the Hello World template to tweak it into my own.

[Ggg66]

I'm all the way up to ...

SceneGraph "Build a Roku Channel": Creating a Grid Screen

built channel but when I side load keeps popping up error. 

6 hours so far

in the video, the presenter tosses out to add sample art in the image folder resources to the image file and of course, i can't find these images. ANY IDEA WHERE THEY ARE???

I have typed every xml and brs file. I'm using text editor and laid out each script as described in the video. should i be using another program to type these files out?

[Ggg66]

is there any way to get our manifest file and the contents of components, images, and source files of our current direct publishing channel so we can work on them and load them through a sample channel to see our files and make adjustments?

[37mediagroup]

I think you took a step too far in the process (the instructions do lead this way).

You seem to be coding a channel from scratch, possibly using the 'Hello World' Template.  regardless, you should have an 'Images' folder, so the images should be in there.

If you follow these steps, up until about halfway down to 'Testing Your Channel', you should be able to make it a bit quicker. It'll give you a very basic channel interface, you replace the Feed URL in the Manifest file, and swap your images in and such, then load it onto your Roku device following the steps and it should work.  There's a caveat or two, (remove the # that begin the lines of the Manifest, and delete the 2nd Feed URL so they don't conflict. Otherwise there's little to no coding required unless you wanted to.

[Ggg66]

I started from scratch,  i figured it was less confusing that way. Turned out i was zipping the files wrong. I was zipping the entire folder instead of zipping files and the 3 folders inside together lol

I have it up now.

I'll finish watching all the videos see if I can tweak things.

Fingers crossed 😉

[Ggg66]

I've completed building everything from scratch using the developer videos  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXLCv18IEHsgMiHqiIR4olakj49OHnL0A Everything is working great but I've run into 2 issues I hope someone can help???

The JSON file has the proper tags for each row  of videos and was working properly under the direct publisher

Right now only 3 random categories are showing up and my videos are spread around under

categories
shortformvideos
liveFeeds

where can I find some info on setting up the right tags/ categories in my brs or xml files?

Also, I'm looking o how to make an image appear at the top of the channel (like hulu) when someone has highlighted a video. Sorry, I don't know the proper terminology. I'm currently getting the description to appear but would like an image also. any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

thank you!

[Ggg66]

What a bummer, our direct publisher channel just lost our live event info. everything else is still up and of course, we've been promoting a live event all week at 7:30 pm est.

tried refreshing but no luck

the new app is almost finished but obviously can't get it approved in an hour 

[37mediagroup]

So I have it on good word there is a way to manipulate this a bit to allow for Categories in the SDK Template even using our conversion method.  I was able to quasi-test it, and it seems to work. Albeit may need a tweaking of my feed. That said, its just an adjustment to the feed file & RootHandler.brs file (easier than it sounds, although, keep backups:)

Step 1:  Feed file. Instead of separating your videos into movies & shortFormVideos, use your own Category names here, like comedy, sports, drama or whatever. (You'll at some point need to sorta redo/copy & paste your videos contents and all into them, so it will take a little re-arranging). AFAIK 'Series' needs to remain as-is to keep seasons & episodes within it. Also, I think these may be case sensitive since they're referenced elsewhere, for now I kept mine all lowercase as well.

Step 2: Components/Content/RootHandler.brs file. In lines 100 and 111 in this file, there's a line "if item" which is followed by the numerous ContentTypes (movie, shortFormVideo etc).  Replace these with your own custom Categories that you used in your Feed (comedy, sports, drama etc). Save it and re-zip it.

Be sure to update your feed url, and if you upload this one separate then be sure to update your Manifest file to this feeds url. A lot to think thru & a lot of variables here, but I was able to test it and get 2 unique categories going

[Ggg66]

one question.. I'm almost ready to submit new update. If it's not approved will my current direct publisher channel remain until new update is approved?