Roku Direct Publisher

[genepensiero]

In the "New Roku Certification Criteria" email, one of the items is:

Trick play thumbnails. Channels must display thumbnails during trickplay for VOD content that is 15 minutes or longer. Trick play thumbnails may be generated using either Roku's proprietary BIF file format or the new DASH and HLS standards for generating thumbnail tiles, which were announced as part of the Roku 9.3 OS update.

I've been trying to research how to accomplish this in JSON for direct publisher channels, but haven't had much luck.

Does this apply to DP channels? If so, has anyone successfully implemented trick play thumbnails?

Many thanks.

[Baradanikto · Accepted solution]

Once again, Roku has generated a bit of confusion.  They posted the following on the Partner Success site:

Do Direct Publisher channels need to implement Trick Play?  The response was given as:

Trick Play thumbnails are automatically generated by Roku's firmware for Direct Publisher channel content. You must add the trickPlayFile object to your feed, as per our specifications, in order to enable.

Which implied that if you use DP, the firmware will handle generating your trick play files.  However, in light of some past miscommunications, I asked Partner Success to verify that post.  And here's the reply I got:

You would need to add trickplay to your Direct Publisher feed, as per our specifications. It is not automatically generated otherwise. Apologies for any confusion caused. We are working to update our Knowledge Center article to clarify.

So, as you can see, the issue of Trick Play has been somewhat muddled.  

To answer your question, yes, it appears they are needed, and, yes, I have successfully implemented some using the software I wrote (see my signature below).

[genepensiero]

Many thanks for this helpful post.

For being such a remarkable company, I'm always amazed at how Roku seems to struggle to communicate clearly with developers and channel creators.

[genepensiero]

...and thank you for the link.

Unfortunately, I'm a Mac user.

[ferdiworks]

Thank you for the software!

But I am new to this! How to proceed. Do I run one video at a time?

Should I create a folder and add all videos?

Then once done how do we implement to out json feed, example?

Thank you

Joe Ferdinando

[Baradanikto]

@ferdiworks Sorry, but, I do not provide support on this forum for the software I wrote.  If you've got a question, problem, concern, please create an "issue" at the GitHub site in my signature.

[37mediagroup]

I just wanna give a shout out to Baradantiko for his software, and that it successfully, and fairly easily, creates BIF files to upload and host. Also, of course, gives the required snippet of code. While it's slightly tedious at times as a whole, I find its best at times to create 1 show or movie, then open that file, grab the needed code (BIF), and then copy & paste that accordingly into my own file. I was able to create all the BIFs by putting in the bare minimum info needed (url, thumbnail, genre, credits, rating etc), then once I have the BIF file upload it and paste the coding into my real file feed.

[ferdiworks]

37mediagroup 

What code or how did you add it to your feed! I created the bif files and got theM hosted. I now need to add the files to my direct publisher feed! 

I USED THIS:

"thumbnail": "http://51.158.101.2/ausam/jrworldtraveltv/thumbnails/MSCThumb.jpg",
"releaseDate": "2017-10-24",
"trickPlayFiles": "http://51.158.101.2/ausam/jrworldtraveltv/trickplayfiles/BIF-hd/857116968.bif",
"quality": "FHD"
},

[37mediagroup]

---

---

I put it immediately after duration, like so:

"duration": 5400000,
"trickPlayFiles": [
				{
					"quality": "HD",
					"url": "https://webistehost.com/bif/film1.bif"
				}
			],