Roku Direct Publisher

[Dmvtv]

It's been 11 months and Roku and Vimeo still hasn't figured out why my channel doesn't work. The videos are up loaded and categorized, made public, all descriptions filled on my Vimeo. On Rokus end it looks like everything is right as well. But when I actually go on my channel on Roku, you can see the videos but when I press play it doesn't work. I have no idea what's going on. Can anyone please helpy channel is DMV TV 2. 

[Baradanikto]

It's possible you have a logic error in your feed file.  Roku does not do a good job validating your feed file.

If possible, please post your feed file so that it can be inspected for errors.

[Dmvtv]

@Baradanikto 

Hi thank you for your reply. 

How do I find the feed file? 

On my direct publisher I only see feed status and feed Url. Thank you for any specifics.

[Baradanikto]

That depends on what you are using to create the feed file.  It sounds like you might be relying on Vimeo to output your feed.  I don't use Vimeo, so, I can't tell you where to look.  However, there have been plenty of posts on this forum indicating that Vimeo tends to output a single feed file for every showcase you define.  That won't work in Roku.  You'll need to combine them into one feed file.

[Dmvtv]

@Baradanikto thank you. Yes I use Vimeo, my feed Url is https://vimeo.com/showcase/10225839/feed/roku/be1a1b1d39 

But my friends have a channel on Roku using Vimeo as their host and the videos works for them. For some reason i don't understand why this is happening. Neither does anyone else. Thank you. 

[Baradanikto]

Your feed file contains errors.  See below:

2023-03-05 11:38:30.4938 ERROR '803612878' contains an incorrectly formatted 'ReleaseDate'.  Setting date to '2023-03-01'.
2023-03-05 11:38:32.0049 INFO Feed file opened with 1 items.
2023-03-05 11:38:32.0049 INFO Loaded 1 Short form videos.

Per the Roku JSON spec, the 'ReleaseDate' field is defined as:

The date the video first became available. This field is used to sort programs chronologically and group related content in Roku Search. Conforms to ISO 8601 format: {YYYY}-{MM}-{DD}. For example, 2020-11-11

More importantly, the feed file contains only one Short Form Video called "Welcome".

[Dmvtv]

@Baradanikto 

Thank you for looking. with these errors, How do I fix this? And I only uploaded one video to see if it works. I tried uploading other videos as well and still never worked. But if you had any solution that'd be great. Thanks again!

[Baradanikto]

You have two options.

Get access to the feed file from Vimeo and correct the errors.  Then, resubmit the feed file to Roku.

Don't use Vimeo to manage your feed file. There are plenty of alternatives on this forum that can be used to create and manage your feed file.

[Dmvtv]

@Baradanikto 

Thank you so much. I have contacted Vimeo about this error and will wait to see what they say. Would you think this is the only reason my videos are not playing? Is there something I'm missing? Is there a limit to file size that can play on Roku, etc? I really appreciate your help.

[Baradanikto]

Roku does not do a good job of identifying problems in feed files.  I know that they are pretty strict with adherence to the Direct Publisher Spec.  That's why it's important to clean up all potential problem areas.  Any simple error can prevent your content from not streaming.

There's no limit to the length of content you can play.