Roku SDK Documentation : The Roku Channel Developer Program

Table of Contents

Roku offers content owners and publishers the ability to create their own channels on the Roku devices and to make those channels available to Roku users. The Roku SDK documentation contains the necessary information for creating a Roku channel, including design tools and sample applications. The Roku Developer Tools License Agreement contains the terms of use of the Roku SDK and associated tools. After creating a channel application, content owners and publishers may upload the application to the Roku Developer Site for distribution to Roku users. They have to agree to the terms of Roku Application Distribution Agreement to distribute their content on the Roku Platform. The agreement stipulates commercial terms including revenue and/or advertising inventory revenue share.

There are two methods for distributing Roku channels through the Roku Developer Site after they have been uploaded: the Roku Channel Store for Public Channels, or as a non-certified channel.

Roku Public Channels 
Public Channels created for the Channel Store should be those intended for the widest possible distribution, without restriction other than as required for business reasons, such as payment of a monthly subscription. Public channels should be submitted to Roku for acceptance into the Channel Store. If accepted by Roku, a channel is made available through the Channel Store to all Roku users.

Roku non-certified channels 
A channel may be uploaded to the Roku Developer Site and made available to users through the non-certified channel mechanism. These channels are not available through the Channel Store, but can be accessed by Roku users by means of a unique channel access code provided to users. Channels intended for a very narrow audience, or carrying restrictions on access, such as membership in a group or organization, are better suited for non-certified channels. There is no Roku approval process necessary to publish a non-certified channel.

Welcome to the Roku Streaming Player Developer Guide

This Developer Guide is designed to help you quickly come up to speed on the Roku platform architecture, Channel Store, and the basics of how to develop and deploy an application to the Roku player in development mode, and to the Channel Store as a published application to end users. In this Developer Guide we refer to the development of new channels on the Roku player as "applications" since they consist of a set of scripts and related assets. Channels can access video streams, music, photos, or perform other functions enabled by the SDK.

Developing with the Roku SDK

The Roku SDK consists of a set of documentation and sample applications that enable channels to be developed for the Roku Streaming Player. To understand the Roku SDK, here are the key documents:

• The Developer Guide covers the architecture, programming language, development process, and channel deployment requirements.

• The BrightScript Reference Manual will bring you up to speed on the language and serves as a reference for the core components. BrightScript is the programming language used to develop channel applications on the Roku Streaming Player. BrightScript is a scripting language optimized to be the high level glue that ties together BrightScript Components and the Internet.

• The Component Reference guide describes the Roku Streaming Player platform components that expose APIs to BrightScript.

The entire documentation set includes the following: 

What Do I Need to Get Started?

Here's a list of the things you'll need to get started writing applications for the Roku Streaming Player:

• Roku Streaming Player with Software Release 2.7 or later
• Roku SDK (Development Kit Documentation and Sample Applications)
• Development Workstation with Text Editor and Terminal Application
• Standard Web Browser (Firefox, Internet Explorer or equivalent)

Roku Models and Features

With the release of the Roku 2 platform, Roku's product line has expanded to the point that there are significant capability differences between many of the models. While all the models have the same basic streaming video playback support, the hardware internals of the models will support different levels of game play. There is even a new SDK method, SetMaxVideoDecodeResolution() (a member of roVideoScreen or roVideoPlayer), that only has an effect on units with an OpenGL implementation. Please see the BrightScript Component Reference for more details on this method. 

When publishing your channel, you will have the opportunity to specify hardware requirements like "USB", "Roku 2", or "Bluetooth Game Remote". The tables below should help you in determining the target models for your channel.

Current Models

Supported Models

These models are no longer manufactured but still run the latest Roku OS and are still supported.

Notes

¹ The OpenGL ES 2.0 API is currently only available under NDA to select partners.

² Supports 720@60fps with some frame drops when video is not scaled to 1080. Should set ContentMetaData.maxFrameRate to 60 so that player doesn't scale the video to 1080.

3 Supports 60fps at 720p. Supports 30fps at 1080p.

Legacy Models

These models are discontinued and are no longer supported.

FHD User Interface Requirements and Recommendations

The following are the requirements and recommendations for creating and using a 1080p user interface for your channel or application.

To create and use a 1080p user interface in a channel or application, you must set up the manifest file as described in Manifest File.

The following are the graphic image sizes and formats for a 1080p user interface.