Rolling out Roku: How?

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Resources

Honestly, there's so much information on https://developer.roku.com/en-ot/overview, but here's an extract.

• Specifications: supported streaming & DRM protocols, feed formatting, hardware specs, ...
• Developer tools: stream tester, layout editor, etc.
• Github: samples and much more.
• Release notes.

Partners

It's possible that Roku is of strategic importance to you, but that you're lacking time, resources or know-how. Embarking in a partnership with industry partners can be a great way to speed-up your time-to-market, or to overcome a (technical) resource hurdle. Additionally, working with partners mitigates risk since they bring expertise and liability to the table.

A partnership often goes in conjunction with the choice between the previously mentioned Direct Publisher or custom channel.

Let's discuss three types of partnerships:

1. End-to-End
2. App Developer
3. SDK

End-to-End

If you opt for end-to-end, your partner will take care of your Roku app (and most likely also your hosting, your feeds, your CDN, your iOS app, etc.). Often, you can provide input on the styling of your Roku channel, or configure it through a dashboard. Examples of such end-to-end providers are 24i, Vimeo and dcafe.

Using an end-to-end service may be the smart thing to do if you would like to outsource the bulk of the complexity, and have limited resources.

App Developer

There are third-party Roku developers out there for you to contract. These development companies or freelancers can build your custom Roku app, or can help you get your Direct Publisher app up and running. An app developer is typically an extension of your team, but they offer know-how on the Roku ecosystem.

SDK

It might make sense to use a commercial (or open-source) Roku SDK offered by industry partners. A Roku SDK is a software library which you implement in your custom Roku project. The SDK exposes APIs which facilitate the implementation of your use-cases.

When should you consider using an SDK? It depends, but the main motivators are time, money and complexity.

• Encapsulating a feature set to an SDK can reduce the complexity and risk of your app.
• An SDK may come with useful pre-integrations or samples. For example, you may have a stream with server-side ad-insertion, and it would be great if your Roku SDK automatically shows them in the timeline, or offers an API to access them.
• Perhaps you want to simplify your app ecosystem by using SDKs from one player vendor, since their APIs and supported features are quite similar.

There are different kind of SDKs:

• Analytics SDKs, such as Conviva, Mux and Youbora.
• SSAI SDKs, such as Verizon Media and YoSpace.
• Video player SDKs, such as the THEOplayer Roku SDK.

Using an SDK doesn't mean you magically have an app in the Roku Channel Store. You still need to implement it into your custom app, and publish this app through your Roku dashboard.

Average hourly salary of freelance Roku developers on Roku versus Roku engineers versus your time. The author cannot be held liable for the accuracy. 

TL;DR

Build a custom Roku channel if you A) need a custom UI, B) are using DRM or C) need account authorisation. (There's plenty of information on https://developer.roku.com.) If you don't need any of those three, consider a no-code Direct Publisher channel. Team up with a partner to speed up your time-to-market or to reduce risk & complexity.

The next article in the series, "Rolling out Roku: THEOplayer?", will explain what we at THEOplayer are doing with Roku. We'll also build an SDK on the THEOplayer Developer Portal and deploy our first custom app! Subscribe to our newsletter if you want to be the first to know when this article is online.