Three Amazing Tools For Roku Development

What are the stories behind the excellent ideas of developing SMART TV apps? How they get so much popularity? These questions fascinate us, even, any developer, to know more about how things are done.

A Roku application development toolkit is no less than a magician’s bag for Roku developers as it has lots of tools to create the eye-catching, and functioning Roku channels.

Roku -a streaming platform that helps to increase the power of an ordinary TV by transforming it into SMART TV. Just like our earth receives the data from clouds in the form of rain droplets and gives output through a river in terms of the water.

In the same way, the Roku device receives data through a wired or Wi-Fi connection from an internet router and gives output through audio cable, video cable, or HDMI connector on some device models.

Introduction

In order to keep up its presence in the market and for enhancing the user-experience, Roku keeps updating and publishing its versions.

In the October 2018 version, Roku introduced several new tools such as publishing tool, redesign of Roku developer website, reworked software development kit’s documentation hosted on GitHub, built-in channel analytics, and, accessible crash logs from the Roku Developer dashboard to improve the experience of SMART TV app development.

Now, they come up with some amazing web tools just to speed-up Roku development, quality assurance testing, and certification testing.

As now, you are familiar with their October version, let’s just take a deeper dive into it!

1. Stream Tester Tool

What is a Stream Tester Tool?

The Stream Tester Tool is responsible for checking whether the video stream is supporting the private Roku channel or not. It allows Digital Right Management encoding or insertion of video ads from your ad server.

Digital Right Management – used for access control technologies to limit the use of digital content.

How to use a Stream Tester Tool?

Here are some steps that should be followed in order to use the Stream Tester Tool:

• First, you as a Roku app developers should install the associated private channel, using Vanity code.
• Now, verify the Roku box in the web tool for the SMART TV app development.
• You should also specify whether they are testing a video or an advertisement and should fill in the necessary details such as video format, encoding type, encoding key, etc.
• Now, hit “go”.
• If the stream is supported, it will launch within the Roku Stream Tester private channel you just installed on your Roku box.
• After this, the video will be covered by the metadata that is linked with the stream such as the audio format or subtitle tracks.

2. Deep Linking Tester Tool

What is a Deep Linking Tester Tool?

Deep linking in roku is used to launch a piece of content from a display ad or Roku search with the help of the Encryption Control protocol.

The Encryption Control Protocol is used for establishing encryption algorithms over the Point-to-Point Protocol which is designed for moving the diagrams across serial point-to-point links. ECP arranges and enables data encryption algorithms.

Deep linking enables the users to get to their content faster from the Roku user interface through the content discovery features of Roku and allows the Roku developers to grasp the content discovery features of Roku by launching their channel into playback directly from the Roku user interface to drive users to their channel and increase engagement.

For example, when a series is selected from the Roku search, playback starts immediately without any channel navigation.

How to Use a Deep Linking Tester Tool?

• Firstly, you should enter the name and channel Id of any channel you will want to build a deep link command for.
• You should enter the content Id of the particular piece of content you will be linking to, along with the media type.
• You can also enter more arguments in the key-value fields.
• As you enter each parameter, the tool creates a custom cURL command.
• When you’re finished and hit “send”, that cURL command posts to the Roku box at the IP address you entered.
• If properly configured, the specified content item will launch.
• Once your test suites are working as you’d like, they can be exported as a JSON file for easy sharing with teammates.

3. Roku Remote Tool

What is a Roku Remote Tool?

It offers the same functionality as a regular Roku remote for the SMART TV app development. Besides, it comes equipped with a keyboard input feature for quickly filling out text screens. When used properly, this feature along with the ability to export and import keystrokes-can be used to speed up or even automate parts of your regular channel Quality Assurance testing.

You can navigate your channel, send a text to keyboard, screens, and much more with the Roku Remote Tool, you can write your scripts, run them on a device as well as export or import them later as per simple automation needs.

You should also read about the Test Roku Application

How to Use a Roku Remote Tool?

• In the first step, sideload a channel to your Roku test device.
• Install the tool. There are two available forms of the Roku Remote Tool app; Web Client, which is instantly available and works across various major browsers. The other one is Desktop Client, which is available for installation and download on Mac, Linux, and Windows.
• Now, Click on +Add a Device in order to add your Roku development device.
• Great! Now enter the information and credentials of the device.
• After this, verify if the status of the device is Online.
• Now, add a channel by defining an identifier and a name.
• The last step includes the launching of your one of the added channels.

And Done!

Conclusion

We hope you find this article helpful. Now that you have grabbed a great piece of knowledge about the three robust and amazing Roku application development tools, you will be easily able to develop your own Roku application even if you are on a beginner level. Still if you face any issue, contact 4 Way Technologies, our roku tv channel developers will help you.