Roku Developer Help - Public Channel Checklist

Public App Pre-Publishing Checklist

Public Apps are displayed in the Roku Streaming Store when clicking the Streaming Store icon on any Roku player. An app present in the Roku Streaming Store can be easily installed onto a Roku player without using the complicated side-loading procedure required for a non-public app.

When an app is submitted to Roku for publication in the Roku Streaming Store, it kicks off a process of testing and feedback to make sure the app is ready for public consumption. Roku expects that apps that are submitted for publication are fully tested by the developer prior to submission.

The following brief check list covers several items that you should review before submitting your app to Roku for testing. The Roku Developer website has additional information about testing requirements, some of which may not be applicable to apps developed using Instant TV Channel.

Are all the services that your Roku app uses production ready and is your app pointed at your production environment? This includes your CDN (Amazon S3, CacheFly, Cloudfront, etc), and marketing website, if any. Additionally, have you removed any test-only content you may have been testing with?
Minimize the number of clicks required to get to content. If you have Lists with only one item consider using the Theme SingleItemListBypass parameter.
Springboard screens and Grid call-outs should not be empty. Provide a Title and Description for all video and audio content items that do not use Automatic Play. If available, provide Length, ReleaseDate, Rating, Categories, Actors and Director information for each video content item. When using Audio content items, always provide the length and if available, provide ReleaseDate, Artist and Album.
Provide your own splash screen, do not use the default TV set and clouds splash screen. "Free" and "Unlimited" app types will still have an "Instant TV Channel" banner across the bottom of your own splash screen. This is acceptable to Roku and should not cause a problem with app certification.
Provide your own poster artwork. Do not use the blue default Instant TV Channel posters and do not leave any poster URLs blank.
If you use an AdType of selectable banner for ads, make sure that your video URLs point to valid playable content. otherwise change the AdType to banner.
Do your Roku app's store and home screen icons conform to the following:
- Square corners (no rounded corners)
- No transparency
- RGB values between 16 and 235 (full white should be RGB(235,235,235))
- The app name is present on the icon
- All text is legible
- All graphics have the proper aspect ratio
Did you proofread all text included within your Roku app and in the Streaming Store description?
Are all images compressed appropriately to minimize size? This is done by lowering the image compression as much as you can while still maintaining acceptable image quality. If using Adobe Photoshop, Roku recommends using "Save for Web".

Roku requires that you provide an example Deep Linking contentId for each mediaType in your SDK app when you submit the app for approval. Deep Linking allows your app's content to be directly accessed from outside of the app, for example from a Roku advertising campaign.

In order to use Deep Linking the Theme DeepLinkingEnabled parameter must be set to "True", and the DeepLinkingSpringboardEnabled parameter should usually remain at "False". Older apps may need to have Show More Options on the Account page set to "Full" to view or change the Theme Deep Linking parameters.

The contentId to use with Deep Linking is the value of the DeepLinkId parameter. The DeepLinkId parameter is present in all video items and MRSS items created in apps at Update #465 or later. If the DeepLinkId parameter is blank, or if the DeepLinkId parameter does not exist, then the "Content UID" shown directly beneath the item's poster is used as the Deep Linking contentId:

Each Deep Linking Content ID must be assigned a mediaType when submitted to Roku. The mediaType will usually be "short-video" for short video content, or "movie" for movies.

Test your Content IDs using the official Roku Deep Linking tool: https://my.roku.com/account/add?channel=KX3UPK

For more information about Deep Linking, please see the Instant TV Channel Deep Linking documentation page.