Public Channel Pre-Publishing Checklist

This Instant TV Channel Help article is primarily applicable to Custom SDK Roku channels. For Direct Publisher Roku channels you must still make sure that all streams work correctly, that there are no typographical errors, and all artwork must be professional in appearance.

Public Channels are displayed in the Roku Channel Store when clicking the Channel Store icon on any Roku player. A channel present in the Roku Channel Store can be easily installed onto a Roku player without using the complicated channel access code procedure required for a Non-certified Channel.

When a channel is submitted to Roku for publication in the Roku Channel Store, it kicks off a process of testing and feedback to make sure the channel is ready for public consumption. Roku expects that channels 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 channel to Roku for testing. The Roku Developer website has additional information about testing requirements, some of which may not be applicable to channels developed using Instant TV Channel.

• Are all the services that your Roku channel uses production ready and is your channel pointed at your production environment? This includes your CDN (Amazon S3, Brightcove, Cloudfront, etc), registration and linking server, and marketing website, if any. Additionally, have you removed any test-only content you may have been testing with?
• If you provide durations for your content (the Length parameter in the Instant TV Channel Content Editor) make sure that it is accurate, otherwise the "Play" buttons in the Springboard screens may not function correctly.
• Minimize the number of clicks required to get to content. There should be no Lists with only one item, or Grids with only one row.
• 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" channel 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 channel 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 channel'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))
  • No photographs of people
  • The channel 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 channel and in the Channel 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".

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Roku requires that you provide an example Deep Linking contentId for each mediaType in your SDK channel when you submit the channel for approval. Deep Linking allows your channel's content to be directly accessed from outside of the channel, for example from a banner ad on the Roku home screen.

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 channels may need to have the Developer Mode on the Account page set to "Advanced" 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 channels 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.

To provide Roku with your sample Deep Linking information for testing and certification, enter the contentIds and mediaTypes into the "Test Accounts & Deep Linking Parameters" section of the "Support Information" page in your Roku Developer Account. The following screenshots are from the "Support Information" page of a Roku Developer Account:

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.

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