TWiT on Roku? Alternative?

I use the Apple Podcast app on my AppleTV’s - works marvelously

Hi Computeforloot

Thank you very much indeed for the tip about Apple TV (I once had the first ever generation of Apple TV, but I’ve no experience of the more recent ones). I have seriously considered paying for Youtube, but I don’t want their music service, so it is quite a lot to pay just to remove adverts from the TWiT videos. I’ve just looked at the dreaded eBay and it seems that a used used Apple TV would be less than the price of a year’s Youtube subscription, so that does make it a viable alternative (and a far nicer one in year two and beyond). :wink:

Over the next week or so, I’ll find out how irritating the Youtube advertising gets then decide which way to jump.

Briain

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Same trouble here. I tried YouTube. That was annoying. As a workaround, I downloaded some shows using Pocket Casts, on my Android phone, Shared them to the DS File app, which allowed me to upload the mp4 files to one of my Synology NAS boxes, which runs a DLNA server, that my Roku can stream from. It works just fine.

I really miss the Twit App on Roku. It was very intuitive to use and its function encouraged me in watching more Twit shows and more often.
Would love to see it back on Roku as a standalone app someday.

Just an update, I standardized on Plex, the interface is better even if it takes a couple more clicks to get to the content, I don’t see ads every time I pause the video (not sure if my Pi Hole play a role in that or that’s how Plex works, but in Youtube it was driving me nuts).

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@PDelahanty @Leo it looks like this Roku publishing feature allows you to publish a feed direct to Roku (i.e. no longer needing an app.)

https://developer.roku.com/en-ca/docs/direct-publisher/getting-started/getting-started.md

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Hey that’s cool. Thanks! We’re on it.

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Looks like I should be able to generate a JSON or MRSS feed to get TWiT content published on Roku.

I guess I should probably buy a Roku device. I have Apple TV, TiVo, WebOS, and Samsung devices…so it’s a bit redundant, but I’ll probably have to test this at some point.

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The Apple Podcast app on my 3 AppleTV’s, my iPhones 11, XR, and my iPad Pro 11” work absolutely GREAT!! Oh and on all my Macs as well

If you get something up you wanted tested, I’m more than happy to guinea pig.

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I ordered a Roku last night. I’ll make this happen. (Not overnight though. Gimme some time since I’ve got other stuff I’m working on too.)

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OMG, what I started… please let me know if you need an additional tester.

(Oh, cake day!)

I’ve got some hand-entered test data in a test version of the app and it seems to be working reasonably well right now. The live stream also works.

The app loads its data from a JSON file. Now that I’ve got the JSON file formatted with this test data, I can use this as reference to code a script that pulls data from the TWiT API and outputs a JSON file for the app to reference. It definitely looks different from the previous TWiT app and I’m hoping that I’ll be able to include a sizable backlog of all the shows.

The biggest pain in the butt is that any changes to the JSON file take FOREVER to show up in the test app. …so I’ve been making tweaks, working on other things while I wait, and then checking the app, making more tweaks, and then going back to other things.

Here’s a teaser…

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Thank you for your hard work.

The app is coming along nicely and I’ve got some episodes and all active shows in there via the TWiT API. However, Roku is sorting the shows poorly. It lists each year as a season (okay, fine, whatever), but those seasons are listed in chronological order…meaning the oldest episode of the current year is always listed first. There doesn’t seem to be a way to reverse the sort so that the most recent is displayed first…at least not in Roku’s Direct Publisher method. That’s super annoying.

Going to look into this more…

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@PDelahanty Did some googling and found this, https://community.roku.com/t5/Roku-Developer-Program/Note-about-the-Sort-custom-routine/td-p/451044

That might help.

Unfortunately that’s not something that’s available when creating an app with their Direct Publisher tools. Within Direct Publisher, there are options to sort categories, but apparently no options to set an episode sorting method for within a show/series or within seasons of that series.

I submitted the app on Friday. Not sure if it will be approved or not, but the earliest I can expect to hear is Tuesday. If there’s a fix for that weird sorting issue, I can always implement it later.

The app has up to 50 episodes of every show. (Obviously, there are fewer if 50 video episodes don’t exist yet.)

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@PDelahanty Thank you for your hard work.

I am developing a TWiT Roku channel that is in the review process. I should here some by tomorrow Monday 10/12/2020. The channel allows you to watch the live stream and the last 20 episodes of almost all the active shows. I’m new to the Roku process so I will see how that goes, one of the reasons Apple’s App Review is blocking the iOS/macOS version is because the All About Android show image was part of one of the screenshots. You can add the unpublished Roku channel using the link below or by using the access code: HDT5DH.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

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