Building great channels on the Roku Platform requires several key planning stages. The following guide provides onboarding details and links to the relevant guides and documentation.
Understanding the capabilities and key requirements for creating a great Roku Channel.
- Best Practices for Roku Channels - covers the main sections for trademark, branding, and links to the best practices for design
- Roku Platform Overview - understand the basics of how Roku channels work for customers, publishers, developers, and various business models
- Roku Product Overview - Details for all Supported Devices and TVs
- List of Platform Features - Highlighting the platform features available for channels
- Content Playback - Details for supported Audio / Video Formats
- Media Hosting - Understanding hosting, CDNs, OVPs, and common setups
- Digital Rights Management - List of Supported DRM Formats
- Legal Requirements - Specifics and links for Trademarks, Tax, and Compliance
- Monetization - Opportunities with our Ad Framework (RAF) and Billing Services
- Analytics - Details for integrating 3rd Party Analytics and viewing Channel Statistics
- Roku Search - What is ‘Global search’ and how to prepare a Roku Search Feed
Overview of channel design, navigation, and navigation flows with examples of user interface resources for samples, downloads, and tools.
- Best Practices for User Experience - Covering design guidelines, navigation, channel layout, sign up flows, and playback
- User Interface - Building UI with XML (SceneGraph) and understanding layouts
The fundamentals for developing a Roku channel, understanding our application framework, and integrating platform features for monetizing and growing an audience
- SDK Development Guide - Covers the steps for setting up a project, creating a UI, handling events with BrightScript, content playback, and additional components
- Platform Features - Integration guides for key channel add-ons such as Roku Billing, Roku Ad Framework, Fast Video Start, Deep Linking, Closed Captions, Text To Speech
Guidelines to effectively test channel quality, detect regressions, and meet our certification and launch requirements
- Test Accounts - Provide test credentials for Roku teams (Certification, Customer Service, PR, Marketing, Partner Success, Engineering)
- QA Environment - Have a proper device testing bank from low end to high end
- Performance - Best practices for managing resources across devices
- Debug - Various functions of the telnet debug console
- Tools - Plugins, add-ons, and diagnostic tools for building quality channels
- Certification Checklist - The comprehensive list of certification requirements and device overview
Specifications and required channel assets, setting expectations for the channel submission process, and verifying all legal requirements
- Publishing channels - Covering the developer portal, how to submit a package, and what assets to have ready
- Certification Process - Understanding the channel certification process and what to expect in the workflow
- Compliance - Verify all content licensing, geo-fencing, and accessibility requirements are addressed in your channel
- Publishing Calendar - Planning around blackout dates such as holidays, scheduled launches, and optimal time preparation for publishing
- Search Feed - Preparing an XML search feed
Guidance for how to make steady improvements for channels. Specifics on the common post-launch projects for the Channel Store, Roku platform news, and testing your channel for bugs.
- Guide for updating channels - Guide to making updates to Roku channels
- News and updates - Where to find the latest news, deadlines, and platform enhancements
- Beta Developer Program - Opportunity to find and download pre-release versions of Roku OS for testing channel functionality and regressions