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I'm sorry for bothering you guys with something as simple as this appears will be for you. I am trying to help develop a public Roku channel for an awesome minister I know who has 100's of videos. (hoping Naz Vanof or someone who knows a lot about this can help)

I attempted to find information on how to use Vimeo as a json feed provider and didn't find any tutorials. (the online help at Vimeo was no help).

First is there something that needs to be done for each video uploaded to my Vimeo account to prepare them to be used as json? I tried using the provided URL for my Vimeo account on the Direct Publisher feed link and it wouldn't accept it.

I've been searching for two days on this subject and not really getting anywhere and the only place I could see any related content was here (Naz). The videos I am using I have permission for from the developer but they are downloaded from Youtube through the Keepvid online program to my computer then uploaded to Vimeo. Is that an issue?

Sorry for the lack of knowledge but I am excited to get my feet wet on this and have a high aptitude in other fields, I'm just a total newbee in this field. starting two days ago I went through all the tutorials on Roku and did all the prep for establishing the developer account, and learned how to side load and alter channel templates, now I just need to know how to get my URL link to connect and to organize videos on Vimeo. Later I will get deeper with the Brightscript app. But what they have for the template for Direct Publisher would be perfect to get started.

Thanks and sorry again for this base level question.

James Tierney
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4 Answers4

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Direct Publisher accepts two types of feeds, as described in the Direct Publisher Feed Specifications: their own custom JSON format (which is not something Vimeo offers I imagine, based on how new Direct Publisher is) and MRSS feeds (which Vimeo might offer, not sure). If Vimeo doesn't offer either of those, you likely won't be able to use Direct Publisher, unless you create your own in between API layer which transforms what Vimeo offers to what Direct Publisher needs.

Pieter Siekerman
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  • Vimeo only provides the .mp4 video file URL - if you can't drop the video file URL into Direct Publisher, and you still want to use Vimeo as your video host, you'll need to use something else to build your Roku channel. Also note that to get the .mp4 external player links from Vimeo, you must have a PRO or Business account. – Tommy Penner Oct 27 '16 at 14:41
  • I had a Vimeo Pro account, and I talked with Vimeo and they said the account URL should have worked. So I was wondering if downloading from Youtube through Keepvid to my computer then uploading to Vimeo had something to do with it? But the Direct publisher wouldn't even acknowledge the URL. Unrecognized. So I'm pretty sure it wasn't the videos? If it made it to Vimeo it should be usable on that feed? According to multiple sources Vimeo does support JSON feeds. (But this was not yet verified on anything I could find on Vimeo) – James Tierney Oct 28 '16 at 02:57
  • Does the uploaded file have to be in a JSON format for Vimeo to feed it in JSON or would it automatically make it JSON if Vimeo has JSON feed? – James Tierney Oct 28 '16 at 03:07
  • And if it does need to be in a JSON file on Vimeo to feed JSON to the Direct Publisher could I use a File Converter to make each mp4 video a JSON file? – James Tierney Oct 28 '16 at 03:13
  • JSON is not a file format, it's a type of programming notation/data formatting. Downloading the video from YouTube and uploading it to Vimeo has nothing to do with the workflow. And from the link Siekerman Technology provided, Direct Publisher only supports their own type of JSON formatted metadata or MRSS feeds, neither of which the Vimeo API currently exports. If you want to use Direct Publisher, you must write an in-between API that imports Vimeo video objects and exports Direct Publisher formatted JSON. – Tommy Penner Oct 28 '16 at 16:43
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According to other sources Vimeo does offer JSON feeds. And I did purchase Vimeo Pro but still could not access my files. I was wondering if the type of encoding on Youtube where I had to get the downloads to upload to Vimeo would interfere with the Direct Publisher feed? They don't support Youtube links so I used a Keppvid program to download from Youtube then upload to Vimeo. Vimeo accepted those downloads no problem. But my URL wouldn't work on Direct Publisher. I talked to Vimeo and they said my account URL should have worked. I'm stuck.

James Tierney
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You need to compare the Vimeo feed to Roku's feed specification and figure out what the difference is that is causing it to not work, then load the Vimeo feed into a text editor and alter it to make it compatible. Alternatively and preferably, you would write a script that would do the conversion on your own server so you could have it run once a day and then deliver the feed from your server to Roku's server instead of directly from Vimeo.

alphablender
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The problem with using Vimeo is that housing your video in an external xml document, vimeo uses Ampersand in their URL. Sample:

    https://player.vimeo.com/external/213601353.hd.mp4?s=71a24afbe4d4792806a08391263kjhisihe69fe2&profile_id=xxx

This needs to be modified to:

    https://player.vimeo.com/external/213601353.hd.mp4?s=71a24afbe4d4792806a0839126c484c175269fe2&profile_id=174

Once you make this change the xml URL will be parsed properly. The URL was having the ampersand stripped which is why it may not have been working. I have tested this with all of our vimeo videos and they work properly now.

Hope this helps.

Max Rojas
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