Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
258 lines (191 loc) · 7.99 KB

mrss-feed-specification.md

File metadata and controls

258 lines (191 loc) · 7.99 KB

MRSS Feed Specification

Overview

Direct Publisher supports catalog feeds of content for launching channels on the Roku Publishing Platform. Specifically, we support MRSS feeds with required fields to ensure have the best experience with a channel.

This specification has detailed information on the MRSS elements you can use to build out a Direct Publisher-compatible MRSS feed, as well as examples to help along the way.

ℹ️ Note: only parse the elements described in this spec. Any other elements provided will be ignored.


Feed Formats

MRSS Feeds for Direct Publisher are based on the following specifications:

In addition, we indicate which items which elements are required and/or optional.

In the example Roku Channel image below, you can see where the fields of your MRSS feed will be used:

Roku Channel Example

Roku Channel Example

The following is a complete list of the elements that Direct Publisher supports along with descriptions and examples.

Elements List:

ℹ️ Elements marked with * are required.


Channel Sub-Elements

The following are sub-elements of a <channel> tag:

lastBuildDate

Optional

The last time the feed was updated, in the ISO 8601 format: {YYYY}-{MM}-{DD}T{hh}:{mm}:{ss}+{TZ}. E.g.: 2015-11-11T22:21:37+00:00

Example:

<lastBuildDate>2016-09-07T09:42:31+00:00<lastBuildDate>

Item

Each <item> in an MRSS feed correlates to one video / content item.

Example:

<item>
  <guid>https://example.org/cdn/video/vaaaXaaX</guid>
  <pubDate>2016-09-07T09:42:31+00:00</pubDate>
  <media:title>The Best Show Ever</media:title>
  <media:description>So long, and thanks for all the fish.</media:description>
  <media:category>cooking</media:category>
  <media:category>reality</media:category>
  <media:thumbnail url="http://example.org/cdn/thumbs/42/lkmfaAAmA.jpg" />
  <media:content
   url="https://example.org/videos/your-video-id.mp4"
   duration="74.74"
   bitrate="2500"
   language="en-us" />
  <media:subTitle
    lang="en-us"
    href="http://www.example.org/cdn/subtitles/subtitle.srt" />
</item>

The following are sub-elements of an <item> tag:

guid

Required

The unique and immutable id for the video.

Example:

<guid>https://example.org/cdn/video/vaaaXaaX</guid>

pubDate

Required

The date the video first became available, in the ISO 8601 format: {YYYY}-{MM}-{DD}T{hh}:{mm}:{ss}+{TZ}. E.g.: 2015-11-11T22:21:37+00:00

Example:

<pubDate>2016-09-07T09:42:31+00:00</pubDate>

media:title

Required

The video title. We use this value for matching. Please use plain text and don’t include extra information like year, version label, etc. You can also use <title> in its place.

Example:

<media:title>The Best Show Ever</media:title>

media:description

Required

A description of the video that does not exceed 200 characters. The text will be clipped if longer. You can also use <description> in its place.

Example:

<media:description>So long, and thanks for all the fish.</media:description>

media:category

Required - Either media:category or media:keywords are required.

One or more categories. Categories are used as tags in Direct Publisher, which can help you organize your content so your users can quickly find what they want. The names you use here won't be directly displayed to your viewers. You can find more information about categories and tags in Content Specifications.

Examples:

<media:category>Cooking Shows</media:category>

or:

<media:category>cooking</media:category>
<media:category>reality</media:category>

media:keywords

Required - Either media:category or media:keywords are required.

A comma-separated list of keywords. Similar to categories, keywords are used as tags in Direct Publisher, which can help you organize your content so your users can quickly find what they want. The names you use here won't be directly displayed to your viewers. You can find more information about categories and tags in Content Specifications.

Example:

<media:keywords>humans, space, travel, exploration</media:keywords>

media:thumbnail

Required

The thumbnail is used within your application and in the search results. The image size must be 800x450 (width x height) or larger, with a 16x9 aspect ratio. Supported formats are JPG or PNG.

Flag(s):

Flag Required Description
url Required The URL of the thumbnail

Example:

<media:thumbnail url="http://example.org/cdn/thumbs/42/lkmfaAAmA.jpg" />

media:content

Required

The actual video file(s). For more information on supported formats, see Audio and Video Support.

Flags:

Flag Required Description
url Required The URL of the video file
duration Required The duration of the video (in seconds)
bitrate Optional The bitrate of the file. Must be provided if multiple single bitrate (e.g., MP4) files are provided.
lang Optional The original language of the video

Examples:

<media:content
   url="https://example.org/videos/your-video-id.mp4"
   duration="74.74" />
<media:content
   url="https://example.org/videos/your-video-id.mp4"
   duration="74.74"
   bitrate="2500"
   language="en-us" />

media:subTitle

Optional

One or more subtitle files for the video. For more information on supported subtitle formats, see Closed Caption / Subtitle Support.

Flags:

Flag Required Description
href Required The URL of the subtitle file
lang Required The language of the subtitle file

Example:

<media:subTitle
   lang="en-us"
   href="http://www.example.org/cdn/subtitles/subtitle.srt" />

dcterms:valid

Optional

The validity period for the video. The video will not be displayed to the user unless it is within the validity period.

This field conforms to the ISO 8601 format: {YYYY}-{MM}-{DD}T{hh}:{mm}:{ss}+{TZ}. E.g.: 2015-11-11T22:21:37+00:00

Example:

<dcterms:valid>
   start=2016-07-13T09:42:31+00:00;
   end=2016-07-13T09:42:31+00:00;
   scheme=W3C-DTF
</dcterms:valid>

Change Log

  • 2016-07-08 - Updated media:description limit from 60 to 200 characters.
  • 2016-07-06 - Removed Appendix, added links to external articles.
  • 2016-05-17 - Updated elements description, added horizontal lines between elements to improve reading, updated examples, removed Elements Table.
  • 2016-04-06 - Document created.

References