Click the blue + Create an app button located near the top of the page.
Enter an App name, for example the name of your channel, or the name of a grid row in the channel.
Enter an App description, for example "Roku Access Token".
Check (click) the I agree... checkbox.
Click the blue Create App button.
On the next page, scroll down to the "Authentication" section.
Check (click) the Authenticated (you) checkbox. This will cause additional checkboxes to appear.
Check (click) the Private checkbox.
Check (click) the Video Files checkbox.
Click the Generate button.
The new 32-character access token will be displayed.
Record the token, it will be needed later.
This is the only time that the token is displayed, if you misplace the token you will need to create another.
Log into your Instant TV Channel account,
and navigate to the "Services" page for the Roku channel that you wish to add the Vimeo video or playlist to.
Enter the 32-character Vimeo access token into the Vimeo Access Token parameter.
To use a video, Showcase, Album, or Portfolio stored on Vimeo in your Roku channel if your channel is at
Update #290 or greater:
Individual SD & HD Vimeo HLS video file URLs (described near the end of this tutorial) can still be used with all Instant TV Channel Update levels,
and can be used in the same Roku channel with the newer vm:// format URLs described here.
Log into your Vimeo account.
Navigate to the Vimeo video, Showcase, Album, or Portfolio that you would like to use in your Roku channel.
If necessary,
click the Next button at the bottom of the page to show more videos to choose from.
Note the URL displayed in the address bar of your browser.
Within the URL there is a sequence of digits.
This is the Vimeo ID for the video, Showcase, Album, or Portfolio.
In the example below, the Vimeo ID for the video is 106675854:
Record the Vimeo ID number, it will be needed in a later step.
Log into your Instant TV Channel account,
and navigate to the "Content" page for the Roku channel that you wish to add the Vimeo video or playlist to.
Enter one of the following URLs into the Instant TV Channel content item.
Substitute the Vimeo ID number that you recorded in a previous step in place of "123456789".
For a single Vimeo video, used as the Stream 1 Url parameter for an Instant TV Channel video item : vm://123456789
For a Vimeo Showcase or Album, used as the Url parameter for an Instant TV Channel playlist : vma://1234567
For a Vimeo Portfolio, used as the Url parameter for an Instant TV Channel playlist : vmp://123456
If you are using more than one Vimeo account, only the 1st account's Access Token can be stored in the Instant TV Channel "Services" page.
The Vimeo Access Token for the 2nd and subsequent Vimeo accounts can be specified directly in the Stream 1 Url parameter like this: vm://{video id}/{access token}
For example: vm://123456789/abcdef0123456789abcdef0123456789, where "123456789" is the Vimeo ID number and "abcdef0123456789abcdef0123456789" is the Vimeo Access Token.
This same technique also works for Vimeo Showcases (vma://) and Vimeo Portolios (vmp://).
For example: vma://123456/abcdef0123456789abcdef0123456789 or vmp://123456/abcdef0123456789abcdef0123456789.
Your channel must be at Update #305 or higher in order to use Vimeo Access Tokens in URLs.
Set the StreamFormat parameter to "hls". This format works more reliably than "mp4".
HLS is an adaptable-bitrate format that allows the streaming of several different bitrates or quality levels using a single URL.
Because many Roku-specific parameters are available which have no corresponding Vimeo parameter,
it is possible to embed Roku-specific Custom SDK and Direct Publisher parameters into the Vimeo description field.
The basic format is: {[parameter_name:value][parameter_name:value]...}
The {curly braces} and [square brackets] must be entered exactly as shown.
For example, if you want to load the Direct Publisher Genre information via Vimeo,
you can do it using a string like this in the Vimeo description:
{[DirectPublishGenre:comedy]}
Some parameters require multiple values which must always be loaded together as a set.
For example, the Credit parameter has 3 sub-parameters: Name, Role, and Birthdate:
Several different parameters can be embedded in the description at the same time:
{[Name:John Smith][Role:director][Birthdate:1960-07-18][Name:Joe Screwdriver][Role:producer][Birthdate:1960-03-20][ReleaseDate:2008-04-10][Tag:robot][Tag:comedy][DirectPublishGenre:animated][DirectPublishGenre:comedy][ParentalRating:PG13][RatingSource:Motion Picture Association of America][AdBreak:00:05:00]}
Anything between the {curly braces} will be hidden from the on-screen Roku description.
Anything between the {curly braces} but not between the [square brackets] will be ignored:
{This is a comment. [Director:Ed Wood]}
That's it, your Vimeo video or playlist should now be playable from your Roku channel.
For a production-quality channel,
you'll probably want to replace the ListPosterUrl
as well as any other parameters necessary to customize the appearance of the new video or playlist.
To use a video stored on Vimeo in your Roku channel if your channel is at
Update #289 or less
(this method works for all update levels):
Log into your Vimeo account.
Navigate to the Vimeo video that you would like to use in your Roku channel.
If necessary,
click the Load more... button at the bottom of the page to show more videos to choose from.
Click the Advanced button. This is a "gear" symbol on the right edge of the page.
Click the Distribution label on the left of the page.
Click the Video file links label on the left of the page.
Scroll down to the bottom of the Distribution column and locate
the "Video file links" section.
If Download the video is displayed, change it to Play the video.
Click on Copy link to copy either the HLS or the DASH stream URL into your computer's clipboard.
Log into your Instant TV Channel account.
Click the Channels link at the left side of the page.
From the Channels page, select the channel you wish to add the Vimeo video to.
Select the Content link at the left side of the page.
Right click on a folder in the Contents Tree, and select New Video or Audio.
Scroll the parameter list down to the Stream 1 Url parameter box
that contains "https://cdn2.instanttvchannel.com/plan9/plan9_640x480.mp4".
Replace the "Plan 9" URL with the URL from Vimeo.
Change the StreamFormat parameter to "hls" or "dash", depending on which URL you copied from Vimeo.
Because there is only a single URL, leave the Bitrate parameter set at "0".
For security, verify that the Vimeo URL begins with "https://"
in order to mask the stream URL from network sniffers like Wireshark.
That's it, your Vimeo video should now be playable from your Roku channel.
For a production-quality channel,
you'll probably want to replace the Title, Description, Length,
poster URLs,
Short Description Lines 1 and 2,
and any other parameters necessary to customize the appearance of the new video.
Instant TV Channel is a cloud-based tool for Roku developers and content providers that shortens development time and eases maintenance after deployment.
: vm://123456789
: vma://1234567
