OTT specialist, Roku, has launched a contest that is designed to encourage the development of channels (apps) for its platform. The contest invites developers to build apps in six categories, with the winner of each category receiving $5,000 and an overall winner receiving an additional $5,000. The categories are 1) Video, which will be judged by Revision3 CEO, Jim Louderback; 2) Music or Audio, which will be judged by Michael Endelman, a senior editor at Rolling Stone magazine; 3) Photo, which will be judged by technology blogger/journalist, Dave Zatz; 4) Social Media, which will be judged by actor LeVar Burton; 5) Screensaver, which will be judged by technology blogger/journalist, Harry McCracken; and 6) Founder's Choice, which will be judged by Roku founder and CEO, Anthony Wood (note: according to Roku, "anything goes" in the latter category, and developers are encouraged to "push the envelope).
To support the contest, Roku has created a Web page which, among other things, provides information on various new API's it is offering to developers including HTTP Live Streaming (billed as providing support for both "live" and adaptive bitrate streaming capabilities), roImageCanvas (billed as allowing developers to place text and graphics anywhere on the screen), roVideoPlayer (billed as allowing developers to play a video in a region on the screen and/or programmatically control playback; when used with roImageCanvas, the company says, it allows developers to combine video, images and text on a single screen), USB support (billed as including basic support for USB hotplug events and automounting of USB volumes, and as providing support for a range of USB devices and file systems), File System access (billed as allowing developers to enumerate available file systems and access the content stored on them), SRT Subtitle support ("if the content you are playing has an available SRT file for subtitles, enabling subtitle display will be as simple as specifying a path to the SRT file," Roku claims), and ScreenSavers (billed as allowing developers to create standalone screensaver apps that can be run whenever the Roku player is idle, or to create a custom screensaver for their channel).
The deadline for entries is 12:00AM Pacific, September 7th. Roku says that qualifying channels/apps will be published to its Channel Store at 12:00AM Pacific on September 9th and that end-user voting will then begin. End-user voting will end at 12:00AM Pacific, October 8th, the company says, the finalists will be announced the next day, and the winners will be announced on Roku's Web site (and notified by email) on October 15th.
