Mormon Channel for the Roku Channel Store

[kennethjorgensen]

The private channel is for the Roku video player. I don't think Boxee is able to use Roku channels.

Cheers, I got them mixed up.

[JonesRC]

I want to get a Mormon Channel on the Roku Channel Store. I do not have the know-how to make this happen but I'm sure many of you do. I can just imagine the Book of Mormon study classes and General Conference streaming through my Roku box and I just can't wait. They even have the ability to do live streaming so we could get General Conference set up to stream live!

We are currently in the process of refining our agreement with Roku to create both a private and general channel. Along with the agreement, and subsequent SDK required to build the channels, there is the issue of content. There are several questions to address in terms of what content is appropriate for what channel and audience and, what content currently held by the Church, is intellectually approved to release on these types of devices? We have a team working on both the Agreement and content.

We can see a lot of benefits to having the Church's content available on a Roku channel along with other Over-the-Top devices that are becoming more readily available. We are also looking at Tivo, Boxee Box, Google TV, PS3, and XBox 360 along with VOD services like Comcast & Netflix. These devices and services have channels or stores that we hope might provide us an opportunity to make our content more readily available to a wider audience.

Thank you for your interest and ideas. It is fun when others capture the vision of how emerging technology could be used to help share our media messages.

[kennethjorgensen]

We can see a lot of benefits to having the Church's content available on a Roku channel along with other Over-the-Top devices that are becoming more readily available. We are also looking at Tivo, Boxee Box, Google TV, PS3, and XBox 360 along with VOD services like Comcast & Netflix.

That is so cool. Let's hope it goes well.

[zonazag]

I was wondering if there has been any update on the status of an official LDS channel on Roku. I have the private LDS channel as well as the podcasts and those are great.

What I really am hoping for is that live General Conference will be able to be viewed from the Roku box. Please tell me this is something that can be done.

Thanks for the work to bring church content to the Roku box!

[wyrmwud]

Looking forward to this! Any update? I would love to see a live stream of Gerneral Conference.

[djreed]

I'm new on this forum so I hope this post is appropriate.

The broadcast TV station that used to provide conference to the Phoenix area in the past does not do it any more. In May we huddled around our computer to watch, which worked fine but I would like to stream it directly to the TV. It appears others are working on that issue. I was looking at the "WD TV Live Plus" media player as well as the "Roku" to see if they could be used to do it.

In searching the internet I found that the church made conference available in May through "YouTube" on the "MormonMessages's Channel". I don't know if it was live, but if it were that would be one approach since the "WD TV Live Plus" as well as the Rokuis can stream YouTube.

I'm not completely clear on what these boxes do or how they differ but it seems that there are more people working on streaming conference with the Roku.

I would appreciate any help that I could get. It appears that there are many people like me.

[kh_design]

Hi djreed,

The broadcast TV station that used to provide conference to the Phoenix area in the past does not do it any more. In May we huddled around our computer to watch, which worked fine but I would like to stream it directly to the TV. It appears others are working on that issue. I was looking at the "WD TV Live Plus" media player as well as the "Roku" to see if they could be used to do it.

Remember the day when the first home (vintage) computers like Commodore VIC-20, Commodore 64, IBM PCjr, Texas Instruments TI-99/4A and others using Motorola MC6845 video generator could be easily connected to your NTSC television as the computer monitor. Then computer graphics soon exceeded televisions capacity with Video Graphics Array monitors and then Super VGA.

Televisions have caught up and now with HDMI connection standard moving into the default for both computer video card and monitor connection and television connections it is now very easy again to connect your computer to the television with HDMI.

When I mention Commodore it reminds me of the first home computer I used, I was in the fourth grade, it was the Commodore PET, the Commodore PET was used all the way through my Junior High 9th grade year in typing class. Anyhow my oldest child just completed fourth grade, it is completely amazing to see the progress of technology from my fourth grade to my oldest child's fourth grade.

[JamesAnderson]

The reason the Phoenix TV station does not air conference now is because soon after the person that built the station got it on the air, he sold it, the new owner owns one other in the Phoenix area I think. that first owner was LDS.

But if you've got a radio that has HD Radio as a feature in your car or home you have Mormon Channel in that market. Went through last year and it was quite an experience to be going through the Broadway Curve then on the 60 into Mesa and be listening to a Conference talk, and it was not even Conference Weekend either.

I'm hearing more and more about Internet-enabled TVs, I mentioned in another thread they were expecting to sell nearly 11 million units in 2011, it will actually start up this holiday season, that's why some of the non-Internet enabled models are going for less, along with the fact that HD is pretty much standard now on all sets.

Others are saying this time that Internet TV is going to be a game-changer, probably in the next two years as well. A study out last week said that 65 percent of all US adults are time-shifting in one way or another what they watch, whether it be via Tivo, web sites like Youtube or Hulu, or other means, and that is going to change the way things are done. There will still be networks so you can sit down and watch a show when it's broadcast, but the wave of the future is going to be these 'on demand' services, and movie rental sites are already doing a lot of business being at the forefront of this.

[zonazag]

I would love to be able to watch conference sessions on my Roku box so that I can cancel my cable. Any chance?

Someone just added a Justin.TV channel, so maybe it will be on there. The quality is just not that great.

Thanks.

[cody.brown4-p40]

i thought i'd link to another thread in a different category that some people here might be interested in:

http://tech.lds.org/forum/showthread.php?t=5832

i posted there before i saw this more thorough thread.

i'm curious as to what the policy/stance of the church is about homebrew apps that link to LDS.org hosted media. lets say i made an app for Boxee which basically operates as a browser with a custom UI that can watch mormon messages from youtube and general conference with liveupdating via rss feeds. because i'm not redistributing the media in any way, only a custom rss reader that gets its media and metadata from the original sites like a podcast, what are the legal implications?

i'm curious, just in case the church decides against releasing an official boxee app or google tv app, etc. i'd still like to share my custom app with others if they want it.

i see all kinds of non-official lds apps in the android market that do similar things, or even for major companies that individuals or software companies make without explicit permission.

what do you all think?