Here is the official post:
https://blog.roku.com/developer/rdp-sunset
Lease a custom Roku SDK channel >> https://ottfeed.com/lease
Yeah, bummer. There was a 6 page thread on this already, not arguing or complaining, just ppl posting & trying to assist and stay abreast of the process.
This conversion method does seem fairly intuitive (few caveats, remove the # that begin each line of the Manifest, and the second āFeed URLā instance).
With that said, looks like I finally managed to get me feed and channel sideloaded. Currently doesnāt look like any āCategoriesā get imported, just āSeriesā āShort Formā and āMoviesā, which isnāt ideal. Gonna hold off on fully submitting it for a while, hoping either thereās a way or at least creating or updating a simple Node might do the trick. Also might give a shot at using the Hello World template to tweak it into my own.
Iām all the way up to ā¦
SceneGraph āBuild a Roku Channelā: Creating a Grid Screen
built channel but when I side load keeps popping up error.
6 hours so far
in the video, the presenter tosses out to add sample art in the image folder resources to the image file and of course, i canāt find these images. ANY IDEA WHERE THEY ARE???
I have typed every xml and brs file. Iām using text editor and laid out each script as described in the video. should i be using another program to type these files out?
is there any way to get our manifest file and the contents of components, images, and source files of our current direct publishing channel so we can work on them and load them through a sample channel to see our files and make adjustments?
I think you took a step too far in the process (the instructions do lead this way).
You seem to be coding a channel from scratch, possibly using the āHello Worldā Template. regardless, you should have an āImagesā folder, so the images should be in there.
If you follow these steps, up until about halfway down to āTesting Your Channelā, you should be able to make it a bit quicker. Itāll give you a very basic channel interface, you replace the Feed URL in the Manifest file, and swap your images in and such, then load it onto your Roku device following the steps and it should work. Thereās a caveat or two, (remove the # that begin the lines of the Manifest, and delete the 2nd Feed URL so they donāt conflict. Otherwise thereās little to no coding required unless you wanted to.
I started from scratch, i figured it was less confusing that way. Turned out i was zipping the files wrong. I was zipping the entire folder instead of zipping files and the 3 folders inside together lol
I have it up now.
Iāll finish watching all the videos see if I can tweak things.
Fingers crossed 
Iāve completed building everything from scratch using the developer videos https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXLCv18IEHsgMiHqiIR4olakj49OHnL0A Everything is working great but Iāve run into 2 issues I hope someone can help???
The JSON file has the proper tags for each row of videos and was working properly under the direct publisher
Right now only 3 random categories are showing up and my videos are spread around under
categories
shortformvideos
liveFeeds
where can I find some info on setting up the right tags/ categories in my brs or xml files?
Also, Iām looking o how to make an image appear at the top of the channel (like hulu) when someone has highlighted a video. Sorry, I donāt know the proper terminology. Iām currently getting the description to appear but would like an image also. any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
thank you!
What a bummer, our direct publisher channel just lost our live event info. everything else is still up and of course, weāve been promoting a live event all week at 7:30 pm est.
tried refreshing but no luck
the new app is almost finished but obviously canāt get it approved in an hour
So I have it on good word there is a way to manipulate this a bit to allow for Categories in the SDK Template even using our conversion method. I was able to quasi-test it, and it seems to work. Albeit may need a tweaking of my feed. That said, its just an adjustment to the feed file & RootHandler.brs file (easier than it sounds, although, keep backups:)
Step 1: Feed file. Instead of separating your videos into movies & shortFormVideos, use your own Category names here, like comedy, sports, drama or whatever. (Youāll at some point need to sorta redo/copy & paste your videos contents and all into them, so it will take a little re-arranging). AFAIK āSeriesā needs to remain as-is to keep seasons & episodes within it. Also, I think these may be case sensitive since theyāre referenced elsewhere, for now I kept mine all lowercase as well.
Step 2: Components/Content/RootHandler.brs file. In lines 100 and 111 in this file, thereās a line āif itemā which is followed by the numerous ContentTypes (movie, shortFormVideo etc). Replace these with your own custom Categories that you used in your Feed (comedy, sports, drama etc). Save it and re-zip it.
Be sure to update your feed url, and if you upload this one separate then be sure to update your Manifest file to this feeds url. A lot to think thru & a lot of variables here, but I was able to test it and get 2 unique categories going
one question.. Iām almost ready to submit new update. If itās not approved will my current direct publisher channel remain until new update is approved?
that is how it works - āoldā setup - content - until the ānewā is approved and made public.
Iāve clicked on the direct publisher to convert to SDK. Can I sideload our new channel layout or do I need to upload somewhere?
Iām not seeing anything to tell me where to move forward. Iām just getting a message that the channel is published.
any advise?
thank you
Iām in the process of beginning to change over one of my DP channels to SDK. From the posts, it looks like you have yours moving right along. Iām glad you figured it out. Going to give it whirl. 
yep all packed up and submitted, fingers crossed 
for approval. When I tested it, it seems light years faster moving around video to video
Good luck I
Hmmm. . .this sounded like exactly what I needed!
I made the changes to lines 100 and 111 to the categories used in my feed, which was already listing categories.
After zipping and side-loading, all I see is āseriesā on the channel (which has nothing).
I feel like Iām not telling Roku where in the json file to find the categories.
Any thoughts/ideas on what Iām doing wrong?
I can see why what I did didnāt work.
When looking at the feed, the categories a video is assigned to is actually called āgenresā. This is called out in the RootHander.brs file.
Categories, at the feedās top level, just list the categories, not the videos assigned.
@Ggg66 Looks like Deeplinking is not working with the Template. on the other hand, it is mandatory to have Deeplinking to get the certification.
Please let us know the result.
Yeah, to be clear, this is a bit āad-hocā, and weāre not using the 'Categories in their normal fashion. What weāre doing, is changing the feed from (abbreviated for time)
"shortFormVideos": [{
"id": "000001",
"title": "Funny Video",
"shortDescription": "hilarious",
"thumbnail": "facebook pictures",
"category": [
"Comedy"
],
"tags": [
"funny"
],
"releaseDate": "2023-01-01",
"content": {
"dateAdded": "2017-02-04",
"duration": 750,
"videos": [{
"url": "youtube",
"quality": "SD",
"videoType": "mp4"
}]
}
}]
and changing it to
"comedy": [{
"id": "000001",
"title": "Funny Video",
"shortDescription": "hilarious",
"thumbnail": "facebook pictures",
"category": [
"Comedy"
],
"tags": [
"funny"
],
"releaseDate": "2023-01-01",
"content": {
"dateAdded": "2017-02-04",
"duration": 750,
"videos": [{
"url": "youtube",
"quality": "SD",
"videoType": "mp4"
}]
}
}]
So in the actual feed file we would change shortformvideo & movies into (several) of our own Categories. Plus, we would need to rearrange our videos into each section. So if you had categories like 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, you would copy the json content and paste it into its specific area. (NOTE: it is finicky with case sensitivity on category titles, I kept them all lowercase to start and it showed lowercase on the TV, which Iāll accept for now)
Hope Iām explaining this right. Iāll try submitting one soon, I have a smaller channel but am considering holding out for possibly trying SDK on another. I was able to sideload it and see specific Categories. Should clear testing albeit this isnāt exactly supported by Rokuās conversion process. And, getting into custom coding, is kindof a thumbs up/thumbs down approach by them. Nice job tho seeming to have figured out youāre own error in it. Stuff is tedioius man. : )
Sample images are available on the GIT repository for the sample channel, available here:
https://github.com/rokudev/rdp-to-scenegraph-channel-template/tree/main/images
The core download link for this full repository āRDP - to -SceneGraphā (Roku Direct Publisher) is here:
https://github.com/rokudev/rdp-to-scenegraph-channel-template/archive/refs/heads/main.zip
Any idea on how to establish categories in the rows, vs just seeing āSeriesā or āMoviesā? I have about 15 different show series and they range in categories form sports, to news, to livfestyle/travelā¦ Iād like to seperate them and even drill down in sports to indicate basketball, vs soccer, vs cornholeā¦
