Announcement: Roku Live Streaming with Dacast

Dacast is pleased to announce that we now fully support sending your live stream to a Roku channel for viewing on any television! This allows our customers to reach brand new audiences on the best device for watching a live stream: a full-sized television.

Your Dacast Live Stream On Roku TV

While digital media is increasingly dominating the way that people watch video, television is still the most popular, pervasive, and frankly, the most high-quality device on which to watch video content.

With this new capability on the Dacast platform, you can deliver the quality experience of watching a television channel to all of your viewers, anywhere in the world. This feature allows Dacast users to stream directly to a custom Roku channel and reach the more than 9 million active monthly users on the Roku platform who annually stream more than 5.5 billion hours of content!

How It Works

In your Dacast account, you can generate an HLS M3U8 media link for any live streaming channel, allowing you to quickly and easily link your stream to Roku and create your own live channel. You can then use any of a number of paid or free platforms, such as  Instant TV Channel, to provide your personal Roku channel link. Then all you have to do is log in to a Roku Developer account and publish your channel.

This HLS-based approach has the advantage of also allowing Dacast users to provide channels for Apple TV, create other private web TV channels that use set-top boxes, or create dedicated mobile apps, all of which enable users to stream video to viewers anywhere in the world in a branded, personalized application setting.

To streamline the mobile app development process, several companies (such as Appypie and Shoutem) offer simplified “app builders” for packaging live audio or video streams.

About Roku

Set-top boxes are drastically changing how people consume digital media, and major companies such as Apple, Google, and Amazon all sell devices to deliver digital media content from the Internet to compatible televisions (usually via HDMI cable).

The industry has been described as one with “tremendous growth potential,” and media analysts expect Internet-connected set-top boxes to eventually replace traditional cable as the main source of media in many homes within the next decade. It’s predicted that about 40% of American homes will contain a set-top box by 2017.

Roku is a digital media player set-top box designed to connect a television to the Internet and provide a modern interface for digital media consumption. Roku has sold more than 10 million devices in the U.S. alone, and millions more globally.

The Roku comes in several different models, the most basic being a small and affordable stick that plugs right into your TV. The higher-end Roku devices support resolutions up to 4K (Ultra HD) and provide a few additional features. Roku has also partnered with a number of television manufacturers to sell smart TVs with integrated Roku devices for ease of use.

However, each and every Roku model will support Dacast channels.

Roku content is delivered via “channels” which can be installed and uninstalled from a directory. Popular channels include Amazon Video, BBC iPlayer, Google Play Movies and TV, Hulu Plus, Netflix, Pandora Radio, PBS, and YouTube. Private channels, which aren’t open to the public and require a passcode to access, can also be created.

How to Get Started

Setting up a new Roku channel based on your Dacast live stream or on-demand video content isn’t difficult, and we provide a number of tutorials to help you through the process. Check out our guide for creating a Roku channel and this detailed walkthrough with all of the information that you’ll need in order to get the process started.

The ability to create a Roku channel is restricted to Dacast customers who are on our Pro and Premium plans, which are aimed at live streamers who need the larger capacity to reach a broad audience. To learn more about Dacast pricing and check out the options available, visit our website for more information or contact us to get started!