Sunday, August 18, 2013

Huell Howser Roku Channel

In honor of Huell Howser, I wrote a free private Roku Channel to stream his episodes.  It was my first stab at Roku development, but I think it turned out quite well.  It provides a nice interface on your TV to access the videos archived by Chapman University (https://blogs.chapman.edu/huell-howser-archives/).  You can search for episodes, or my favorite just click the random button to roll the dice and marathon episodes in random order.

To add it to your Roku, go to https://my.roku.com/account/add?channel=Huell login with your Roku account and click Add Channel

Update 4/26/2022: New version is now published in official Roku Channel Store 














24 comments:

bryan said...

oh my god this is amazing! I just bought my friend's mom a Roku and was googling to see what all it could do, now that I know there's a Huell Howser channel I'm going to have to get a Roku for myself! Thank you for your work!!

Unknown said...

Thank you! I was hoping something like this existed. This is great!

Unknown said...
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Unknown said...

Thank you so much for making this! I use it all the time!! Quick question: Any idea why the new episodes that have been uploaded won't play in the Roku channel? Are they in a different format than before? Thanks again!!

Don Price said...

I have the same problem,there are more videos that won't play than do.Is there a fix?It's strange and annoying.Thx

Josh said...

Fixed and updated in version 2.0 published now!

Dave said...

Hello Josh-- we have been enjoying your Huell Howser Roku channel since you updated and fixed it, but tonight it once again was not working at all and every single link we clicked on did not work. Do you have a fix for this? Let me know- thanks!

Josh said...

Updated, thanks for the heads up!

Don Price said...

Thank you for the update Josh,you're the man!

Synclexia said...
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Brent said...

I love this Roku Channel. My whole family loves Huell and we watch him frequently. I was upset there were shows not airing on PBS and I wanted to watch the Chapman University videos on my TV. I added this to my Roku, and hours later I went and bought my folks a Roku just for this channel. I set it up and added this channel for them and showed them how to work it. Thank you very much for making it.

I have a few questions for you. When I search for a show it does not save my searches to recent searches. I thought I could search for each show title for them, so the list of shows would be under recent searches. Do you know why it doesn't save?

Would it be hard to add a tab titled "Shows" which, when you click on it, gives you a list of shows? Thanks again and have a nice day. -Brent McAlister Citrus Heights, CA

Joex said...
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Joex said...
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Josh said...

Thanks, now updated for Roku OS 10.0

Joex said...

Thanks Josh for the 2.2 update! It works perfectly now. I removed my two previous comments so they wouldn't confuse newer visitors to your blog.

Paddy O said...
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Paddy O said...

After watching Huell Howser back in the day, for some reason I really got interested in watching again and was sad it was only possible on my computer (or awkwardly with screen share). Thanks for your work in putting this channel together! I can watch with my kids now and since my daughter just started 4th grade she's learning California history this year and no better companion to do that than Huell.

Plus, with all the mess that's going on in the world, Huell's shows are like balm for my soul. Thanks again!

david hornbuckle said...

Roku shut down all "non-certified" channels last week, which means my favorite channel is now gone. Any chance this channel could be submitted and approved to be listed in Roku's official channels? Otherwise, I may have to take a stab at recreating it myself and hope for the best. Either way, thanks for making this so many years ago. It's been amazing to have access to these episodes any time I needed something to lighten my mood.

Don Price said...

Well I sure hope the creator Josh, transitions it to a public channel, it should pass the Roku "certification" no problem These are the channels that you'd want on the platform. Keep Huell Alive!

Josh said...

Working on it! To have a chance at getting certified I have to switch to their new non-deprecated API so it is requiring an almost complete rewrite. Thanks for your comments.

Brent said...

Thank you Josh! I am so happy you are going to work on getting it back on ROKU. Thank you for your hard work. In the meantime others should know there is a lot of Huell Howser content on youtube. Have a nice day everyone and watch some Huell Howser!

Don Price said...

Nice, we thank you for your all your effort in keeping this channel going. Once again--you're the man!

Josh said...

Completely re-written new version is now live in the official Roku Channel Store, search for Huell Howser on your device or the direct link https://channelstore.roku.com/details/7458e742f7b7afe76b94360a57c8b8f9/huell-howsers-california

david hornbuckle said...

That's amazin'! Thanks for putting in the work to bring this channel back for everybody, Josh! I already added it to my channels last night and rated it 5 stars.