Sony TV web application development (Google TV or Yahoo Connected TV widgets?)

Question

Our customer asked us for the web application demo on Sony TV. I quickly found that for Sony the situation is a bit different then on LG, Samsung or Panasonic and seems to be much worse. There is no Sony web SDK for TV developers - there was a platform called Applicast for Sony Bravia TV - but seems that it is already out-dated and released only for Japan. After searching the Internet I found that another approach is to use the Yahoo Connected TV widgets, but seems that development is limited to very few countries...

Finally I ended with the Sony Google TV and the tutorial here, which shows how to move the web application to the Google TV.

So my question is:

• What is the best environment for developing applications for Sony televisions, considering that I am not from the country supported by Yahoo Connected TV widgets?
• If it is use of the Google TV – is using the WebView really the only way how to upload the web application on the television? Are there some other ways?
• Do the Google TVs support HLS for streaming?

Regards, STeN

Answer 1

1. the development environment for Sony Google TV is the Android development environment which is of course quite mature and robust.

2. if you have a web application, the user can use the browser of course but you can also wrap the web application in an Android application ... where the Android application just starts the browser at a particular URL, or uses a webview to load the web page as a "widget" within a larger layout that can include other non-web elements. i'm not sure what you mean by "is using the webview the only way ...". it's quite flexible. you can load web assets from the web or from assets bundled in the application. it's quite flexible. i'm not sure what else you could ask for.

3. i have no experience with streaming video on a Google TV, but here's a link that indicates that it is supported, and has recently been "enhanced",

http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/03/google-tv-3-2-update-enhances-hls-video-streaming-support-plex/

Answer 2

Google TV has two ways to render HTML, the Chrome 11 Browser and the Android WebView. Technically speaking, the WebView allows more "native" look and feel apps but is somewhat limited in the HTML it renders (e.g. no HTML 5 Video Tag). While Chrome is a bit more powerful (and faster JavaScript), it is a bit harder to interface from HTML with the Android Runtime.

The Android Runtime can be used for advanced video playback by using the Android MediaPlayer class, and the Android DRM Framework.

Answer 3

Yahoo! Connected TV should be available for development in any country. The Widget Developer Kit (WDK) is available for download on the Y! Connected TV website: http://connectedtv.yahoo.com/developer/#frmContact.

Select 2011 and 2012 Sony TVs with the Y! Connected TV platform do support HLS streaming. I'm not sure of all the supported Sony models but I do know the 2012 model KDL-xxEX640 support HLS streaming. xx= 40, 46 and 55 and depict screen sizes.

If you plan on building for multiple TV OEMs you may want to look at the Y! Connected TV platform as they support many more OEMs. However, Y! Connected TV will not support WebView, apps are built using JavaScript.

The Google TV media framework does support HLS streaming of most HTTP live streams in Android 3.0: http://developer.android.com/sdk/android-3.0-highlights.html#multimedia

Mediafly has done some HLS stream integration with Android 3.0 and has more info: http://www.mediafly.com/news/http-live-streaming-and-android