Android Youtube App -> GoogleTV pairing

Question

I'm hoping someone can enlighten me on how the Youtube app pairs with the GoogleTV. In the anymote protocol, you need to provide the pairing code provided by the GoogleTV, and be on the same WIFI network. This isn't the case for Youtube.

Currently, this is what I'm seeing: I have a Sony GoogleTV at home and I was using the Android Youtube app on my phone to play videos on the GoogleTV last night. Today, while I'm at work in a completely different part of the city I can still control the GoogleTV through the Android Youtube App. My wife sees the message about my phone pairing/unpairing and I've successfully launched Youtube videos from my office on my GoogleTV at home. I'm not on the same WIFI network so I'm curious as to how this is still able to connect to the GoogleTV.

Is this something developers have access to (ie: flinging intents at the TV without having to do the anymote pairing)? How am I still able to fling intents at the GoogleTV while being a few kilometres away?

Answer 1

YouTube, Netflix and other app developers and hardware OEM's are working on the DIAL protocol: http://www.dial-multiscreen.org/home The site contains the protocol spec and some C code to simulate server and clients. It is likely that the current YouTube app is using this, but YouTube has not made any information about their protocol implementation available to developers.

Google TV devices are DIAL servers. You can discover GTV devices on your network using DIAL. However, what is missing is how to launch and control individual apps. It looks like GTV devices don't have the full implementation yet. Also, documentation needs to be provided by each of the app developers to understand what commands/protocols they support once they are discovered and launched. DIAL is more generic than Anymote and is likely how GTV devices will work in the future, especially since the protocol is designed to be platform and device independent.