Opera TV - tomorrow is here

The Internet is contagious: as soon as it becomes possible to penetrate the next device, recklessly deciding to leave the offline world, the Web immediately penetrates into a trusting piece of hardware, carrying with it an immense ocean of information. Most recently, by historical standards, the worldwide network has swallowed up the desktop and laptop market, today the mobile Internet is growing at an even faster pace, and what will happen tomorrow? No, refrigerators connected via the network to supermarkets and coffee makers with built-in Wi-Fi are all understandable, but this experimental development is still far from mass distribution. The nearest bridgehead is a little closer on the timeline, and it is already actively merging into the overall network. Television devices - this is a tilled field, which the Internet is already mastering at an accelerated pace.

In fact, we started this topic in Opera a long time ago - our first TV product developments entered the market more than 10 years ago. And this is simply explained: we always try to look into the future with a little more careful colleagues in the shop, in order to have some groundwork for technologies that will become mainstream in the next five to ten years. That is why the first version of Opera Mobile was released already in 1998, when, for example, in Russia the pager was the most fashionable mobile communication device. Much has been done over the years, and if at first TV developments were highly specialized, today we have prepared a wide road to television devices for everyone. And that is typical - completely free. But first things first.

Opera TV Store

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For the first time, we announced the opening of Opera TV Store several months ago, and today already worldwide, including Russia and the CIS, our catalog of TV applications is available to users on devices of major vendors, such as Sony, for example. In fact, solutions in the style of "Smart TV" are no longer something exotic, but, as always happens, "there are nuances." As a rule, the vendor strictly controls all Internet applications delivered on its devices. Development is often carried out individually, not only for a specific line, but, at times, for each specific device model. It is long, expensive and inconvenient for application authors: after the device enters the market, making changes or improvements to an existing application is almost impossible. Therefore, we decided to choose a different path.



Opera TV Store is an open service with which everyone can place their applications on TV devices around the world. Moreover, the application’s control of the application remains with the developer: he can at any time make changes or correct any errors found, after which the new version of the application automatically reaches the end user at the next launch. Another important plus is that applications are universal: they are created once, they will work absolutely on all devices that connect the Opera TV Store, without additional fitting and testing. And the development itself is not a big deal: all applications are created using open and well-known technologies - HTML, CSS and JavaScript. In fact, this is a web application, and the built-in Opera browser engine is responsible for its correct operation on a TV device. However, in order to further simplify the task, we have also prepared free TV application development tools.

Opera TV Emulator

The emulator is prepared as a ready-made image for VirtualBox and allows you to develop and debug applications using only a computer - without the need to use real TV devices. The kit also includes documentation and sample applications, and recently we added a couple of templates for the most popular types of content:


RSS reader template


Video Application Template


Video application template, viewing controls

A television remote control is also emulated, which makes it possible to check the correct operation of all control buttons:



Naturally, we could not ignore our existing code debugging tools - Dragonfly can be used for TV applications.



Once the application is prepared - it can be sent to the Opera TV Store . Actually, the publication process is similar to how it is done with the Opera browser extensions: our testers check the application’s work, if necessary, inform the author about errors or shortcomings found, after they are corrected, open the application to the end users.

As a conclusion, it remains to add that at the moment the preparation of TV application development tools is by and large completed and is ready for widespread use by all who wish to place their resources on television devices. Although, of course, all suggestions and comments will be welcome. Finally - a list of useful links:

Emulator
Opera TV Emulator: User Guide
HTML5 audio / video support in Opera TV Store applications
Documentation
Application Publishing
Video Application Template
RSS reader template

PS Assuming possible questions, I will answer - yes, we made a browser for TVs too :)
This is an adapted version based on Opera Mobile, will also be presented in the Opera TV Store, but more on that later.