SMART TV - the future of television
Hi, Habr! Today we offer to discuss the topic of the Smart TV market: we will consider the prospects of this technology, its limitations, and also touch upon questions about the market for developing applications for televisions.
Every year all over the world, the number of televisions is increasing. At the moment there are more than a billion TVs in the world and there are more and more of them. It's just a huge market, comparable in size to mobile phones.
Once people used books as the main source of information, when televisions appeared, everyone said that books would disappear, but this did not happen. Then the Internet appeared, and all predicted the imminent decline of television.
But it also turned out to be fiction. According to the latest data, up to 70% of people who own a TV, watch it regularly. The average time watching TV in the world is about 3.5 hours.
')
Nevertheless, there is a constant trend that younger people spend less and less time watching television. This is due to the development of the Internet and the variety of media content in it.
To survive, manufacturers are forced to change. The fact that yesterday was new technology, today is outdated. The usual TVs are being replaced by interactive ones connected to the Internet, with which you can actively interact not only with the help of a remote control, but also from other devices, for example, from a tablet or smartphone.
Thus, the total number of televisions in the world connected to the Internet (the so-called Connected TV), by 2020 will reach 876 million units, despite the fact that at the end of 2010 there were 105 million, and by the end of 2015, about 415 million. on the face.
But this is a multi-billion dollar audience of users!
From Digital TV Research reports:
According to forecasts of IHS Consulting, by 2017 the share of Smart TV in TV sales will increase from 32% to 73%, i.e. almost all TVs sold will be equipped with this technology.
Changes in the smart TV market are taking place rapidly and ... imperceptibly for developers. Despite the huge potential, the market for applications for Smart TV is still virtually empty. More precisely in its infancy. The main reasons for this situation are the fragmentation of the market and the disconnection of TV manufacturers. There is no single platform, similar to the Play Market on Android and the App Store from Apple. Each manufacturer has its own application store, with its own requirements and standards, which complicates the development of cross-platform applications. Nevertheless, the first steps to remedy the situation have already been taken - several major manufacturers: LG, Philips and Sharp have already announced cooperation and the creation of an alliance of Smart TV, for a single platform and standards for applications.
Russia is not far behind, rather the opposite. According to GfK Rus, Russia is on the 3rd place in the world in sales of devices with smart TV after Brazil and China. And while analysts say that sales growth will only continue.
The market for TV receivers in Russia is estimated at 96 million units. Of these, about 4.2 million TVs are equipped with the Smart TV option. In total, their number in Russia will reach 29.8 million units in 2017. And large media companies are already actively using this market. For example, the company VGTRK has already released its application, a whole portal with free access to its huge base of video content, including the most relevant stories. Other companies are not far behind:
For example, ivi alone on Smart TV is used by more than 1.2 million Russians, who watch more than 35 million videos per month.
There is an opinion that only 40-50 people watch TV, and young people watch extremely rarely. In part, this is true, the most active audience is pensioners from 66 to 77 years old, who spend up to 6 hours a day watching TV. But according to the latest data, according to a study by the Institute of Contemporary Media (MOMRI), conducted in early 2016 in Russia, young people under 25 years old also regularly watch TV, refuting all existing stereotypes. Basically, this viewing entertainment programs, cartoons, news. On average, young people spend about 2 hours a day watching television.
This is only a small proportion of the population, mainly intellectuals and a highly educated part of young people, as well as a small group of wealthy people who consider watching TV as a waste of time and informational garbage.
Now there are 2 main approaches to creating interactivity in TV:
- built-in SmartTV (pre-installed software from the manufacturer);
- digital consoles with Android-based SmartTV
It differs in that each platform (manufacturer) has its own SmartTV with its own standards. The built-in SmartTV allows you to watch not only traditional channels, but also any video both from the Internet and from external media, like from a personal computer. It is also possible to install various applications, games, etc.
The main disadvantages of the built-in SmartTV are the limitations of the hardware and the lack of a single platform for installing applications, each manufacturer has its own.
Digital set-top boxes are becoming more common in recent times, which in principle is logical. For a relatively small price, almost any TV can be turned into SmartTV, with functionality, sometimes even richer than the firmware. And this we do not even take into account that the user gets access to millions of applications from the App Store or Play Store, depending on the console.
Our company has development experience for both types of SmartTV. And we would like to share some of the nuances of development and testing, the understanding of which will facilitate the “entrance” for new developers and will give a bit of “fresh blood” to the application development market for SmartTV.
Despite the abundance (even an excess) of training materials of any degree of difficulty in creating directly HTML5 applications, there are very few materials on the development of such for TV. Official documentation does not always help: examples of using the API may be absent or even contain errors. Can help reading the official forums for developers, in the archives of which you can find a lot of interesting things. The following materials will be very useful:
The limitations are due to the relative weakness of the native iron: “heavy” frameworks should be avoided if possible (at least, prior to optimization under the platform). Good results show small libraries like ractive.js
Special attention to possible memory leaks - an application on TV can work for days and is good if it crashes not when a user watches a football match or is about to set another record in a toy. Excellent article on this topic: habrahabr.ru/post/309318
When developing for a platform at the “age” (for example, under NetCast), you should be prepared for the fact that the end user will not always have the latest firmware with the errors corrected in the latest versions. One such firmware bug (or rather, the webkit used by it), formally corrected in 2014, cost the development team two man-weeks.
Development for digital consoles with SmartTV also has its own characteristics. This topic is quite extensive, in this article we will touch only Chromecast, as one of the popular solutions now on the market. Before starting development for this platform, be sure to familiarize yourself with the documentation: developers.google.com/cast/docs/developers and we recommend you to watch this video:
In it from and to in detail and accessible (in Russian) tells about the development under the Chromecast.
Before you begin work on creating an application for the console, you need to decide on the concept of the application. There are two main options for using consoles:
- development of an application that will duplicate on the screen. As with Miracast. It is convenient to use this type of application for various viewers (for example, photo galleries)
- development of the “console” application. With this option, the chromecart application is installed on your smartphone (it is an interlayer between your application and the prefix). And your application performs only a navigation function.
In chrome caste, as in other systems and in other consoles, there are limitations in memory (as in the televisions themselves). This must be considered when developing. So, we once encountered in one of our applications with a strange error, when after launch, seconds after 3, the application crashed, despite the correct code. After a brief analysis, a reason was identified: there was a lot of media content in the application (including high resolution photos) as a result, the application crashed due to memory overflow. The problem turned out to be quite serious, but in the new version of the device (Chromecast 2) it was fixed.
The market is promising and is waiting for its Apple. In Russia, applications for the SmartTV platform are purposefully engaged in only a few dozen teams - there is where to turn. But the development is greatly hampered by a large fragmentation of devices on the market, not every company can afford a large fleet of various devices for which applications need to be developed. But the situation is already gradually being corrected, positive trends are visible. The demand for application development is constantly growing, and those companies that manage to stake out their place on the TV application market will secure a bright future for themselves.
We hope this article was helpful. Thanks for attention.
Every year all over the world, the number of televisions is increasing. At the moment there are more than a billion TVs in the world and there are more and more of them. It's just a huge market, comparable in size to mobile phones.
Once people used books as the main source of information, when televisions appeared, everyone said that books would disappear, but this did not happen. Then the Internet appeared, and all predicted the imminent decline of television.
But it also turned out to be fiction. According to the latest data, up to 70% of people who own a TV, watch it regularly. The average time watching TV in the world is about 3.5 hours.
')
Nevertheless, there is a constant trend that younger people spend less and less time watching television. This is due to the development of the Internet and the variety of media content in it.
To survive, manufacturers are forced to change. The fact that yesterday was new technology, today is outdated. The usual TVs are being replaced by interactive ones connected to the Internet, with which you can actively interact not only with the help of a remote control, but also from other devices, for example, from a tablet or smartphone.
Thus, the total number of televisions in the world connected to the Internet (the so-called Connected TV), by 2020 will reach 876 million units, despite the fact that at the end of 2010 there were 105 million, and by the end of 2015, about 415 million. on the face.
But this is a multi-billion dollar audience of users!
From Digital TV Research reports:
According to forecasts of IHS Consulting, by 2017 the share of Smart TV in TV sales will increase from 32% to 73%, i.e. almost all TVs sold will be equipped with this technology.
The most undervalued market is the smart TV application market.
Changes in the smart TV market are taking place rapidly and ... imperceptibly for developers. Despite the huge potential, the market for applications for Smart TV is still virtually empty. More precisely in its infancy. The main reasons for this situation are the fragmentation of the market and the disconnection of TV manufacturers. There is no single platform, similar to the Play Market on Android and the App Store from Apple. Each manufacturer has its own application store, with its own requirements and standards, which complicates the development of cross-platform applications. Nevertheless, the first steps to remedy the situation have already been taken - several major manufacturers: LG, Philips and Sharp have already announced cooperation and the creation of an alliance of Smart TV, for a single platform and standards for applications.
And what about us in Russia?
Russia is not far behind, rather the opposite. According to GfK Rus, Russia is on the 3rd place in the world in sales of devices with smart TV after Brazil and China. And while analysts say that sales growth will only continue.
The market for TV receivers in Russia is estimated at 96 million units. Of these, about 4.2 million TVs are equipped with the Smart TV option. In total, their number in Russia will reach 29.8 million units in 2017. And large media companies are already actively using this market. For example, the company VGTRK has already released its application, a whole portal with free access to its huge base of video content, including the most relevant stories. Other companies are not far behind:
For example, ivi alone on Smart TV is used by more than 1.2 million Russians, who watch more than 35 million videos per month.
Who is watching TV now?
There is an opinion that only 40-50 people watch TV, and young people watch extremely rarely. In part, this is true, the most active audience is pensioners from 66 to 77 years old, who spend up to 6 hours a day watching TV. But according to the latest data, according to a study by the Institute of Contemporary Media (MOMRI), conducted in early 2016 in Russia, young people under 25 years old also regularly watch TV, refuting all existing stereotypes. Basically, this viewing entertainment programs, cartoons, news. On average, young people spend about 2 hours a day watching television.
Who does not watch TV?
This is only a small proportion of the population, mainly intellectuals and a highly educated part of young people, as well as a small group of wealthy people who consider watching TV as a waste of time and informational garbage.
What is SmartTV:
Now there are 2 main approaches to creating interactivity in TV:
- built-in SmartTV (pre-installed software from the manufacturer);
- digital consoles with Android-based SmartTV
Built-in SmartTV
It differs in that each platform (manufacturer) has its own SmartTV with its own standards. The built-in SmartTV allows you to watch not only traditional channels, but also any video both from the Internet and from external media, like from a personal computer. It is also possible to install various applications, games, etc.
The main disadvantages of the built-in SmartTV are the limitations of the hardware and the lack of a single platform for installing applications, each manufacturer has its own.
SmartTV Digital Consoles
Digital set-top boxes are becoming more common in recent times, which in principle is logical. For a relatively small price, almost any TV can be turned into SmartTV, with functionality, sometimes even richer than the firmware. And this we do not even take into account that the user gets access to millions of applications from the App Store or Play Store, depending on the console.
Our company has development experience for both types of SmartTV. And we would like to share some of the nuances of development and testing, the understanding of which will facilitate the “entrance” for new developers and will give a bit of “fresh blood” to the application development market for SmartTV.
Features of development for SmartTV
Development:
Despite the abundance (even an excess) of training materials of any degree of difficulty in creating directly HTML5 applications, there are very few materials on the development of such for TV. Official documentation does not always help: examples of using the API may be absent or even contain errors. Can help reading the official forums for developers, in the archives of which you can find a lot of interesting things. The following materials will be very useful:
- "Creating applications for LG Smart TV: tips for a novice developer"
- "Creating a cross-platform Smart TV application based on the SmartBox library for Samsung, LG, Philips and others (tutorial)"
- "We get acquainted with the features of development for Smart TV and learn to make an application for the TV"
- "Undervalued Smart TV Market"
The limitations are due to the relative weakness of the native iron: “heavy” frameworks should be avoided if possible (at least, prior to optimization under the platform). Good results show small libraries like ractive.js
Special attention to possible memory leaks - an application on TV can work for days and is good if it crashes not when a user watches a football match or is about to set another record in a toy. Excellent article on this topic: habrahabr.ru/post/309318
When developing for a platform at the “age” (for example, under NetCast), you should be prepared for the fact that the end user will not always have the latest firmware with the errors corrected in the latest versions. One such firmware bug (or rather, the webkit used by it), formally corrected in 2014, cost the development team two man-weeks.
Development for digital consoles with SmartTV also has its own characteristics. This topic is quite extensive, in this article we will touch only Chromecast, as one of the popular solutions now on the market. Before starting development for this platform, be sure to familiarize yourself with the documentation: developers.google.com/cast/docs/developers and we recommend you to watch this video:
In it from and to in detail and accessible (in Russian) tells about the development under the Chromecast.
Before you begin work on creating an application for the console, you need to decide on the concept of the application. There are two main options for using consoles:
- development of an application that will duplicate on the screen. As with Miracast. It is convenient to use this type of application for various viewers (for example, photo galleries)
- development of the “console” application. With this option, the chromecart application is installed on your smartphone (it is an interlayer between your application and the prefix). And your application performs only a navigation function.
In chrome caste, as in other systems and in other consoles, there are limitations in memory (as in the televisions themselves). This must be considered when developing. So, we once encountered in one of our applications with a strange error, when after launch, seconds after 3, the application crashed, despite the correct code. After a brief analysis, a reason was identified: there was a lot of media content in the application (including high resolution photos) as a result, the application crashed due to memory overflow. The problem turned out to be quite serious, but in the new version of the device (Chromecast 2) it was fixed.
Testing
- The tv application has a limited set of control methods. So, when testing, it is necessary to check the operation of all functional buttons on the remote, because application response may be unpredictable.
- Also, TVs have several consoles, and you need to check on each. So, for example, there are standard consoles, and there are consoles with cursor control, there are consoles with a gyroscope (gesture control), with a touch panel and you need to check the behavior of the application on all devices.
- When streaming video is broadcast, various artifacts may occur due to the different degree of support for formats and parameters of broadcasts used by players and video playback should be tested on the maximum possible number of options (different broadcast operators, online broadcast sources, device firmware versions, etc.).
As an example: on some iptv streams, resizing the player window provided by the NetCast API did not work until the actual start of video playback. - Also when testing it is important to have several different devices with the necessary operating system, since Televisions are very different characteristics (iron). Let the screen resolutions be standardized, but the real power of iron can walk a lot (it’s not for nothing that “professional rake runners” advise testing to be carried out on the cheapest rulers, where iron is weaker).
- I would also like to note that the behavior of the application on the emulator and the real device can be very different. And for the full development and testing, you just need to have several different TV models on hand.
In our company for these purposes there is a whole park of TVs of various brands. - When publishing an application, different manufacturers have their own requirements. At Samsung, this procedure is simpler, it is enough to fill in the required fields, make a presentation and prepare a letter of guarantee (it is different for paid and free applications). The publication is relatively fast (from one week for one country to a couple of months for all countries).
- LG is a little more complicated. In addition to filling in the required fields (and there are a bunch of them), the following documents will be required:
- presentation with application usage scenarios;
- checklist of application compliance;
Checklist is a document that describes the compliance of the application with the requirements of LG. LG's QA will carefully check your application for all items. - Comments are not always comments, Korean QA sometimes overly formalized relate to their work, so do not hesitate to contact technical support with explanations and questions about comments if you consider them unjustified.
- I would also like to note that the moderation time in LG takes from 2 weeks. Therefore, the release dates need to be planned with a margin and take into account the likelihood of failure and repeated moderation.
What conclusions did we draw
The market is promising and is waiting for its Apple. In Russia, applications for the SmartTV platform are purposefully engaged in only a few dozen teams - there is where to turn. But the development is greatly hampered by a large fragmentation of devices on the market, not every company can afford a large fleet of various devices for which applications need to be developed. But the situation is already gradually being corrected, positive trends are visible. The demand for application development is constantly growing, and those companies that manage to stake out their place on the TV application market will secure a bright future for themselves.
We hope this article was helpful. Thanks for attention.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/315194/
All Articles