Category Archives: Smart TV

Apps, JavaScript, React, Smart TV, Software Engineering, Work

Next-gen TV apps

I recently started working for Simplestream creating their next generation TV UIs. Simplestream provide TV solutions for just about every Connected TV or Set Top Box device you can think of – including a turnkey solution for ingest, encoding and management of monetisation models.

What I do

Creating OTT apps for HbbTV / Smart TV and Set Top Box devices, using JavaScript / TypeScript / BBC TAL / React / Preact. Responsible for developing and maintaining the Hybrid TV product, coordinating software releases, balancing requests across over a dozen clients, coordinating with QA, optimising UX, ensuring a stable and performant UI from a single code base across hundreds of big screen devices from Freeview, Freely, Freesat, Samsung Tizen, LG webOS, YouView, Hisense VIDAA, Liberty Global Horizon, etc.

Smart TV

How to allow insecure HTTP content in Chrome

So you’re working on a platform that doesn’t fully support https yet? Old Freeview and HbbTV Set Top Boxes, I’m looking at you. When testing your site/app via the browser (Chrome or Chromium-based MS Edge), you’ve noticed that it has recently started forcing every URL you type to https – even if you’ve followed the usual instructions? Read on…

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AIR, Animation, Apps, AS3, JavaScript, Smart TV, Software Engineering, Work

YouView – Smart TV UI

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YouView is a Smart TV service in the UK, which runs on Set Top Boxes and Smart TVs. I worked on the original UI for years and thought I’d share some insights into best practices for building applications on such resource constrained devices.

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