Tag Archives: Set Top Box

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.

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.

Continue reading YouView – Smart TV UI →

AIR, Software Engineering, Work

Sneaky tricks for developing on small devices: ‘Bitmap Folding’

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One of the most problematic constraints when developing applications for resource constrained devices, such as mobile or Set Top Box is ‘video memory’.

You often will not have control over how much video memory is allocated to your application, or what the fallback behaviour is when your application uses too much. Continue reading Sneaky tricks for developing on small devices: ‘Bitmap Folding’ →