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Server-Driven Connected TV UI Demonstration

The Challenge

Create an architecture for connected TV applications that delivers high performance and a server-driven UI. Use only readily-available software (for fast time-to-market) and mass-scale HD TV hardware (for economy).

The Building Blocks

Hardware	The demo hardware is based on a Sigma Designs Secure Media Processor chip. The SMP8654 provides fast video processing plus security including DRM and Conditional Access. The demo uses the reference board design included in the SMP8654 IPTV Set-top box development kit. (500MHz MIPS, 256MB RAM, DirectFB HW acceleration)
OS	Sigma Designs Linux distribution (2.6 kernel)
APIs and Frameworks	Qt 4.6 using a Qt WebKit hybrid approach (HTML5, Qt WebKit module, native object integration, accepts NPAPI plug-ins), Qt DirectFB for hardware acceleration.

The Solution

Qt WebKit was a natural choice for server-driven UI since AJAX and HTML are widely used for online content publishing. The approach allows the UI to be written in HTML, JavaScript, and CSS and driven by the server while integrating with native objects written in Qt C++.
Native objects allow fast plumbing for performance-sensitive tasks.
Hardware acceleration is available via Qt DirectFB support for DirectFB, a de facto standard interface to proprietary 2D graphics acceleration hardware including the SMP8650 chip series.
The Qt WebKit bridge provides natural integration of JavaScript and native objects.
The design emphasizes “embedded friendly” client-side HTML, JavaScript, and CSS.

The Results

Server-driven UI using standard HTML, JavaScript and CSS
Fast rendering performance leveraging DirectFB graphics acceleration
Accelerated computationally-intensive tasks via native libraries
Secure, hassle-free integration of web and native domains

Sections

Server-Driven Connected TV UI Demonstration

The Challenge

The Building Blocks

The Solution

The Results

Free Whitepaper Download

Building a Server Driven UI with Hybrid Qt WebKit Integration

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