TVDemo Remote Configurability

As the name implies, the TVDemo product is used on a big-screen device to experiment and see how different streams and settings behave across a wide range of devices in our supported set. The flexibility of JSON configurability via drag and drop described in TVDemo Configurability allows you to fine-tune settings locally on your personal computer. This page describes how you can take your chosen configuration to your devices.

Companion service

A simple Node.js Express service has been created to enable configuration to be kept short-term and retrieved from the big-screen device.

The source code for this service is included in the deliverables for this product so that you can self-host it in the environment of your choice.

When the TVDemo is launched, it will generate a random five-character identifier and register itself as a new session with that identifier on the companion service.

You can get your personal computer to pair via the companion service by loading the TVDemo page and appending the session identifier to the URL, for example: ?sessionId=CFC99 

For convenience, a QR code is displayed to go straight there.  The QR labelled with ConfigurationSession ID is important when pairing with the configuration companion service.

Applying the configuration

When you drag and drop a config file, the configuration data will also be shared with the companion service.  Pressing the 5 button on the TV remote control will retrieve that config and apply it to the TV locally.  You can then carry out the playback verification or diagnosis you need to do. If you wish to update the config, repeat the drag/drop and press the 5 button again.

Self-hosting

To achieve this, you must have a Node.js v16-enabled environment and, optionally, to keep it running in the background on your chosen machine, a utility like PM2 Runtime.

1. Untar the deliverable tvdemo-1.3.x-companion-service.zip to a suitable location to be hosted and execute npm install to install its dependencies.

2. Run node server.js to launch the Companion Service, or with PM2, enter pm2 start server.js 

TVDemo adjustment for self-hosting

If you are self-hosting the companion service, you can find where you would need to change the base URL in the web-packed bundle.js file.

Payload Apps

If you deploy the TVDemo App to a Smart TV inside the payload of the Tizen .wgt  or webOS .ipk  file, you will still need to host the code at a suitable location for the app to be used by your browser and to allow the TV session to be linked with your browser.  To enable your payload app's QR code to be correctly generated, you can find where to change the base URL in the web-packed bundle.js file.