An Introduction to Opera TV                                        © Opera TV AS 2016. All rights reserved. ________________________________________________________________________________

        

Application Certification Program

An Introduction to Opera TV

Version: 4.9.0-r1

Date: 07/11/2016


Opera TV Ecosystem Introduction

The Opera browser engine has been deployed on a very wide range of devices over a large number of years.

Since 2012, the Opera TV Store has been the primary channel for distributing applications, and for a device to support the TV Store required compliance with the Opera TV Store integration specification. This helped create a common platform for application developers.

Recently, with the Opera TV Device Certification Program (DCP) initiative, Opera TV is taking further steps to unify Opera TV based devices to a common set of features and behaviour, defined in the Opera TV Device Specification. The first devices supporting this full profile will be deployed in early 2017.

The Device Specification was designed to be backwards compatible with the legacy Opera TV Store specification, in the sense that applications written against the legacy specification should work on DCP compliant devices. Applications which are using the more recent features in the DCP specification may not work on legacy devices.

A developer can make the choice about which specification to follow, based on which features your application requires, as well as where, how and when you want to deploy your applications.

Developing for Opera TV

Here is how to get started developing applications for Opera TV.

  1. Browse through the articles here:
    https://dev.opera.com/tv/
  2. Review the documentation to make sure that your application conforms to all the requirements. If you are targeting 2017 devices (or later), make sure that you are following this specification:
    http://acp.otvs.tv/doc/
  3. If you are targeting distribution in the TV Store, make sure that your application complies with all the appropriate content guidelines:
    https://publish.tvstore.opera.com/guidelines/
  4. Download the Chromium based Opera TV Emulator or other emulators that match your plans for distribution:
    http://www.operasoftware.com/products/tv/tv-developer-tools
  5. Make sure that your application works as expected
  6. When you are done, submit your application to the Opera TV Store submission portal
    https://publish.tvstore.opera.com/

Features available

The following table illustrates the features that are supported in each of the two device profiles you may choose to develop for at this time.

Note that this table reflects the set of features that are available in all devices. Some devices may support features that are marked as not being available. Applications may still use such features if they are available, but must not rely on them.

Feature

Pre 2017 devices

DCP 4.9 (2017 devices)

Screen resolution

1280x720

1920x1080 and

1280x720

HLS

Available on most devices

Available

MS Smooth Streaming

Available on most devices

Available

MS PlayReady

Available on most devices

Available

MPEG-DASH

Available on most devices

Available

MSE (Media Source Extension)

Not available

Available

Un-prefixed EME (Encrypted Media Extensions)

Not available

Available

WebInitiator

Available on some devices

Available

WebM with VP9

Not available

Available on many devices

Widevine

Not available

Available on many devices

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