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I'm hoping someone could enlighten me on how a GoogleTV pairs with the native Youtube app. What I'm interested in is the "first screen" GoogleTV/SmartTV feature.

From what I know so far, "second screen" apps need to use the Anymote service (Anymote Protocol) which is working in conjunction with the Pairing Service (from Google TV Pairing Protocol) but it's not clear which protocol is used by the native Youtube app itself : DIAL or Google TV Pairing ?

In a nutshell, I would like to develop a first screen application (in JavaScript) that can be paired with the native youtube application (Android and iOS) like the GoogleTV Youtube app or any Youtube app from a store on a smartTV. But I can't find any related documentation for that side of development. In fact, there is a documentation available for developing a second screen app (on mobile devices) but not any for developing such a first screen app.

Thanks in advance for your help !

SkYlEsS
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1 Answers1

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I do believe that the GoogleTV/YouTube interaction was using DIAL, or at least an early version of it (it was sort of the trial run that led to the development of the Chromecast).

However, one of the main architectural features of the DIAL protocol (and similar protocols) is that the second screen apps are the ones doing the controlling; so while you could develop any 1st screen app you wanted (a Chromecast receiver app, a Smart TV app, a Roku channel, etc.), you couldn't pair with the native YouTube app on the phone because you don't control that source -- the 2nd screen app would initiate the launch with some sort of command or call specific to the 1st screen app it's designed for (for example, on the Chromecast it requests an app ID).

So in essence you'd have to A) intercept the call before it got to the actual app it was looking for, and B) trick it into thinking that your app was the one it was looking for. I don't think any current device or smart TV is open enough to allow you to write an app that can do that, and I don't know that YouTube would see much value in allowing their native apps to play through your 1st screen app instead of their own.

You can easily, however, develop custom apps on both sides that leverage YouTube content ... a mobile app that uses the API for discovery, etc., and then talks to your custom 1st screen app that also uses the player API for playback.

jlmcdonald
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