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Firefox OS for TV: UX Overview

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Firefox OS for TV: UX Overview

#31

Post by DanBC »

efdee wrote: post #23
DanBC wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Witha smart tv I have to fight that tech, and all the other tech, to get it to do the reasonably simple task of "display the image". Let me chose the smart box I want, and be the best dumb display for that box you can be, rather than giving me a bunch of poorly engineered over-expensive cruft that I neither want nor need.

Don't you just want to buy a monitor instead of a TV then?

Yes. Lots of people want a large very high quality but very simple monitor.

These don't seem to be available.

Re: Firefox OS for TV: UX Overview

#33

Post by jbk »

First, I fail to see the difference with the UX of the other smart TVs.

But mostly, as it is still Firefox OS, I don't see how people will be able to do cool multimedia applications, without access to native code and threads. Implementing DLNA, SMB, AFP shares, listening to network devices, hardware decoding, perfect audio/video synchronization requires threads and probably native code.

Limiting to HTML5 videos is going to be a very light. Or they will re-implement all the media center and multimedia code themselves, supporting all codecs and formats (and subtitles)?

I could somehow understand the limitation on the phone, but on a TV, multimedia playback is the massive use case.

Re: Firefox OS for TV: UX Overview

#34

Post by hansjorg »

martingordon wrote: post #2

I hope someone can save us from the "grid of icons" UI that pervades set-top boxes. The grid works fine for handheld/desktop applications where access is non-sequential, but when we're using just directional arrows, that's a lot of tedious button pressing. Traditional TV service has the advantage of shortcuts by way of being able to jump to a channel directly using the number pad, but the top set-top boxes don't have…

Samsung has solved this with their Smart Remote [1] which is a kind of hybrid between a normal remote and a mouse.

I've only tried it in passing, but it's definitely a big step up from the standard remote.

1: http://www.cnet.com/news/samsung-smart-remote-hands-on-with-...

Re: Firefox OS for TV: UX Overview

#35

Post by anonbanker »

justaman wrote: post #32

First person to use a Duck Hunt zapper to control the UI wins a cookie. Its an annoyance to repeatedly use arrow keys on remotes.

NES controller input has been part of the Linux kernel since at least 2000 (thanks to Vojtech Pavlik of SuSE), so most of the heavy lifting is already completed. Input was originally added (according to the mailing list) to support the NES Power Glove as a mouse input.

Re: Firefox OS for TV: UX Overview

#36

Post by soylentcola »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #25
efdee wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't you just want to buy a monitor instead of a TV then?

Yes, exactly. But that's not the way the market works these days. I want a TV-quality display (which means large, but otherwise having lower specs than the monitor on my desk), with no tuner, no speakers, just a remote control receiver and a few HDMI ports. For some reason they keep adding stuff that I don't want to the device. And "smartness" is the worst of it. I plan to keep the display far longer than the Roku bo…

What usually ends up happening (at least since the last time I bought a TV) is that I can't find anything simpler for the same price since a big part of the (relatively) lower cost of modern high-def televisions comes from volume in manufacturing and sales. Since most come with some token "smart" capabilities, I end up buying something regardless of (or despite) the addons.

I just use a basic home-theater-in-a-box receiver for 5.1 sound and because it has a built-in Bluray player (which I have yet to use) and like 3 or 4 HDMI inputs. So I run the cable box into one input, Chromecast into another, game console or HTPC into another, etc. and then output video from that into the TV.

So in the end, I only use my TV as a display even though it has other features built in. Having all sources go into the receiver means I can just switch inputs and audio follows video. If I want to watch Youtube or Netflix or listen to streaming music or watch something on my NAS via Plex, I use the Chromecast. If want cable TV for some weird reason, I switch to the cable box, etc.

But yeah, a large format display should last me longer than the life cycle of the "smart" capabilities or streaming services. When I bought this TV, there were several streaming sites that didn't exist yet or I didn't use. I want to be able to add or remove hardware as I need it and I want to use services that are currently valuable to me (and not have to skim past all of the integrated ones I never use or don't exist anymore).

Right now the two options I see are to use a low-powered HTPC that is still more functional than anything in a smart TV and can be upgraded, or something small and cheap like a Chromecast or extender that lets me tap into sources on my network or on the WAN.

Re: Firefox OS for TV: UX Overview

#37

Post by digi_owl »

justaman wrote: post #32

First person to use a Duck Hunt zapper to control the UI wins a cookie. Its an annoyance to repeatedly use arrow keys on remotes.

Would be hard, as the old zapper was designed around how CRT was updated/refreshed. As such they basically don't work on a flat panel.

Re: Firefox OS for TV: UX Overview

#39

Post by mikeryan »

jbk wrote: post #33

First, I fail to see the difference with the UX of the other smart TVs. But mostly, as it is still Firefox OS, I don't see how people will be able to do cool multimedia applications, without access to native code and threads. Implementing DLNA, SMB, AFP shares, listening to network devices, hardware decoding, perfect audio/video synchronization requires threads and probably native code. Limiting to HTML5 videos is go…

Limiting to HTML5 videos is going to be a very light. Or they will re-implement all the media center and multimedia code themselves, supporting all codecs and formats (and subtitles)?

Generally on Smart TV's the video decoding isn't handled by the browser/render, instead handled by the underlying media player and hardware decoder. Pretty much all the TVs (Samsung, LG etc) use HTML5 video with much wider support for codecs then you see in browsers. HLS/H.264 is commonly supported.

Similarly they tend to use mechanisms such as custom plugins and JavaScript interfaces for DLNA/SMB etc. Not sure why you need threads in particular, there's already a lot of JavaScript mechanisms (events, async calls) to support these types of features.

Re: Firefox OS for TV: UX Overview

#40

Post by mikeryan »

martingordon wrote: post #2

I hope someone can save us from the "grid of icons" UI that pervades set-top boxes. The grid works fine for handheld/desktop applications where access is non-sequential, but when we're using just directional arrows, that's a lot of tedious button pressing. Traditional TV service has the advantage of shortcuts by way of being able to jump to a channel directly using the number pad, but the top set-top boxes don't have…

Its not the lack of number pads, its the lack of "numbers" for the content.
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