TV App Engine launches at IP&TV World Forum

TV App Agency is using the IP&TV World Forum to launch the TV App Engine, which is designed to speed up the app creation process by creating a platform where developers can create a single version of an app and have it promulgated across different platforms. The engine allows developers to create TV apps for many different TV platforms from a single source of code. It is offered as a cloud-based software as a service application.

Bruno Pereira, director and co-founder of the TV App Agency, said that the goal was to stimulate app development for connected TVs by creating an environment similar to the one that had boosted app development in the mobile world. Pereira said that the connected TV world was “a lot more segmented than the mobile world” and that this had to change in order for the market to expand.

According to Pereira, the  engine provides savings of 75-80% of the development cost of apps. It currently supports versioning for the Samsung, LG, Opera, Google TV, Philips and Sharp connected platforms. Support for Panasonic and Western Digital devices and Nintendo’s new platform is in the pipeline.

Pereira said that the platform is not template-based, meaning developers have greater flexibility about the range of possible apps they can produce. TV App Agency has developed interfaces for SmartClip and the Video Ad Serving Template specification for advertising, and payment gateway integration with Paypal and PayWizard for pay services. “The most customers we get the more technologies we can build into the platform,” he said.

TV App Agency’s current customers include Absolute Radio, estate agency RightMove, National Rail Enquiries, Food Network, Shralp and the NHS in the UK and RTVE and La Liga in Spain.

One key benefit of using the TV App Engine is that it provides detailed usage analytics, said Pereira. “One thing is there is not enough user-specific data in the market,” he said.