Second Screen usage stats

Samsung MultiScreen Technologies

• DIAL API
• NService
• MultiScreen API

Samsung MultiScreen Technologies

DIAL API

• Designed by Netflix
• Available on Samsung SmartTVs since 2013 (premium feature)
• Also available on other Smart TV brands
• Local area network device discovery (SSDP from UPnP stack)
• Mobile client can launch TV app using simple HTTP request
• Other actions: app status, installation (if not installed), termination

NService

• Samsung's own API
• Available on Samsung SmartTVs since 2012
• Enables communication between mobile device and Smart TV
• ReST based API (HTTP requests, connection kept alive via longpolling)
• Very robust, handles up to 90 req/s
• Up to 4 devices can be connected simultaneously

MultiScreen API

• Samsung's own API
• Available since 2014
• Features:
  • WebSocket connectivity
  • Cloud discovery mechanism
  • Simple and intuitive JavaScript API, based on node.js's EventEmitter interface
  • Native libraries for Android and iOS available
  • DIAL API calls available directly from MultiScreen API level

How MultiScreen works

A mobile application calls the Device API to find a Smart TV it can connect to.

Once a TV is discovered, user can launch the app in the TV directly from the mobile device.

Having the app running it the TV, mobile device tries to connect to a Channel opened by the TV application.

After successful connecting, devices can communicate using the Channel API.

MultiScreen overall architecture

Code sample: mobile

webapis.multiscreen.Device.search(function(devices) {
  devices.forEach(function(device){
    console.log(device);
    device.getApplication("myApp", function(app){
      if (app.lastKnownStatus === "running") {
        device.connectToChannel("myChannel",
                                {"name": "myClientName"},
                                function(channel){
                                  channel
                                    .on("message", channelOnMessage);
                                });
      }
    });
  });
});
                    

Code sample: TV

webapis.multiscreen.Device.getCurrent(function(device){
  device.openChannel("myChannel", {"name": "TVServer"}, function(channel) {
    channel
      .on("message", channelOnMessage)
      .on("clientConnect", registerClient)
      .on("clientDisconnect", deregisterClient);
  }
});
                    

Resources

• DIAL API: http://dial-multiscreen.org
• NService at Samsung Developers
• Convergence tutorials at SamsungDForum
• MultiScreen: http://multiscreen.samsung.com