Bigi
Smart TV, Smarter Experience: Building for Roku, Samsung, and LG.
Project
Web Platform
Technologies
Smart TV
Introduction
Smart TV App Development Across Roku, Samsung, and LG: A Multi-Platform Expertise
We were approached by our partner with request to develop app from scratch for TV's.
With extensive experience in multi-platform development, our team specializes in custom, scalable solutions that enhance user experiences across varied smart TV ecosystems.
Discovery phase
Laying the Groundwork for Smart TV App Success
10 Interviews
18 Hypotheses
3 Target audiences
40 Hours spent
During our research, we surveyed a diverse group and found that a striking of respondents experienced significant issues and frustrations with traditional TV remotes.
We identified the most effective ways to make premium content easy to find, browse, and enjoy across different TV platforms.
We validated which Smart TV platforms unlock the largest audience reach, guiding rollout priorities.
We defined simple, remote-friendly navigation paths that reduce friction and improve satisfaction.
Discovery phase
Platform-Specific Research
Understanding differences across Roku, Samsung, and LG allowed the client to choose the best path to market expansion and user growth. This clarity helped them prioritize platforms with the strongest audience reach, ensuring faster adoption and higher return on investment.
Web OS (LG)
7.8%
Tizen OS (Samsung)
12.8%
Roku TV OS (Roku)
7.4%
VIDAA OS (Hisense) 6,4%
Fire TV OS (Amazon) 6,4%
Android TV (Google) 5,9%
SmartCast (Vizio) 5,8%
Titan OS (Philips) 4,9%
Apple tvOS (Apple) 2,7%
TiVo OS 2,3%
Platform 1
Roku Overview
US based
Roku holds one of the largest market shares in the U.S. Smart TV and streaming device market, often outpacing Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV. It is especially strong among cord-cutters, with a high share of ad-supported streaming (AVOD) consumption. Many TV manufacturers in the U.S. ship Roku OS as the default system, giving apps instant access to millions of households without additional hardware. This dominance makes Roku an essential entry point for content providers targeting the U.S. audience.
Integration with Roku's proprietary ad platform for targeted advertising
Roku operates OneView, its proprietary ad platform that unifies TV streaming, mobile, and web advertising. OneView leverages Roku's first-party data from millions of U.S. households, allowing advertisers to target campaigns with high precision.
Support for deep linking to enhance user engagement
On Roku, deep linking isn't just a technical requirement, it's a growth lever. By enabling the app to appear directly in Roku's universal search results, the client's content surfaced alongside competitors on one of the most widely used U.S. platforms. This increased discoverability drives organic traffic, reduces friction for users, and ultimately translates into higher engagement and subscription conversion.
BrightScript - Dedicated development with Roku's native framework ensured smooth delivery and faster time to market.
Owning the Player, Owning the Experience
Instead of relying on Roku's default video component, we built a custom player in BrightScript and SceneGraph to handle advanced playback scenarios. This gave us more control over DRM, adaptive streaming (HLS/DASH), and analytics hooks. One of the toughest challenges was optimizing performance across different Roku device generations, so we added a lightweight abstraction layer to keep playback stable without duplicating code.
Platform 2
Samsung TV
Global Reach
Samsung is the global leader in Smart TV sales, and its Tizen OS runs on tens of millions of TVs worldwide. For streaming providers, it's a key entry point to international markets beyond the U.S.
Samsung Ads & Monetization
Samsung Ads is more than an ad network — it's a data-driven ecosystem powered by insights from one of the world's largest Smart TV audiences. For the client, this unlocked monetization beyond standard pre-rolls, with smarter targeting and stronger fill rates in premium categories.
Approval Process
Samsung's review process for Tizen apps is among the strictest in the Smart TV ecosystem. Beyond functionality and UX, reviewers test memory usage, responsiveness, error handling, and compliance with Samsung's navigation guidelines. For premium video apps, additional checks cover DRM, closed captions, and parental controls — all of which our app successfully implemented and passed.
Tizen SDK - Native app development that ensured global reach and smooth performance across Samsung TVs.
Voice Integration with Bixby
To support Samsung's Bixby assistant, we exposed our content catalog through structured metadata (titles, genres, episode IDs) and implemented deep linking so Bixby could resolve voice intents directly into playback. Testing required validating not just voice triggers like "Play [Show] on [App]", but also edge cases where Bixby falls back to generic search.
Maintaining performance on a wide range of hardware specifications.
Samsung's Smart TV lineup includes millions of devices worldwide, with big differences in processing power and memory. We optimized the app so it delivers a consistent experience across both older and newer models, ensuring no segment of the audience is left behind. This approach gave the client wider reach, stronger engagement, and reduced risk of churn caused by poor performance on legacy devices.
Platform 3
LG TV Overview
Monetization Options
LG provides an advertising platform (LG Ads Solutions) that integrates directly with webOS, enabling developers to embed targeted ad inventory. Technically, integration meant handling LG's ad SDK and ensuring ad playback worked seamlessly with our custom player, including pre-roll, mid-roll, and companion banners. A key challenge was balancing ad loading times with performance requirements, since certification penalizes slow startup or stuttering playback.
Platform Reach
LG's webOS powers millions of Smart TVs globally, with especially strong presence in Europe and Latin America. For streaming providers, it's a gateway to international audiences beyond Roku's U.S.-centric market.
LG WebOS SDK - Handling strict memory limits, legacy JS engines, and limited debugging required custom pipelines for stable app delivery.
App approval process can be lengthy due to LG's stringent quality checks.
What LG Checks
LG's certification goes beyond functional testing. Apps are evaluated for startup time, memory usage, remote navigation consistency, and graceful error handling.
Specifics for Video Apps
For video apps, playback stability under different network conditions is essential, along with DRM and subtitle validation.
The Challenge
QA teams run tests on multiple TV generations, including legacy models with slower hardware, which often expose edge cases missed in local testing.
Our Preparation
To ensure compliance before submission, we built automated crash logging, ran stress tests for long playback sessions, and simulated poor network conditions.
Error handling
Startup time check
Final approval
App submission
Stress tests
Memory usage validation
Platform 4
KALTURA
Kaltura is a leading video platform that provides the infrastructure for hosting, managing, and delivering video.
Monetization Support
Through Kaltura's integrations, we enabled ad insertion and subscription logic, making it easier to combine AVOD and SVOD strategies across platforms.
Scalability Across Platforms
Using Kaltura as a unified backend allowed the client to maintain one content pipeline while deploying consistent video experiences across Roku, Samsung, and LG apps.
Kaltura is a leading video platform that provides the infrastructure for hosting, managing, and delivering video at scale.
Video Input
Upload or stream video content.
Hosting/Encoding/Delivery
Kaltura manages the technical infrastructure.
Smart TV App
Seamless playback for viewers.
Project Conclusion
Key Takeaways and Future Outlook
In summary, a user-centered approach combined with effective communication, Agile development, and strategic use of focus groups enabled us to create a streamlined and intuitive fitness solution. By integrating third-party platforms like Apple Health and Google Fit, we enhanced the user experience, while iterative design and regular feedback ensured the product met both user needs and business goals efficiently.
New Revenue Streams
Integration with proprietary ad platforms (Roku OneView, Samsung Ads, LG Ads) unlocked AVOD monetization, driving 8% uplift in ad revenue alongside subscriptions.
User-Centered Design is Critical
We had several iterations with the design where we tried different approaches - the simplest design won. Who would want to use a solution similar to a Saas system while training at home.
Agile Development Processes Help Manage Complexity
Certification isn't just a checkbox at the end, it sets the standard for how Smart TV apps must perform across platforms. By embedding certification criteria directly into our Agile sprints, we treated compliance as part of development rather than a final hurdle. This approach helped us catch issues early, shorten approval cycles, and deliver a higher-quality product on time.
Expanded Market Reach
Launched on Roku, Samsung, and LG, giving the client access to tens of millions of Smart TV households globally.
From strategy to launch, we know how to scale video experiences.
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