[epaulson]

The article is about what UI toolkits are used to build content apps for TVs and TV devices like FireTV/Apple TV, but I wish for a world where using those apps weren't my only options.

It'd be nice if TVs and streaming service apps were better participants in the open-protocol smart home. I'd like it to be possible to call an API on my TV from say Home Assistant to tell my TV to turn on, switch to Netflix, and play the next episode of a show - though honestly I'd settle for just control over linear TV channels and to be able to say 'switch to channel 55' at an API level and have it work cross-vendor without having to use their native app. Maybe you can do this with CEC and stick a little raspberry PI and stick it into the TV with HDMI, but the CEC content controls seem very limited.

Apple's got some kind of a start for this since they've got a way to feed data into Siri and their internal guide, including telling the AppleTV device what's currently playing and what should be considered 'up next' but they're all private APIs, I think, and only work if the content providers sign deals with Apple directly.

Maybe a future version of the Matter standard will incorporate media playback, right now I think it's just changing volume and pausing whatever's playing on a speaker, and so a long way from being able to control what the actual content being played is.

[jwells89]

A standardized approach would also let you use the OS’ standard video player widget which is practically always and upgrade from whatever needlessly custom-rolled players streaming apps tend to use. In fact the entire reason I subscribe to some services via Apple TV channels rather than directly is so I can watch their content on the standard tvOS player and skip the official apps.

[BlueTemplar]

I would guess that you can do a LOT with VLC and a little bit of scripting ?