Your Guide to Samsung TV SDK: Developing a TV App for Samsung

Since 2005, Samsung and its popular Tizen TV OS have been the world’s largest television streaming app development platform. As part of the Samsung TV SDK, Tizen Studio makes it possible for developers to create apps for this massive audience of Samsung TV users around the world. 

And that’s a good thing! In our article on how to make a smart TV app, we revealed that Samsung TV is the second-largest player in the United States behind Roku, and the undisputed global champion. So, if you want to take full advantage of over-the-top (OTT) streaming as a distribution channel for your video content, you can’t afford to skip Samsung TV. 

In this guide to Samsung TV SDK, we’ll explore how to develop a successful branded OTT app for Samsung TV and the Tizen operating system.

Table of Contents

• What is the Samsung TV SDK?
  • The Benefits of a Samsung TV App
• How to Create a Samsung TV App
  • Set Up the Development Environment
  • Create a Basic TV App Project
  • Integrate Video Content
  • Test App Within Emulator
  • Debug and Optimize
• Submitting Your App to Samsung App Store
• Official SDK vs Platform SDK
• Work with Maestro

What is the Samsung TV SDK?

The Samsung TV SDK, or software developers kit, is a set of tools and resources for developing applications for Samsung TV and the Tizen OS. In order to work with the Samsung TV SDK, you’ll need to install three components:

• Tizen Studio IDE
• Samsung TV Extensions
• Samsung Certificate Extension

Most of your time will be spent in the Tizen Studio, which is the integrated development environment (IDE) included with the Samsung TV SDK. The whole point of this resource is to improve development quality and speed up development time.

Within Tizen Studio, you’ll find code editing features and debugging features, including the TV simulator and emulator that mimic the runtime environment of actual Samsung TV applications. 

The Benefits of a Samsung TV App

Now, before we dive too much farther into the details of the Samsung TV SDK, let’s talk about why it’s worth your development resources to create an app for Samsung TVs in the first place.

Well, here are a few of the biggest reasons to develop for Samsung TV:

• Largest global market share. According to Statista, Samsung Electronics held a 30.1% market share of televisions sold in the global market, and the TV maker itself has identified a greater-than-60% market share in premium TVs. If your enterprise wants to reach an international audience, getting your app on Samsung TVs is a must-have.
• Direct Distribution. Whether your business is primarily B2C or B2B, a Samsung TV app gives you direct control over your content distribution. You’ll have a wealth of data at your fingertips about viewer preferences, engagement, and monetization strategies – plus, simply being listed in the Samsung App Store will give your brand visibility and credibility.
• Custom Branding and Marketing. With a Samsung TV app, you get access to a powerful branding tool. Every user will be exposed to your app’s custom UI and branded content, allowing you to set your brand apart from others. 

In addition to these important benefits, simply having a smart TV app on any platform can open up key revenue streams, such as subscriptions, advertising, and in-app purchases. 

How to Create a Samsung TV App

To get started developing a Samsung TV app for your business, you’ll need the right development environment. Here are a few steps to follow to turn your app idea into reality.

1) Set Up the Development Environment

The official integrated development environment (IDE) for Samsung is Tizen Studio. It comes with all of the different components you’ll need to build your Samsung TV app, including a virtual Samsung TV emulator, toolchain, sample code and documentation.

The suite of tools will work on Windows, Ubuntu, and macOS. You can find Tizen Studio on the Tizen Developer website. You’ll also want to register with the Samsung Developer Program to get access to additional resources and the Samsung App Store, which you’ll need later on for app signing and publishing certificates.  

2) Create a Basic TV App Project

Once you’ve installed and configured your Tizen Studio environment and created a Samsung Developer account, you can create a basic project for your TV app through the Tizen TV template. Enter your chosen name, location, and target platform.

The project directory for a TV app should be familiar to any experienced developer, as it relies on HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. The CSS you write will style your UI elements – but as you work on building our your TV app, make sure your navigation controls are designed for TV remotes at roughly ten feet away.

3) Integrate Video Content

Integrating video content into your Samsung TV app will require some kind content provider like an online video platform, or OVP. 

You can use a <video> HTML tag to embed video content within your app and enhance the UI with additional JavaScript custom video controls. You’ll deliver quality video content that you’re hosting elsewhere through a streaming protocol like HLS or DASH.

4) Test App Within Emulator

If you want your app ready for general availability on Samsung TVs, then you’ll need to test it. There are many different Samsung TV models across approximately 20 years, so you’ll want to test the functionality of your app’s navigation, video playback, and user experience on a variety of different Samsung TVs.

Of course, the ideal step for testing is to run your app on physical Samsung TV models. This will give you the best sense of both performance and user experience for your app in the real world. Fortunately, if you get an account with the Samsung Developer Program, you should be able to access testing devices for this important step.

5) Debug and Optimize

Your app will likely go through iteration and rounds of improvements. As you test your app in the emulator and on real Samsung TV devices, you’ll find issues to debug and optimize. 

This stage gives you an opportunity to polish the app and make sure app development is complete before you move on to requesting publication with Samsung.

Submitting Your App to Samsung App Store

In your app development cycle, you’ll need to move through all five steps, sometimes on an iterative basis. But before you can officially get your Samsung smart TV app onto the platform, you’ll need to make sure it qualifies for the Samsung App Store. 

As mentioned earlier, after finishing application development, you’ll need to publish your app with the Samsung Apps TV Seller Office and go through those steps before your application will be distributed on this platform.

After Samsung receives the application release request, it’ll review your application, conduct a verification test, and let you know the result. If it passes, the application service will start in the Smart TV model group in the service country.

If not, you may need to go through and resolve application defects that are preventing your TV app from being distributed on Samsung TVs.

Your app won’t be visible to users until it’s approved and published, so make sure you understand all of the requirements for your Samsung TV app.

Official SDK vs Platform SDK

In this article, we’ve touched on the official Samsung TV SDK, which is a set of tools and documentation that comes straight from Samsung and the Tizen TV OS. But if you can uncover a quality online video platform (OVP) like Maestro to partner with, you’ll also find a way to host and manage all of your VOD and live streaming content in a single place. 

With an OVP, you’ll gain access to detailed analytics, interactive options, monetization, and a whole lot more. Most importantly, you can work directly with your OVP’s team and utilize their platform-specific TV SDK to develop your own branded OTT app across Samsung and other popular smart TV platforms. 

In the end, whether you’re looking to white-label a Samsung TV app or build your own from square one, finding an OVP with a Samsung TV SDK will help your business get its video content where it needs to go! 

Work With Maestro

Maestro is one of the most popular online video platforms for enterprises. Our video hosting suite includes advanced monetization options, in-depth analytics, robust security features, and interactive tools.

Now, we’re pleased to announce that we’ve opened up a whole new opportunity for reaching your customers through the use of OTT TV and smart TV apps. To help you take full advantage of OTT as a distribution channel, Maestro is releasing a new suite of TV SDKs, including Samsung TV and the Samsung TV OS platform.

Are you ready to reach your customers over OTT with Maestro? Give your video content a wider reach and a better viewer experience. Contact us now to find out more and get your content out there via OTT!

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