Firefox OS/Stingray

The Project

• The Stingray project is an initiative to enable Firefox OS platform to run on larger screen TV

Key Mozilla Team Members

• Product Marketing: Jane Hsu
• PM: Joe Cheng
• UX: Mike Tsai
• Engineering: Keven Kuo
• Gecko
  • Marco Chen
  • Shian-Yow Wu
  • Gene Lian
  • Shih-Chiang Chien
  • Gina Yeh
  • Shelly Lin
  • Solomon Chiu
• Gaia
  • Evelyn Hung
  • John Hu
  • Rex Lee
  • Gary Chen
  • Luke Chang
  • Tzu-lin Huang
  • Sherman Chen

Ongoing work

• Scope is still being determined and there is a master meta bug created
• bug 980768 [Stingray] TV support
• TV Components Overview

Gaia

System Architecture

• 2-layered widget support - bug 983001
  • IAC protocol - bug 983002
  • Widget iframe management by system app - bug 983003
  • Custom homescreen app with widget enabled - bug 983004
  • Sample widgets - bug 983006
  • Blocking all inputs to widgets - bug 983007
  • A prototype of 2-layered widget can be found at https://github.com/luke-chang/gaia/tree/TV_arch1

• Hybrid Widget Approach (more: https://wiki.mozilla.org/FirefoxOS/Stingray/Hybrid_Widget_Approach)
  • meta bug - bug 1002336
  • Homescreen Base - bug 1002344
    • template - bug 1002377 landed to master by Luke Chang
    • utilities - an algorithm to know nearest element from each direction - bug 1002350
    • utilities - selection border - bug 1006378 landed to master by John Hu
    • applications - bug 1002355 landed to master by Luke Chang
    • app list - <strike<bug 1002358 landed to master by Luke Chang
  • Widget Editor - bug 1002337
    • layout editor - bug 1002339 landed to master by John Hu
    • widget editor - bug 1002341 landed to master by John Hu
    • persistence module - bug 1002343 landed to master by John Hu
  • Widget Manager - bug 1002345 landed to master by Rex Lee
  • Enable widget support on homescreen - bug 1009444 landed to master by John Hu
  • Sample Widgets - bug 1002348

Applications

• DLNA support - bug 984108
  • Components Diagram
  • SSDP advertising Service - bug 751172
• Http Live Streaming
  • m3u8 parser
  • media player with using Media Source Extensions API

Others

• Build system supports multiple devices - bug 979784 landed to master by Gary Chen
  • Step 1. Add 'GAIA_DEVICE_TYPE' flag in gaia build system.
  • Step 2. New apps.list structure for multiple-devices.
  • Step 3. Overwrite common-setting.json from build/GAIA_DEVICE_TYPE/settings.js
  • Step 4. Remove distribution_tablet folder from gaia code base. bug 996461
    • Step a. Let homescreen APP's build system support 'GAIA_DEVICE_TYPE' flag.
    • Step b. Let wallpaper APP's build system support 'GAIA_DEVICE_TYPE' flag.

Web API

• TV Manager Web API - bug 998872
  • It is on going to polish a first version then open to public space. ex: Bugzilla and dev-webapi@lists.mozilla.org.
• Input Ports Web API - bug ?
  • The purpose is to let web app show media stream and detect plug-in status from HDMI/AV cable.
  • It is on going to discuss for leveraging getUserMedia series Web API.
• HTMLMediaElement.audio/videoTracks Web API - bug 744896
• MediaStream
  • Implement Track related methods and events in MediaStream.webidl - bug 985265
  • Create a new type of MediaStreamTrack for text and metadata - bug 987501
• Expose a client UDP datagram socket API to web application - bug 745283
• Ethernet Manager Web API - bug 969268

Gecko

Media

• DOM Level
  • Support HTMLMediaElement.audioTracks and videoTracks - bug 744896
    • Probably won't implement the audio mixing and video selecting in our decoding pipeline.
    • How to map AudioStreamTrack to AudioTrack? (Video as well)
      • Proposal 1: Change the spec of MediaStreamTrack
      • https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!topic/mozilla.dev.media/FOOHGdwD16Y
      • Proposal 2: Implement the mapping internally

• • Implement Track related methods and events in MediaStream.webidl - bug 985265
    • Not necessary for this TV project, but would benefit the user experience of using front/end camera with getUserMedia a lot.

• Internal Only
  • Add a new kind of MediaStream to by pass our media pipeline - bug 987498
    • aka. HWOverlayMediaStream.
    • Construct a new kind of MediaStream, this would be an abstract layer, indicating its media resource is fetched from a particular hardware driver.
    • By pass our MediaStreamGraph pipeline, and hook up its listeners with HAL interface specific to the platform.

• • Create a new type of MediaStreamTrack for text and metadata - bug 987501
    • In order to let MediaStream handle tracks such as subtitles, captions, metadata.

• HW Key Management - bug 989198
  • Capturing & bubbling phase between system app & it's nested iframe. Wiki
  • Work with Keyboard app.
  • How to detect which keys are supported by platform?

• Allow nested oop <iframe mozbrowser> without nested content processes - bug 879475
  • Just be transferred to stream 3.

• To enable NPAPI

Presentations

• Layers Architecture of System/HomeScreen embedded Apps
• OIPF Functional Architecture
• OITF Terminal Functionality
• Apps Runtime for Broadcasting Services
• TV Tuner Control API - Study
• Introduction of TV IG
• Media Efforts for TV
• Introduction of Http Live Streaming.

Backlog

• Introduce a new layer type to represent HW overlay frame.
• Introduce a new interface for compositor to pass position info into outside of Gecko.
• Introduce a new interface for decoding image through HW component.
• Introduce a fake tuner driver/HAL for B2G emulator.
• Feature detection for TV category. ex: 4 color keys / no touch.